04.11.2017 • 3 Min.

The Barenboim-Said Akademie in Berlin offers a conservatory education to musicians from the Middle East and North Africa as a way to promote a more peaceful future for a troubled region. Monika Müller-Kroll talks to the rector of the Akademie, Prof. Dr. Michael Naumann. A natural continuation of Daniel Barenboim’s and Edward Said’s West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, the Akademie aims to produce a generation of musicians who will “know better” than to support religious or territorial conflicts. Fittingly, the Akademie and Orchestra are based in the elliptical, Frank Gehry-designed Pierre Boulez Saal in Mitte, a space which the architect has described as “a place of sanity.” Produced by Monika Müller-Kroll