ABSTRACT

The Qalandiya checkpoint performance was part of the annual Music Days Festival, which magnified the presence of foreign musicians and international media. Since 1993, when the Edward Said National Conservatory of Music first opened its doors, many foreign musicians and teachers have been contracted by Palestinian music conservatories to make up for the lack of qualified local talent in classical Western music. In the highly internationalized setting of Palestinian conservatories, foreign musicians and teaching staff have become important partners in the buildup of cultural infrastructure in Palestine, and also in the politicized bent that shapes its discourses. The more familiar foreign musicians become with life in Palestine, the more politicized they tend to become in their roles as cultural producers and disseminators. In Palestine, musical narration binds space and time to the creative social construction of place against, in spite of, and outside of, the politics of its erasure.