When we're not playing together in A Far Cry, the members are doing a lot of different things around the world. Especially right now during the holidays, we're mostly in different states spending time with family. Sharon is at home in Israel, and if you've been watching the news, you know some of the crazy things that are happening there right now. Sharon just sent an e-mail to let us know what's going on, and while it feels dangerous, she's glad she can be with her family. Pretty soon she'll be starting to rehearse for a winter tour with Barenboim's West-Eastern Divan Orchestra. This is a group (the "other" orchestra in her life she tells us) of young Arab and Israeli musicians who have formed a really strong bond playing and living together. Barenboim says about it, "The Divan is not a love story, and it is not a peace story. It has very flatteringly been described as a project for peace. It isn't. It's not going to bring peace, whether you play well or not so well. The Divan was conceived as a project against ignorance. A project against the fact that it is absolutely essential for people to get to know the other, to understand what the other thinks and feels, without necessarily agreeing with it. I'm not trying to convert the Arab members of the Divan to the Israeli point of view, and [I'm] not trying to convince the Israelis to the Arab point of view. But I want to - and unfortunately I am alone in this now that Edward died a few years ago - and...I'm trying to create a platform where the two sides can disagree and not resort to knives."
So pretty soon Sharon will be off to join her colleagues in this group, and it's uncertain what the climate will be like there with the threat of danger so close and real right now to all the musicians in the orchestra. Please keep her in your thoughts!
