Kuwait to host concert amid music row

Manama: Kuwait Chamber Philharmonia will hold an international concert on December 5, as part of its 18th Classical Music Concert Season 2009/2010.

The concert will feature soloists Dmitri Torchinsky from Russia on the violin and Sonja Park from South Korea on the piano and will be under the patronage of Russian Ambassador to Kuwait Alexander Kinshchak.

The programme includes songs and piano works from Chopin, Schubert, Tchaikovsky, Grieg, Dvorak, Monti, Ravel, and Bartok, Kuwait News Agency reported on Tuesday.

Concerts by Kuwait Chamber Philharmonia have been regularly well attended and in most cases sold out despite calls by some conservatives in the country to ban music.

Recently, Kuwait has witnessed several moves by lawmakers and conservative activists to take out music from school curricula and to focus on other areas of learning. A group of disgruntled parents staged a protest in front of a school and urged the education minister to ban music classes.

The protestors said that schools should promote local values instead of being turned into places of graduation for singers graduate.

Kuwait Chamber Philharmonia was formed in November 1992 by Cezary Owerkowicz and Witold Wnuk with the aim of "bringing live classical music to a wider audience in the country" and using "the common language of music to establish additional bonds of understanding and friendship in Kuwait's multi-cultural society."