09-06-2008
Olivier Marie at Nablus the Culture: a piano expert for Palestine
I have just spent several days in Nablus, where I visited our piano-tuner Olivier Marie and the repair and training workshop which he is setting up there together with and in the building of our partner in there, Nablus the Culture.
© one of Olivier's students
It was really impressive to see what they have realised since Olivier arrived in the Westbank only two and a half months ago ! Olivier is now teaching 5 students and is he tells me already sure that several will be good enough to finish the one-year-training which he is offering them, with the prospect of being able to then enroll for a one year advanced training at the Le Mans (France) based ITEMM, a specialised school for luthiers (piano, guitars, wind instruments) and partner of Music Fund.
© another one of Olivier's students
Sami Hammad of Nablus the Culture has renovated a wing of the building and reserved it entirely for the piano workshop. A magnificant old building, with a beautiful garden attached to it with olive and orange trees. A dream of a place. If things go well, we dream of being able in a few years to consider this workshop as our centre for training and repairing pianos, as well as other music instruments needed for the music education proposed by Nablus the Culture as well as other music schools in the Westbank.
© Olivier Marie himself
Already, Olivier Marie is now training young Palestinians who are not only related to the school in Nablus: one is being sent to the workshop in Nablus by our Ramallah partner, the music school Al Kamandjati.
If you want to see some pictures of the workshop and of Olivier's students, you could visit Olivier's weblog (click).
The music schools in the Palestinian territories have since 2005 received pianos from Music Fund, but miss the know-how to repair and tune them. In the whole of the Westbank there is only one piano-tuner and technician, an older man from Jerusalem, who has difficulties moving around. In July 2007 Music Fund sent the piano-expert Olivier Marie to the region to give an initiation course in Nablus and Ramallah. He taught a number of interested young Palestinians related to the music schools there.
But it takes a long time to learn how to tune and repair a piano. This is why Olivier Marie proposed to Music Fund to take one year of his time to go live and work in the region and train several young piano technicians.
Olivier Marie about his project: « The music schools in Palestine are as small paradises in the middle of very tense surroundings. The pianos of these schools are being played a lot and need regular fine-tuning and small reparations in order to keep them in good condition. But there are no piano tuners/technicians in the region and the Palestinians depend on foreign technicians who come by once and a while. I have already initiated several young Palestinians during my stay in July 2007. They showed real talent and a lot of motivation to learn this profession. My presence during a full year will surely allow me to train one or several of them to become piano technicians. This would then surely have a serious impact on the quality of the pianos available in the region, and as a consequence on the quality of the music education and performing. »
© a view of part of the workshop, before... and after refurbishing
The total cost involved in sending Olivier Marie for one full year to Nablus and Ramallah, would be 26.000 Euro (a basic fee to get by, travel costs, purchase and transportation of tools and material for the workshops in the region, insurance and cost for local housing).
The City of Lille (France) decided to finance half of this sum and several private sponsors also helped us with a supplementary sum of 5000 Euro. We are still looking for a missing 8 000 Euro. The more donations, the longer Music Fund will be able to let Olivier Marie work in the Westbank.
