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• Simon Hewitt Jones, Violinist

  English concert violinist. Asking essential questions about what's happening to music and the arts, and the role of the violin in contemporary world culture.

• Contact Me: T: +44 (0) 20 7060 0607 E: shj [at] courtlanemusic [dot] com W: www.courtlanemusic.com Instant: Message My iPhone

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We played a concert in the Centre for Jerusalem Studies in the heart of the Old City of Jerusalem. The venue itself was a derelict spa awaiting restoration, and a beautiful underground space (if horrendously dusty!). The centre staff decorated the hall with candles and some kind of incense. A special atmosphere is very easy […]

There’s something in the air. Ramallah is much more awake than it was a year ago. It’s very subtle, but it’s noticeable. Leisure facilities are open that weren’t before. Trading is fractionally busier. New restaurants have opened up. Prices are higher (though fuel counts for a lot of that). The expat community and the business […]

However routine and normal and environmentally damaging air travel becomes, it will never lose its magic for two reasons. Firstly, for every second of the journey, your life is in someone else’s hands. But secondly, you cannot help but realize how small and meaningless you are. It’s so deeply humbling to see massive […]

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Photo: Rebecca Shannon

If you’ve enjoyed my blog posts from the holy land, please ’stay tuned’, because there’s plenty more where they came from. Although I won’t be coming back to the region until later in 2008, there are many tangentally related things to explore, starting immediately after the New Year. So please, add me to your RSS […]

Time always flies on these trips, and it’s impossible to get done everything you’d like to do. One of the themes I wanted to explore was the difference between Western and Arabic music, particularly from the point of view that Arabic music tends to be written in a more emotional style than the Western Classical […]

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In London, they’ve banned bottles of water at airport security for ages now - for sensible reasons perhaps, but reasons that logically and logistically are completely disproportionate to the level of the threat posed. To my knowledge, no other country does this. Even in Tel Aviv, they weren’t very bothered about my bottle of water.

Tel […]

We joined Nabeel Abboud Ashkar and his students in Nazareth for our final concert. These young Arab-Israeli / Palestinian students are fantastic musicians and, without flattering them too much (for they read this blog!), I’ve no doubt that the future of music here is in safe hands if there are student musicians of this quality.

Mira, […]

Visiting the Taybeh brewery brought home how political most things are, and that especially in a place like Palestine, a simple business (like theirs) or cultural program (like ours) can take on many subtle meanings. However, the most basic point is that by simply doing something, there’s a kind of inherent solidarity.
The Taybeh delivery […]

Our next concert was in Taybeh, the only remaining Christian town in Palestine, and the home of Taybeh Beer, the only independent Palestinian brand of beer currently on the market.
We were given a guided tour of the brewery (drinking before a concert? eh?!) by David Khoury, the mayor of Taybeh, and a member of the […]

Blair in Bethlehem

Tony Blair was in Bethlehem earlier this week, supposedly as a tourist. "Bethlehem is safe" was his message. And he’s absolutely right - at the present time, there is nothing the West Bank tourist trade needs more than visitors, and it can offer an incredible touristic experience. Travelling is not just about […]

I was pleased to go to Jericho, and although we had little time to see the town, the uninhabited desertscape between Ramallah and Jericho is a sight to behold. The difference between the desert and the town (an oasis of underground springs, evidenced by the Palm trees and greenery all around) is all the more […]

The call to prayer started before five and we were gone by six. As our diplomatic-plated vans wound slowly out of Ramallah, the city was beginning to turn, peaceful slumber giving way to a gentle buzz of activity. We passed the early morning traders setting up their stalls at the roadside, and in a few […]

Today’s concert was probably one of the first ever to happen in Birzeit, so it’s no wonder that the audience doesn’t necessarily know how to react. They’re confused about where to clap (if at all), mobile phones regularly accompany the music throughout the concert, and concentration on the music isn’t always strong.
On the other hand, […]

Our second concert was in the Chapel of Bethlehem university, a beautiful and seemingly rich University with American connections. Surrounded of course by a town so poor that unemployment is approaching 70% - a good deal of which is a direct result of travel restrictions on the civilian population.

Rehearsing in Bethlehem

Abu’s sparse words spoke […]

Rebecca Shannon runs a Lutherie workshop in Concord, Massachusetts, with her husband Andy Weinstein, but she’s given up two weeks of her time to bring her expertise to Ramallah. In this small and ill-equipped workshop room opposite Al Kamandjati (don’t be fooled by the tools on the walls - they are donations from well-meaning folks, […]

Ramzi Aburedwan, director of Al Kamandjati

This evening saw our first concert, in Jerusalem, which went really well. It was at the Ecole Biblique, a French research and higher education establishment founded and directed by the Dominican order, and specializing in archaeology and biblical interpretation. It was very near to where I had stayed […]

Admittedly not the best photograph that I’ve ever taken.

Al Kamandjati is a Ramallah-based organization run by people who live here, and the group we’re working with is very small. As a result, our daytime schedule is nicely vague (and runs to Palestinian time anyway - give or take half an hour for every schedulepoint!), so I’ve been taking the opportunity to live freely […]

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