Today, all 60 Tunisian musicians arrived at the hotel like the whirl of a thunderstorm and, thus, the fun has really just begun. As I passed by the beginning trickle of students in the hotel lobby, a smile ran on my face as their inquisitive looks reminded me of my past students at the Jerusalem Music Center’s Young Israel Philharmonic Orchestra’s summer festival. Maybe these young Tunisian musicians and my past young Israeli musicians won’t be so different after all.
The first activity of the day is trying to get everybody from students and music teachers to put on nametags. Easier said than done. The students arrived with attentive moms and dads, excited friends from previous years, and the new concept of putting the sticky nametag on one’s shirt!
From there, we went straight to Fiddle Class. As my friend and co-teacher Joel ran the Fiddle Class, consisting of 11 violinists, one cellist, and one violist, with quite ease, I oversaw the level of the students. Between the performance in Fiddle Class and then auditions later in the afternoon, we realized that three of the students actually played Arab violin. The big question then became: who can teach Arab violin? If anything, the Tunisian students should be teaching us Arab violin!
When presented the challenge of taking on the three Arab violin students, I realized that I possibly had a few more tricks up my sleeve than originally imagined. There was a time in my life when I played niguns, terkishers, and Rumanian dances. In fact, I played in a klezmer band in middle school. With a soulful mix of Western and Eastern influences, nothing could be of a better teaching choice.
As the day continued, I slowly began to feel a connection with the Tunisian students. During Improvisation Class where the kids learned how to create a thunderstorm with nearly their voices and bodies (hence the title of this post), I enjoyed recording the experience on iMovie and taking pictures on Photobooth with a few of the young pianists. My closest interaction was with a violinist who also plays the piano. We will call him Saheb, which means friend in Tunisian Arabic. After class was over and most cleared out of the room, Saheb remained jamming at the piano. A desire to join him took me over to my instrument, and without any question in his voice, we began to make music. In my opinion, this boy is quite a “pro” compared to my early adventures in improvisation, but we still made a pretty good team.
Later in the evening while practicing my viola, I was approached by Saheb, who was curious for more instruction. I decided that J.S. Bach’s Unaccompanied Solo Violin Partita #3- Preludio would be a great, enjoyable challenge for him. He decided that an Arabic song based off of Frère Jacques would be a great, enjoyable challenge for me. The lesson turned out to be excellent for the both of us as we taught each other our craft. All I know is that I better practice before my next lesson!
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