2011

Jazz in the Gulf? Is there an audience for that? Since the very beginning, this question went along with the planning of the tour of the North-Westphalian Youth Jazz Orchestra across the Gulf Region. And it was forgotten as soon as the twenty-four year old musicians from Germany performed to the public for the very first time in Al Ain. Jazz? Yes, jazz!

First station: Al Ain. The birthplace of the founder of the state United Arab Emirates, Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, an extensive green city that carries the surname: the garden city. The female and male musicians of the Youth Jazz Orchestra haven’t seen much green. Instead an overwhelming modern well-furnished and also extensive university. Over 12,000 young people, primarily Emiratis, study here the same way that they study in all state universities of the country, segregated by gender.

The musicians from North-Westphalia - four women and twenty-one men- opened their performance with a furious ensemble of brass instruments for the German Day at the Al Ain University- in the women’s campus. Already, the first fans emerged, women in black abayas and veils who partied like the rockstars wherever the seventeen to twenty-four year old musicians were playing. Thousands of photos and video films are in the workshops and the evening concerts in Al Ain, Dubai and Kuwait City emerged. The young women danced to the music from Germany on the tribune of the concert hall of the university, not visible for the rest of the audience but all the more high-spirited.

That was the kickoff of the eight-day tour trip of the North-Westphalian Youth Jazz Orchestra across the Gulf Region that the Goethe-Institut Gulf Region has organized together with the German embassies in Abu Dhabi and Kuwait.

The planning took more than a year. Appointments had to be found: The Youth Jazz Orchestra members are not permanent members. The musicians still go to school, study or work. Therefore, the trip had to take place during the vacation-time. Partners had to be identified: Who is the partner in cultures in which an internal public musical life is only evolving? Of course in the institutions where young people learn respectively the schools and universities of the countries in the Gulf Region. And concert halls had to be found.

But every effort is worth it if the result is so persuasive. Cultural encounters always take place among human-beings. Whether it’s the young women on the campus in Al Ain who danced along the music or the four female students on the campus of the American University in Kuwait City who spontaneously sang a song or the assistant of the High School president who sang along to a piece of the orchestra with an experienced voice. Everywhere where the North-Westphalian Youth Jazz Orchestra performed, conversations and exchange emerged. Many participants of the workshop and concert-goers in Abu Dhabi, Al Ain and Kuwait City have never ever experienced a big jazz band live before.

Therefore, the North-Westphalia Youth Jazz Orchestra is in good sense, more than a big jazz band. All of the musicians have been selected from a variety of applicants. At the same time, all of them are soloists and belong to a part of the orchestra, all of them master the improvisation as well as the repertoire. And they are young which is an aspect that particularly appeals to the young societies in the Gulf. One can find this happening in the schools as well where the thrilled twelve year olds gazed at the instruments in the same way the responses appear in the workshops and at the universities.

Many concert-goers were completely swept away by the dynamic and virtuosity of the young orchestra and just wished for more. Jazz in the Gulf? Yes, please but it has to be fresh and just as good as the North-Westphalian Youth Jazz Orchestra