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American Morning

Musical Group Brings Palestinians and Israelis Together

Aired December 25, 2001 - 09:10   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: For the violence that's taking place in the Middle East, there are people who are trying to change things. Our Jeff Flock reports one group is using music to show the possibilities that peace can bring.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEFF FLOCK, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): They are in perfect sync. This former Israelis soldier, Shai Wosner, and his Palestinian friend, Saleem Abboud Ashkar.

SHAI WOSNER, ISRAELI PIANIST: When you are born to a situation of war, it's very easy to forget the alternative and forget what was there before it and what could there be - could be after it.

SALEEM ABBOUD ASHKAR, PALESTINIAN PIANIST: It's a kind of preview, if you want, into the future of how could it be if we had peace. It's kind of saying, look what beautiful things we could do together.

FLOCK: What beautiful music made by them and these.

(MUSIC)

FLOCK: He is from Lebanon; she was once in the Israeli Army. Egyptian violinist, Israeli cellist. Muslim, Jew. An entire orchestra; people the world sees as enemies literally playing from the same page.

DANIEL BARENBOIM, CHICAGO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA: Trying to play the same note. Trying to play the same note at the same time, with the same loudness, with the same color, with the same amount of bull (ph). Everything the same.

FLOCK: It is the vision of Maestro Daniel Barenboim.

BARENBOIM: And to do that about something that they are both passionate about. I mean, you know, this is (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

FLOCK: It is the Chicago Symphony Orchestra musical director's passion. Himself, an Argentinean-born Jew, Barenboim has for the past three years brought together Arab and Israeli musicians.

BARENBOIM: My point of view is very simple. I think war is no option.

FLOCK: The only injuries here come from playing too hard.

MINA ZIKIRA, EGYPTIAN VIOLINIST: Yesterday, by the end of the second rehearsal, I was trying to put my hand down, that's what I did.

FLOCK: Mina Zikira is 23 and from Cairo.

ZIKIRA: When you work with a person like Maestro Barenboim, he makes you work hard. It takes all your energy and you have to focus on your work. Spend all your energy; anything will follow after this.

FLOCK: What followed this gathering was more violence in Shai Wosner and Saleem Ashkar's respective homelands. The Palestinian attack, Israeli retaliation. And a few weeks later, an act of terror that brought new focus on the pursuit of peace there.

ASHKAR: We cannot wait for the peace treaties on paper to happen, to occur, for us to start to build the real peace, the real communication between people.

FLOCK: One grew up in Tel Aviv, the other 20 miles away in Nazareth. And what their cultures have kept apart, their music has brought together at least for a moment. I'm Jeff Flock, CNN, in Chicago.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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