Musical ambassadors
Peace Drums Steel Band to perform April 16 in Perkins Student Center
10:50 a.m., April 6, 2016--The Peace Drums Steel Band, made up of Christian, Muslim, and Jewish junior high school students from Israel, will perform from 6-8 p.m., Saturday, April 16, in the University of Delaware’s Perkins Student Center.
The evening program will include a performance by the UD Steel Pan ensemble, and in keeping with the origin of the steel drums, Trinidadian-inspired food will be provided.
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Selwyn Williams, public relations officer of First Citizens Supernovas and former national executive with PanTrinbago, will talk about the history and development of the steel drum playing around the world.
This event is free event and open to the public and those in attendance will also be given a hands-on introduction to steel drum playing.
The UD performance, an Art Bridging Cultures event coordinated by Colin Miller, CAS director for global arts, and sponsored by the English Language Institute and the Office of the Provost, is part of a 10-day tour designed to foster commitment and reconciliation between Christian, Muslim and Jewish children in the Galilee region of Israel.
The idea for the band and its mission of peace through music began when Harvey Price, UD associate professor of percussion, decided to form a steel drum band of Jewish and Arab students in Israel as a way to get them to see each other in a different light.
With the support of clergy from the Delaware Churches for Middle East Peace, the dream became a reality. In a March 27 Delaware State of the Arts podcast, Price discussed the creation of the group and how steel drums seemed to be the perfect instrument for bonding among children and their parents.
“I love the steel drums because they are a great educational tool, and I use them for teaching non-musician students at UD all the time,” Price said. “The instrument itself was born out of conflict in Trinidad and Tobago, and by sheer force of will and creativity and luck and magic they created this beautiful instrument as a reaction to not being allowed to create their own music.”
“Steel drums work because they don’t belong to the Arab, Jewish or Christian population,” Price said. “It’s a universal instrument.”
Raising the money, around $80,000 for the drums alone, and getting the instruments from Trinidad to the U.S. and then Israel was a logistical accomplishment in its own right, Price said.
“We finally raised the $80,000 to buy the drums from Trinidad, and then we had to get them mailed up here, box them, and put them on a plane to Israel,” Price said. “Each instrument is 22.5 inches in diameter, and they’re all made from oil barrels. The luggage bill to Israel was $5,000.”
Price also negotiated an alliance between the Israeli Arab partners at the Mar Elias Educational Institutions in the Galilean village of Ibillin and the Jewish partners at the Leo Baeck School in the city of Haifa.
While he considers the steel drums a great instrument, Price noted the real value is that the children are learning how to share learning together.
“When you learn together, you form a bond,” Price said. “These kids are participating in an ensemble activity and are touring with kids that they don’t come into contact with in their everyday lives.”
For the children, getting to know each other through music was at once challenging and rewarding, Price noted.
“Their first reaction to meeting each other was just like that of any other middle school student meeting a stranger for the first time,” Price said. “These kids are junior high school kids at a pretty impressionable age. They stand next to one another and watch one another and encourage one another to play better and better.”
Equally or perhaps even more important is that the parents of the children are in constant communication, something that doesn’t happen on a regular basis, Price said.
“It’s not that the parents were supposed to hate each other,” Price said. “They just don’t know each other.”
Price also thanked members of the Peace Drums committee who worked to get the right families matched up with the right children during their American sojourn.
In addition to their April 16 performance at UD, tour dates for the Peace Drums Steel Band include:
- 7:30 p.m., Wednesday, April 13, at the Cab Calloway School of the Arts, 100 N. Dupont Road, in Wilmington;
- 5 p.m., Thursday, April 14, at the Bet Torah Synagogue, 60 Smith Avenue, Mount Kisco, New York;
- 4 p.m., Sunday, April 17, at the Abington Presbyterian Church, 1082 Old York Road, Abington, Pennsylvania; and
- 7 p.m., Tuesday, April 19, at the Congregation Rodeph Shalom, 615 N. Broad Street, Philadelphia.
The Peace Drums tour has the sponsorship of the Consulate General of Israel to the Middle Atlantic Region. Honorary chairs are Martha Carper and Carla Markell.
Co-sponsors of the Peace Drums Project are Abrams Realty and Development, the Catholic Diocese of Wilmington, the Delaware Council on Global and Muslim Affairs and the Delaware Churches for Middle East Peace.
Sponsors also include the Episcopal Diocese of Delaware, Jewish Federation of Delaware, Jewish Community Relations Committee, the Music School of Delaware, Pacem in Terris, People to People, the Presbyterian Church (USA), and the Consulate General of Israel to the Mid-Atlantic Region.
For more information, visit the Peace Drums Project website or Peace Drums: A Galilean Steel Band on Facebook, or email hprice@udel.edu.
Article by Jerry Rhodes