Israeli conductor Barenboim gets Egyptian ovation

Israeli conductor Daniel Barenboim stirred a sold out Cairo Opera House Thursday with a performance of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, drawing ovations in his first visit to Egypt.

The famed musician's enthusiastic welcome in a major Arab capital reflected his years of advocacy for peace with the Palestinians and Arab world and his efforts to use music to bring people together in a region where conflict otherwise keeps them apart.

Egyptian film star Omar Sharif introduced Barenboim before the concert, saying "I love his work and I love his opinions. He is a man who cultivates tolerance," he added, as the crowd filled with Egyptian high society and foreign diplomats cheered.

Barenboim began the concert with several piano solos and later conducted the Cairo Symphony Orchestra.

He is believed to be the first prominent Israeli musician to perform in Cairo, and his visit was not entirely without criticism from some Egyptian intellectuals and artists who felt the time was not right to accept such a visit, especially with anger over Israel's offensive in Gaza still so potent.

In one act of protest, the secretary-general of the Arab League, Amr Moussa, refused an invitation to attend from Egypt's culture minister.

Barenboim himself has referred to the three decades of peace between Israel and Egypt as ice cold, and many in Egypt prefer to delay closer cultural and other ties until the Jewish state reaches a final peace deal with the Palestinians.

Most of Egypt's intellectual community, however, appeared to look beyond that sentiment for Barenboim, who is well-known for his outspoken support of Palestinian statehood, criticism of the Israeli government and his contention that there is no military solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

In defending his visit, Egypt's Culture Ministry also highlighted the fact that Barenboim has honorary Palestinian citizenship, which he accepted in 2007 despite criticism from fellow Israelis.

It was only Barenboim's second time in an Arab country - his first was a 2003 trip to Morocco, where he led a group of young musicians from Israel and the Arab and Muslim worlds in the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra.

He helped create that project with late Palestinian-American intellectual and activist Edward Said, with whom he developed a close friendship after a chance meeting in the lobby of a London hotel.

He has also played in the West Bank city of Ramallah, where, he likes to recall, a young Palestinian violinist pleaded for his autograph because, as she said to him, "You are the first thing that comes from Israel that is not a soldier or a tank."

That girl, now a young woman, is now one of the players in his Israeli-Arab Divan orchestra.

The 66-year-old Barenboim called his first visit to Egypt, at the heart of the Arab world, an important moment in his life. The Argentinian-born conductor moved to Israel at age 9 and says he was always curious about the Arab world just beyond his tiny country.

"From a very early age I was very concerned and unhappy about the fact that there was so little curiosity in Israel about the life in the surrounding countries," he told a Cairo news conference on Wednesday.

Through music and discussion, he said, he has tried to break down such ignorance on both sides.

In Egypt, after his first rehearsal with the Cairo orchestra's players, Barenboim said he had found an orchestra full of curiosity, full of goodwill.

The one-time child prodigy pianist and Grammy Award winner led the Chicago Symphony Orchestra for more than a decade starting in 1991 and has worked closely for many years with the Staatskapelle Berlin and the Bayreuth Festival Orchestra among others.

Responding to his critics among both Arabs and Israelis, Barenboim said his efforts to bring musicians from both sides together was not a political project, but a human one aimed at encouraging people to express their opinions.

"We don't represent Israel and I don't represent any government," he told reporters Wednesday. He acknowledged that his appearance in Cairo must be difficult for some.

Khaled el-Ghayesh, a 23-year-old Egyptian computer engineer who has also studied classical piano, said at Thursday's concert that Barenboim's music should be appreciated apart from politics.

"He's coming for music and not for political speeches," he said.

Egypt's culture minister, Farouk Hosni, backed the visit, the result of an invitation from the Austrian Embassy.

The minister, who is campaigning to become the next head of UNESCO, also used the occasion to demonstrate a willingness to have dealings with Israel as chief of the UN cultural body.

The maestro is known to be against Israeli aggression and is among the moderates and peace-loving people and is for the Palestinian cause, Hosni said.