Alastair Mitchell

Bethlehem.

The last two days have brought me to Bir Zeit (pronounced bir zayt), a small university town near Ramallah. This is because the advanced orchestra of the conservatory is performing a concert in Manger Square on Christmas Eve and these two days are a chance for the students taking part from all three branches of the conservatory to get together and rehearse.  The concert is being performed along with a visiting choir from America and includes around 20 minutes of music from the Messiah by Handel as well as some John Rutter carols. The first day was for the orchestra alone, including sectional rehearsals then the choir joined us this morning. 

I imagine that for some of these visitors this is the trip of a lifetime – they are an amalgamation of church choirs, so the religious side of being in the Holy Land at Christmas means a lot to them, and their enthusiasm about our students is incredible. Once the choir and orchestra had had a chance to meet, we left for Bethlehem to do a rehearsal on the stage in Manger Square, in order for the lighting and sound engineers to do their work. The choir had booked out a large venue in Bethlehem for us to join them for lunch, and despite leaving Bir Zeit at the same time, it took our bus around two hours to get through the Qalandiya checkpoint due the fact we were transporting Palestinians and not Americans and by the time we arrived in Bethlehem the choir had already eaten. While they were waiting for us, they organised a standing ovation stretching from the door all the way to the centre of the hall and the sight and sound of 200 people welcoming our students in this way was quite something.

Since leaving Bethlehem two days ago, it has changed noticeably. Walking back home from the rehearsal I passed many tourists, some Santa Clauses, as well as several shops that don’t usually open. Seasonal trading is to be expected, but I hadn’t realised it would mean shops appearing seemingly out of nowhere. The atmosphere is good though, and it is nice to see Bethlehem coming to life a little – it would be better if it were allowed to come to life permanently, however.