Waldbühnenkonzert celebrates 15 years of West-Eastern Divan

The West-Eastern Divan Orchestra will return to Berlin on August 24, 2014 for their annual Waldbühnenkonzert, a magnificent open-air performance that marks the orchestra’s 15th anniversary. This year’s forest stage concert opens with Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 27, KV 595, featuring Divan co-founder Daniel Barenboim as conductor and soloist. Ravel’s Rhapsodie espagnole, Alborada del gracioso, Pavane pour une infante défunte, and Boléro close out the performance. Purchase tickets to the performance. In 1999, Daniel Barenboim and Edward Said founded the West-Eastern Divan as a workshop for Israeli, Palestinian and other Arab musicians. Meeting in Weimar, Germany – a place where the humanistic ideals of the Enlightenment are overshadowed by the Holocaust – they materialized a hope to replace ignorance with education, knowledge and understanding; to humanize the other; to imagine a better future. Within the workshop, individuals who had only interacted with each other through the prism of war found themselves living and working together as equals. As they listened to each other during rehearsals and discussions, they traversed deep political and ideological divides. Though this experiment in coexistence was intended as a one-time event, it quickly evolved into a legendary orchestra. Explore more of the West-Eastern Divan’s story. Support the West-Eastern Divan.

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