POLYPHONY FOUNDATION
All We Need to Do is Listen
Programs and results
What we aim to solve
Relationships between the Arab Palestinian minority and Jewish majority in Israel have been deteriorating in recent years. This has resulted in increased tensions, which were witnessed across the country, including in Polyphony's hometown of Nazareth, where rioting occurred on several occasions. Beyond the animosity since the last war in 2014, there also remains an ongoing social and cultural separation that, unless addressed, will contribute towards the perpetuation of conflict. While there are attempts to deal directly with the conflict, through contact groups and other interactive settings, they have not always yielded positive outcomes, with academic and governmental research highlighting the danger of emphasizing differences and even antagonism. Rather than creating common ground for shared achievements at a social level, one of the greatest impediments to reconciliation lies in the failures of both groups to interact positively.
Our programs
What are the organization's current programs, how do they measure success, and who do the programs serve?
Alhan Music Appreciation Curriculum
Alhan is a musical education curriculum for kindergartens up to 6th grade students.The program includes carefully chosen repertoire appropriate for both Arab and Jewish schools and includes music from both communities as well as classical music to introduce children to a multiplicity of cultures.
The curriculum is developed in partnership with the Institute for Social Integration at Bar Ilan University. Educators from Jewish and Arab schools receive Alhan training together from Bar Ilan-Polyphony coaches and learn to integrate the program into their ongoing core classroom curriculum. Live chamber ensembles composed of both Jewish and Arab musicians perform during the school year for individual classrooms.
The program concludes with a series of Explained Concerts that enable the students from both communities to experience jointly live symphonic performances of the music they have studied. In addition to the partnership with the Ministry of Education, Polyphony has developed strategic relationships with regional and local councils, highlights being the Zvulon Regional Council and the Haifa Municipality, which has led to the integration of 80 kindergartens and four elementary schools in the program.
Since 2012, Alhan has grown to reach over 10,000 students annually, provides ongoing training and support for over 200 teachers, and is operating in 37 different locations from Acre in the North to Rahat in the South.
Conservatories in Nazareth and Jaffa
The Polyphony Conservatory in Nazareth and its sister conservatory in Jaffa provides classical music instruction to over 150 of the country’s most gifted youth, ages 4 to 18, and is one of the leading conservatories in Israel. In mixed quartets and ensembles, young musicians share a unified musical goal. They learn how to listen and make artistic and expressive decisions to achieve one sound. Several globally renowned musicians have given masterclasses and workshops in Nazareth including: Andras Schiff (classical pianist); Branford Marsalis (jazz saxophonist and bandleader); Lynn Harrell (cellist); Mickey Hart (percussionist, Grateful Dead); Radek Baborák (horn player); and Yair Dalal, (violinist and oud player).
The Conservatory represents the quintessential nature of Polyphony: not only does it provide opportunities for share music-making of numerous chamber ensembles, youth orchestra, and the Galilee Chamber Orchestra, but it also provides the mechanism that advances Polyphony’s larger goal. By educating a young generation of talented musicians and nurturing their shared devotion to music, the Conservatory plays an essential role in birding the divide between Arab and Jewish communities in Israel.
Scholar-In-Residence Seminar
Our Scholar-in-Residence Seminar is a masterclass on music and its role in society. Twice a year, an equal cohort of Arab and Jewish musicians ages 15 to 18 come together for a five-day musical and academic immersion in a neutral and enriching environment. This experience has two parallel components: a professional orchestral training program led by first class trainers and conductors, and an academic curriculum that focuses on music’s place in our society, and fosters constructive dialogue that transcends long-existing cultural barriers.
Culminating in a public concert, orchestral training gives young artists a common goal and provides a setting in which they work closely together to create something beautiful, something they are proud of. Sectional rehearsals are led by top musicians of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestras and other leading European ensembles, and collaborators have included Michael Steinberg, President of the American Academy in Berlin (formerly Vice Provost at Brown University). This intensive music-making process engenders a collegiality that enables participants to become familiar with each other and discover how much they have in common, rather than the widely held misconceptions and stereotypes.
The academic element includes a series of lectures and guided discussions with develop the young musicians into more informed global citizens with a clear understanding and first-hand experience of the ways music can foster a rich, diverse, and peaceful society. These opportunities for positive social interaction and exposure to the “other” promote intercultural dialogue, mutual understanding, and appreciation.
Since its founding, Polyphony has conducted 10 seminars, each with 35-50 participants, with equal representation of Israel’s communities. The Seminars are carried out in partnership with the Keshet Eilon Music Center and the Minerva Institute for Humanities at Tel Aviv University, alternate between Kibbutz Eilon and Nazareth.
