From Dubai classrooms to Vienna's Golden Hall: Young Emirati musicians make history
After a year of training, young Emirati musicians are preparing for landmark Vienna debut
Dubai: A year ago, the 20 Emirati students who make up the first class of Dubai Culture's new music programme were still finding their footing on a violin, a cello, or behind a piano. This month, several of them will walk onto the stage of Vienna's Musikverein, one of the most famous concert halls in the world, as part of the first UAE based orchestra ever to perform there.
That leap, from a classroom in Dubai to the Golden Hall, is the story behind the Emirati Music Education Programme, run by Dubai Culture and Arts Authority in partnership with the National Youth Orchestra Dubai (NYO Dubai), which has just wrapped up its first edition.
A year ago, the 20 Emirati students who make up the first class of Dubai Culture's new music programme were still finding their footing on a violin, a cello, or behind a piano.Over a full academic year, delivered under the Dubai Cultural Grant, the group clocked up around 1,850 hours of training between them, roughly 92 hours each, moving between orchestral performance, ensemble practice, one on one instrumental lessons and music theory. Five internationally recognised musicians and educators led the sessions, covering violin, cello, woodwinds, piano and voice.
"Watching these young Emirati talents transform through rigorous training has been profoundly moving," said Amira Fouad, Executive Director and Artistic Director of NYO Dubai, who called the programme "the ultimate expression" of the belief the orchestra was founded on: that the UAE is home to world class musical talent. For her, this first chapter is not really an ending at all, but "the birth of a lasting legacy."
The Emirati Music Education Programme represents an important pathway for developing the next generation of Emirati musicians and strengthening the UAE's music sector as one of the pillars of the cultural and creative industries.
Shaima Rashed Al Suwaidi, CEO of the Arts, Design and Literature Sector at Dubai Culture, described the programme as an important pathway for the next generation of Emirati musicians, part of a wider effort to build a music sector that can hold its own on the world stage.
That ambition gets its first real test this July, when several of the programme's graduates join NYO Dubai on a tour of Vienna, performing across three of the city's most storied venues: the Musikverein's Golden Hall, the Wiener Konzerthaus and the ORF RadioKulturhaus. No UAE based orchestra has played any of them before.
The trip will also include the world premiere of Threads of Light, a new work by Emirati composer Ihab Darwish, giving the group's first year an ending as fitting as its subject.
