Oriente Medio

In the beginning of the war on Gaza, I was displaced from my town of Beit Hanoun at 3 a.m. We were running, without shoes, without anything. We arrived in Jabalia, near Gaza City. I was not thinking about music; I was just running for a safe place.

Bombs destroyed the well-equipped buildings of the Palestine National Conservatory and war displacement scattered its faculty. But that didn’t stop them.

Late last year, the Flying Carpet Festival was honored with an Aga Khan Music Award, given to organizations that display “exceptional creativity, promise, and enterprise in music performance, creation, education, preservation and revitalisation in societies across the world in which Muslims have a significant presence.” Founded in 2018, the Flying Carpet Festival is a traveling artist residency, or mobile festival, based in Southeast Turkey but operating in many of that region’s conflict areas. Having first covered their work last year, The Ensemble recently spoke with Founder Sahba Aminikia about receiving the award, working in areas of conflict and displacement, and how he is learning and growing alongside the program.

The cultural organization Ettijahat is accepting applications for their 2026 grant program, Zad: Miles for Connection, supporting individual artists and groups from the Arab region who have relocated to Europe since 2015.

The Jerusalem Youth Chorus (JYC) is a music and dialogue program for Israeli and Palestinian teenagers in Jerusalem. We bring young people from East and West Jerusalem into the same room each week to sing together, practice structured dialogue, and build the leadership skills needed to navigate a deeply unequal and polarized reality.

If you work in music for social change, none of that is conceptually new—“music builds connection” is something we all believe. What has surprised us over time is how much the container matters.

The Creativity for Social Change Award invites nominations for individuals and art collectives using creative means to respond to local and global challenges.

A new Sistema program is coming to Oman this fall.

In this Reuters special report, young people in Gaza share how music offers them hope and eases their fears in the midst of war.

In June, the National Youth Orchestra of Dubai performed at Carnegie Hall, the first orchestra from the United Arab Emirates to do so.

A nueva asociación entre la Comisión de Música Saudí y el Grupo Muse creará un acceso sin precedentes a partituras y libros de método internacionales para hablantes de árabe.