Children of the Stone: The Power of Music in a Hard Land

posted on: Jun 4, 2015

After facing mounting pressure from fans on social media, R&B star Lauryn Hill announced on May 5 that she was cancelling her upcoming concert in Israel. On her website, she stated that she wanted to be a “presence supporting justice and peace” but because she was unable to organize a similar concert in the occupied Palestinian territories, she canceled her Israeli appearance.

While she didn’t explicitly state support for the burgeoning Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, Hill is one of a growing number of artists respecting a cultural boycott of Israel over its treatment of Palestinians.

But the increasing absence of art and music in Israel as a political act stands in stark contrast to the blossoming of music in the occupied territories, particularly among young Palestinians. The story of how that is happening is told in a new book by Sandy Tolan, ‘Children of the Stone: The Power of Music in a Hard Land’, where he introduces readers to Ramzi Hussein Aburedwan, a Palestinian composer and educator whose journey took him from Palestinian refugee camps to an international education in music after he discovered the viola as a young man. Years later he founded several music schools in the West Bank and Palestinian refugee camps.

Source: uprisingradio.org