The Lebanese Philharmonic Orchestra is trying to revive itself
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In the past, all of Beirut crowded into the nave of the Saint-Nicolas church, in Achrafiyé, for the free Friday concert of the Lebanese Philharmonic Orchestra. Thirty works from the classical repertoire were played there each season by the ninety-five musicians gathered under the baton of maestro Harout Fazlian. This was before the country shut down due to the pandemic caused by the coronavirus, the neighborhoods around the port were devastated by an explosion on August 4, 2020, and Lebanon plunged into an economic crisis. of which he no longer sees the end.
The symphonic ensemble did not come out unscathed, and the resumption of concerts, at the rate of one meeting per month, has become a rare opportunity for musicians to meet. “The Philharmonic Orchestra has always been an essential platform in Lebanese culture and the capital, but it has been hit by a serious crisis, like all culture in Lebanon. The music gives us an impulse despite the despondency. There is a spirit of cohesion and positive desperation”says Lebanese violinist Mario Rai, a 38-year-old virtuoso.
The forty foreign musicians who had joined the Philharmonic after its creation in 1999, notably from Eastern Europe and Russia, have left the country. The others, from the four corners of Lebanon, can no longer pay for gas to come to concerts or to the conservatory. They give their lessons online or at home rather than at the National Conservatory of Music, which no longer has enough budget to pay for electricity. Their salaries, once between 2,000 and 3,000 dollars, now only amount to 100 to 200 dollars with the plummeting of the national currency. They supplement the end of the month with a few concerts organized by universities, festivals and above all, for some, the accompaniment of Lebanese pop stars during concerts in the Arab-Persian Gulf.
“A first step”
Keeping the Philharmonic Orchestra alive is a battle for its director, Maestro Fazlian. Already in the midst of a pandemic, in July 2020, the conductor had brought the musicians out of their isolation by organizing a concert in the ruins of Baalbeck, without an audience but followed by millions of viewers. For months, he has been struggling to create a new rendezvous, in the company of Joëlle Hajjar with whom he worked on Expo 2020 in Dubai – he in the musical direction, she in the artistic direction of the Lebanese pavilion.
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