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Thursday, April 19, 2012

Save the Amman Symphony Orchestra

I will not copy and paste what's written in the program of the last concert for the Amman Symphony orchestra, nor will I copy the words in the video about the ASO or the petition, although I will post the links for both at the end, I will talk as a Jordanian musician who's been a member in the orchestra for 5 or 6 years now.


I started playing in this orchestra after I graduated from school in 2006, it was the National Music Conservatory orchestra, we used to rehears in the "main hall/ only hall" in the old NMC I am sure if you know it you know what I mean.


One day the NMC moved to downtown Ras Al-Ain in the long term plan of the Amman great municipality of developing the heart of Amman and merging arts with daily life, in this development the ASO was born, musicians were chosen based on an audition we all did, then there were musicians coming from all over the world to help developing the orchestra and raising more wind players for it in the NMC.

Musicians started dreaming of having a job that they can actually live on from music, just like any other country in the world!

All of a sudden the Municipality decided to cut the funding of the orchestra, after signing the contracts between the Amman Symphony Orchestra and the musicians the funding was cut and the Orchestra was left hanging in the air, the orchestra cannot keep on going without funding as salaries are not getting paid, and cannot stop as they can't pay the penalty of canceling the contracts.


As a musician I have no idea what will happen in the future, I know that the people who started this orchestra have worked very hard for 25 years to build it and if we lose it now I don't know if we'll ever be able to build it again! 


I do believe that together we can save the Amman Symphony Orchestra, because in spite of who is the manager or who built it or who's playing in it, it is still the AMMAN Symphony Orchestra, it belongs to this country not to a certain person and no one should have the right to stop music development in Jordan.


Please sign this petition and spread the word around, tell your friends and the people you know about our orchestra, encourage them to attend our concerts which we work really hard to carry out, we promise you that you will not regret attending our concerts, try it once and you will like it.