When I returned to Bethlehem, following a forced one-month leave due to my
German-sending agency’s response to the war on Iraq, the National Conservatory
of Music, where I teach piano, guitar, choir, ensemble and theory, informed me
that there would be a music competition in early May. Entitled “Marcel Khalife,”
this competition would bring together the musicians from the three branches of
the Conservatory which are in Ramallah, Jerusalem and Bethlehem. However, due to
my being away, there wasn’t sufficient time for my students to prepare the
obligatory pieces. They had also missed the registration deadline. This saddened me greatly as I would have loved to take my students who had not been to Jerusalem for years to that competition. To try to compensate them, I decided to have them compete between themselves.
On the first Friday in June, all of the guitar and piano students arrived for this ‘in-house’ competition. They had had about 4 weeks to work on the obligatory piece (for piano: Tik tik tik ya Imm Sliman; for guitar: Lullabye) and on a piece of their selection. The jury consisted of two German monks from Jerusalem who are musicians; Dia Rishmawi, the director of the Bethlehem branch of the National Conservatory of Music; and myself.
It was an exciting day for all the participants. In the piano category we had
two winners: little Loris from Beit Sahour and A’bdallah from Bethlehem. In the
guitar class Yousef Anastas won the first prize. Each received a cash prize of
20 Euro and a book. The other prizes included cassette tapes and mugs.