WASHINGTON, 18 February 2006 — Music is one of few certainties in the life of Ahmad Al-Khatib, a 31-year-old classically trained Palestinian musician touring the United States this month with the four-man Oriental Music Ensemble.

Born in a refugee camp in Jordan, the accomplished oud player first saw his homeland in 1998 and has been working with the Jerusalem-based Palestinian National Conservatory of Music ever since, but Israel refused to renew his visa in 2002 and he has no idea if or when he can return to the West Bank. Even the preparations for the group’s first US tour were rocky, and Al-Khatib received his US visa just days before he was due to leave Sweden, where he is now pursuing a master’s degree in music.

“I’m not really sure about what the future holds,” he said. “But my situation is typical for the Palestinians and there are many worse stories. At least I managed to find other ways to keep working.”

Al-Khatib and the ensemble members will perform and teach workshops in Washington, Philadelphia and New York as part of a fund-raising tour organized by American Near East Refugee Aid. ANERA is a long-time donor to the Palestinian National Conservatory of Music, now named in honor of Palestinian scholar Edward Said, who died in 2003.

Al-Khatib plays the oud, a deep-bellied Arabic string instrument, and says he copes with the challenges of traveling as a refugee to ensure that Americans and others see authentic Palestinian culture.

“For me it’s important to keep this bridge to Palestine,” said Al-Khatib. “We want to show the beauty of tradition and at the same time, preserve it in the culture.”

Suhail Khoury, 42, another ensemble member, helped found the school in 1993 as an affiliate of Bir Zeit University and says it helps improve the lives of Palestinian children growing up under Israeli occupation.

The conservatory opened with 40 students and five teachers for classical, modern and Arabic music. Now it serves over 600 students in Ramallah, Jerusalem and Bethlehem, hosts summer camps and sponsors beginners’ and advanced orchestras.

“We are part of an institution that is changing the lives of people,” said Khoury, who studied music at the University of Iowa in the 1980s and now lives in Jerusalem. “If you look at what is open for Palestinian children ... there’s not much.”

The conservatory provides a refuge from daily tensions with Israeli settlers, soldiers and the ever-present checkpoints, said Bridget Robbins, a US musician who returned to New York in July after two years teaching children at the conservatory.

“Having music in their lives makes such a difference,” said Robbins, who teaches flute and ney, the Arabic flute. The school also helps preserve traditional Palestinian arts, which are disappearing after decades of occupation and the growing influence of synthesized Arab pop, said Al-Khatib.

“In such areas ... music is not a priority for many,” he said. Music professor Anne Rasmussen at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, is delighted her students can take part in a workshop with the Palestinian musicians.

“The Middle East is such a diverse place, but the voices we hear are primarily from Egypt or Saudi Arabia, so it’s important to keep regional centers alive,” she said, although she noted the problems traveling Palestinians often face. In fact, given their varying passports, the ensemble cannot meet to practice in the Palestinian areas, so its four members were forced to rehearse in Turkey earlier this month.

The two other musicians are Ibrahim Attari, who plays the qanoun, or zither, and lives in Ramallah, which prevents him from traveling to Israel and percussionist Yousif Hbeisch, who lives in Israel and cannot travel to the West Bank.

The conservatory founded the Palestine Youth Orchestra in 2003, which brings together 60 musicians aged 15 to 25 from all over the world for two weeks in Jordan each August.

Like the ensemble, these young musicians cannot meet in their homeland due to visa restrictions, but that is a “source of power” for them, said Khoury. “The orchestra rehearses in the hope that one day they will be there.”

“This is part of building a Palestinian country,” Khoury said. “This is how music is taught in other countries. Why not in Palestine? After all, what is a country in the end?”