ARTS & INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS
Among these are two premiere national orchestras the Ma ‘ had has founded , both of which focus on Western classical symphonic or chamber repertoire that also incorporates works by Palestinian and Arab composers . The Palestine Youth Orchestra ( PYO ), formed in 2004 , brings together young players from the Palestinian diaspora , the occupied Palestinian territories ( oPt ) and Israel , to create a “ national youth orchestra on par with similar groups worldwide ” ( ESNCM , 2011 ). Due to difficulties in securing passage to Palestine for participants , the orchestra usually conducts its rehearsal camps and tours abroad ; 2011 was the first year the PYO was able to tour Palestine . The Palestine National Orchestra ( PNO ) consists of professional musicians of Palestinian origin , also hailing from the entire diaspora . The PNO made its debut performance in Ramallah in 2010 ; for some of the musicians based in Syria , Egypt , and Jordan , it was the first time they were able to visit Palestine .
The symbolic cache of the national orchestras is amplified by their reach beyond conditions of geographic dispersion and social fragmentation , serving as embodied representations of Palestinian unity for audiences . During the PYO ’ s 2011 tour in Palestine , Suhail Khoury , the Ma ‘ had ’ s General Director , typically introduced the orchestra by asking the musicians to stand up in turn according to their country of origin — Lebanon , Syria , Argentina , etc .— a performative move that generated much applause and a palpable sense of excitement .
Competitions and annual festivals the Ma ‘ had founded also serve to re-territorialize geographic and social fragmentation into a continuous Palestinian cultural space . Among them is the biennial Palestine National Music Competition , established in 2006 , which is open to all Palestinian instrumentalists and ensembles specializing in Western or Arabic music from Palestine and from within the Green Line . Competitions take place in East Jerusalem , an administratively complicated location due to permits that need to be obtained for West Bank participants , but one that defiantly refocuses Jerusalem as Palestine ’ s national capital and cultural base . Competitors from the besieged Gaza , who cannot obtain travel permits , are video-conferenced in . Their slightly blurry on-screen images , and thin audio signal coming through as they play , profoundly accentuates the extreme isolation of Gaza ’ s Palestinians , for the audience in Jerusalem . Under such conditions , a moving performance often generates heightened emotionality and a sense of solidarity among the competition judges , teachers , participants , and administrators in attendance . 9 Through this technological collapsing of spatio-political barriers , Palestinian unity is virtually reaffirmed , by a visual and sonic image that is sensorially flimsy , but affectively doubly potent .
This process of Palestinian place-making diffuses internal distinctions between oPtbased Palestinians and Palestinians of ’ 48 and between the local ( s ) and the diasporic , combining a “ geography of resistance ” ( Feld & Basso , 1996 ) with nation-building and redefining the “ self ” attached to Oslo ’ s frameworks of “ self-determination .” It is a project of self-nationalization in which building cultural infrastructure is geared as much to-
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