Muti conducts Syrian musicians at a memorial concert amid the ruins
- Nine Syrian musicians in Europe perform at the 24th friendship concert led by Riccardo Muti
RAVENNA: Nine musicians from the Syrian diaspora in Europe will play Sunday at the 24th friendship concert led by Riccardo Muti, this year at the Paestum archaeological site in southern Italy, but the coronavirus pandemic prevented others from coming directly from Syria.
The Sunday concert by the Luigi Cherubini Youth Orchestra founded by Muti, part of the Ravenna Festival summer series, is dedicated to Syrian archaeologist Khaled Al-Asaad and Kurdish-Syrian politician Hevreen Khalaf, who were killed during the civil war ongoing in Syria.
“These concerts give Ravenna the chance to be a leading ambassador of peace and brotherhood in Italy,” Muti told The Associated Press earlier this month in Ravenna. Khalaf was assassinated by Syrian fighters trained by Turkey 2019, and Al-Asaad was beheaded in 2015 by Daesh group fighters after he refused to help his destruction of the ancient Roman city in Palmyra, a UN world heritage site. .
Muti launched the Roads of Friendship concert series in 1997 in Sarajevo, shortly after the 1992-1995 Bosnian civil war ended, and has since traveled to war-torn cities, including Beirut, as well as ancient sites and to “re-establish ties” with places that have made history, including the ancient Roman amphitheater in the city of Bosra in southern Syria.
“We can build bridges between civilizations, between people, with music,” said Karoun Baghboudarian, a cellist who lives in the Netherlands who plays at the Sunday concert and who sang in the choir during the 2004 concert in Bosra, before Syria turned into war, a period in which she said the musicians’ lives flourished.
His brother, Missak Baghboudarian, conducts the Syrian National Symphony Orchestra and hoped to travel to Italy for a concert in Ravenna and to attend the Paestum concert of Symphony no. Beethoven’s 3, known as “Heroic”, but was unable to travel due to travel restrictions imposed by the coronavirus. Instead, the Syrian National Symphony Orchestra broadcast Beethoven’s “Heroic” from Damascus on July 2.
Karoun Baghboudarian said he hoped the concert would renew attention on the suffering of Syrians.
“We hope that Syria goes through war and all difficult situations as heroes, and that they can live normally,” he said by phone from Paestum.
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