Palestinian Conductor Will Make History With Galilee Symphony

By Pat McDonnell Twair

Chances are, there are a couple of thousand symphony orchestra conductors in the world. We'll wager, however, there is only one Palestinian conductor of a symphony orchestra chiefly made up of Russian Jews. He is Dr. Nabil Azzam, founder and conductor of the Galilee Symphony Orchestra.

His duties begin this month, and the Nazarene with a Ph.D. in music from UCLA couldn't be more enthusiastic if he'd been named conductor of the New York Philharmonic.

But then, Azzam is passionate about anything he approaches in life—be it parenthood, composing music, upholding his Palestinian legacy or simply playing the violin.

Most scholars, artists or political activists have a single-minded goal to promote the ambition that drives them toward fame. Azzam is different. One visit to his modest Culver City home and it is apparent his wife and three children come before the all-too-frequent obsession with professional immortality.

Shortly before departing for Israel to begin his ground-breaking work on founding the Galilee's first symphony orchestra, Azzam answered a few questions on what lies before him.

"There's no time to waste, it will take 10 years to establish myself—and I would prefer to be building an orchestra in the Galilee rather than teaching American kids how to play the oud at a U.S. university," he confessed.

Born in Nazareth in 1950 to a photographer father and a cellist mother, Azzam played the violin in the family ensemble that performed throughout the Galilee. Bringing forth a photo of a youngster staring across the hills of Jerusalem, he commented: "That was me, in 1964, looking toward Jordan and thinking—'over there, it's Arab land where the people speak Arabic and read books in Arabic.'"

Unable to read Arabic history or texts in Arabic in Israel-Galilee, Azzam said he yearned for the culture he was separated from. "We nurtured our souls with radio broadcasts from Egypt, Syria and Jordan," he recalled. "I wanted to speak Arabic to a real Arab. You cannot imagine our isolation—or the emotions in my heart in June 1967 when I saw an Iraqi jet fly over Nazareth."

Azzam grew up in the Israeli system—and excelled in it. He earned two bachelor's degrees (in music and musicology) from Tel Aviv University and a master's degree from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. "It was my daily mission to argue," he recalled, and argue politics he did, in Hebrew with Jewish students. "I was the only non-Jew at the Academy of Music in Tel Aviv. I was an anomaly, but I got along with most people." He still does. Azzam is the ideal example of how Palestinians and Israelis can coexist—albeit with different perspectives—as we witnessed when a congenial Jewish neighbor came to pick up her children who were playing with his young daughter.

In 1981, he won over 23 applicants for the national scholarship at Hebrew University.

"I was astonished. I'd applied two weeks after the deadline," he admitted. He rated academically over students in all fields and stipulated he wanted to utilize the full scholarship to study under Professor Jihad Racy at UCLA.

The works of Egyptian master composer Mohammed Abdul Wahhab were the topic of Azzam's master's thesis and doctoral dissertation. Along the way, he became the protégé of Abdul Wahhab and throughout his postgraduate studies visited him in Egypt and France and often consulted with him by phone.

"He was my second father," Azzam states, noting one of his prized possessions is a composition Abdul Wahhab dedicated to him in 1988 when the Egyptian composer visited Los Angeles. "It's yet to be recorded," he said with a gleam in his liquid brown eyes.

Azzam says that only after he came to Los Angeles, did he discover himself and his wife—"and she discovered me"—his children, his people and his music.

"When I arrived in Los Angeles to study under Jihad Racy, I was a student living on a scholarship with a wife and two babies. I wasn't in a protected ivory tower, I mixed with the people and started to play the violin at weddings. Let's face it, Los Angeles Arabs are musically sophisticated—I had to perform music that made the people happy. I began to appreciate the dabke or any music that makes the people move to the rhythm and beat.

"All of a sudden, I realized, if you don't whistle the tune, it isn't universal. The works of Alban Berg or Anton Webern don't appeal to the people. Classical music was created in Europe at a certain time for a certain class. Who is to say that Western music is superior, more advanced or progressive than Eastern music? Who is to say the piano is superior to the oud?

"I am of the opinion Umm Kulthum is a better singer than any diva of the opera. The test of any musician is their ability to move the listener."

What does Azzam intend to do with his Galilee orchestra?

"I want to create a new genre: Arabic music performed by a symphony orchestra. I want to compose new music, not just write imitations of Western classical music."

Azzam will be conducting in the 400-seat Frank Sinatra House, a concert hall he inaugurated Aug. 7 with a performance of Bizet, Beethoven, Mozart, Farid Atrash and two of his own compositions. Forty of the 45 musicians are Russian emigrés who teach music throughout the Galilee. Orchestra members will be paid per rehearsal and performance. He hopes to take the orchestra throughout Israel, especially to the barrios of Yemenis and Moroccans in Tel Aviv and, more importantly, to cross the border into Gaza, Jordan and the entire Middle East.

"I also want to conduct Jewish music my way. As for Sephardic music—which is very unpleasant to my ears—I want to contribute to it by working with Sephardic musicians. I don't want to please the intelligentsia, I want to please the people. Above all, I don't want to offer Schubert or Tchaikovsky—I want to perform our music."

Does it sound ambitious? Just wait until Israelis hear Azzam's operetta, "Sahib al- Deek" (the Man and the Rooster), written with Palestinian poet Saoud al-Assadi. About all we can tell you about this tongue-in-cheek musical is that the finale offers a new dance, the dora, a combination of the Palestinian dabke and Israeli hora.

Azzam is leaving his family behind in Los Angeles while he launches the symphony orchestra. It might not be a sacrifice to some, but in his own words, "I don't have three kids, I have three angels." He could be right. In a megalopolis plagued by drugs and violence, his youngsters, Fifi, 17, Andre, 15, and Noura, 10, have excelled beyond all expectations. Fifi holds a 4.0 grade-point average and is a member of the national gymnastics team; scholarships are coming in from top U.S. universities. Andre is a grade-A student and soccer player, and Noura already is making a name for herself in gymnastics.

Nabil and wife, Suheir, don't attribute their success to any secret formula, but agree they've let their children know life with a father who is a graduate student and musician doesn't always put food on the table or meet rent deadlines. The miraculous thing to Anglo-Americans is that the children have bonded with their parents over their struggles against adversities—maybe sharing problems is better than not letting children know the crises their parents are facing. Suheir learned English after the family came to UCLA in 1982 and is no sheltered Middle Eastern housewife. She works outside the home. Now, as Azzam prepares to make history at an historic moment in his native land, it is apparent that their sacrifices are beginning to pay off for this amazing and tightly knit Palestinian-Israeli family.

Pat McDonnell Twair is a free-lance writer based in Southern California.