Galilee Chamber Orchestra
The Galilee Chamber Orchestra broke ground as the first professional orchestra composed of Arab and Jewish musicians in Israel, and now has an international reputation resulting in invitations to music festivals around the world. Made up of approximately 35 Arab and Jewish musicians, the Orchestra performs six major concerts a year. Moved by Polyphony’s top-notch musicianship and vision for Arab and Jewish equality, world-famous musicians from Lynn Harrell to Sir Andras Schiff have performed with the Orchestra in Israel. Its impact extends throughout Israeli, bringing classical music to communities that would not otherwise be exposed to such world standard professional performances. Polyphony provides this multi-tiered educational programing in several cities and towns throughout Israel starting with children in kindergarten and moving the more talented students from beginner to professional performer through these five programs.
Where we work
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Goals & Strategy
Learn about the organization's key goals, strategies, capabilities, and progress.
Charting impact
Four powerful questions that require reflection about what really matters - results.
What is the organization aiming to accomplish?
In the cultural sector, where Polyphony works, we have witnessed that prior to engagement and collaboration, the respective groups had little understanding or appreciation of each other’s cultures. They perceive themselves to be different with few commonalities. It is unlikely that either group would expect to enjoy each other’s music together. Polyphony’s relentless effort and success in bringing classical music to the Arab community in Israel has created a common ground which musicians from both communities feel comfortable coming together.
Polyphony’s programs use this cultural platform as an initial step towards learning about the other, discovering how much they have in common, breaking stereotypes and advancing reconciliation.
What are the organization's key strategies for making this happen?
Polyphony's approach expands and extends direct people-to-people interactions and reaches out to key persons who influence policy and public opinion in the educational and cultural arenas. It enables the participants to see the social and political context of their musical
activities in the conflicted society of Israel. Moreover, it encourages key persons to adopt and/or encourage institutional interventions, policies and practices that foster ongoing Jewish-Arab cultural interaction and collaboration.
The Scholar in Residence Seminars provide opportunities for Jewish and Arab musicians to reach the highest caliber of performance ability, to enable them to work, rehearse and perform together with equal standards. In particular, the seminars provide participants with a heightened understanding of music and its role in encouraging inclusivity and equality of opportunity. With these skills and personal experiences of integration with the “other” they are equipped to transmit important social messages through a medium that has the capacity to unify rather than divide. Performances by these groups reach the greater community, media, critics and the decision makers, while positively shaping public perceptions and attitudes.
The progression of increasing Jewish-Arab communication and interaction is not limited to the participants themselves but also takes place among the students' families and in their communities as well (multiplier effect). Family members interact throughout the seminars,
during rehearsals and performances. Similarly, public exposure to Jewish-Arab collaboration and creativity increases as a result of the program.
At the policy level, Polyphony is breaking entrenched institutional barriers to Jewish-Arab contact and communication. The structural and programmatic barriers and even resistance to educational processes that support mutual understanding and respect among youth are being questioned by the work we undertake. The Polyphony program has support from both educational and cultural establishments at the national and regional levels in order to bridge this separation. Polyphony has and will continue to engage local authority officials, elected and professionals who acknowledge and support its programs.
What are the organization's capabilities for doing this?
Since 2011 Polyphony Education has implemented music education and Jewish-Arab music programming from elementary school music appreciation to the scholar in residence seminars and conservatory performance training as well as the creation of a professional orchestra that includes Jewish and Arab musicians.
Polyphony programs, including those previously described, have engaged over 10,000 Jewish and Arab elementary school students, over 140 elementary school teachers, dozens of Jewish and Arab musicians and teachers working together to produce educational and cultural activities, other music and academic institutions and government officials.
Examples of the contribution of these activities to creating a common ground and legitimizing Arab-Jewish collaboration can be seen in: 1) Adoption of Polyphony's Alhan program in school curriculum, including funding of teaching hours and teacher training by Israel's Ministry of Education and local authorities and plans to expand the program to additional Jewish and Arab schools; 2) expansion of seminars from 20 to 50 students, erasing apprehension of Jewish parents to send students to Nazareth; 3) Acceptance of Jewish-Arab music groups in schools and public concerts around the country including a major venue in Tel Aviv; 4) Positive coverage of Polyphony's Jewish-Arab programs in mainstream Israeli media.
What have they accomplished so far and what's next?
Financials
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Operations
The people, governance practices, and partners that make the organization tick.
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POLYPHONY FOUNDATION
Board of directorsas of 08/09/2019
Craig Cogut
Polyphony Foundation
Deborah Cogut
Polyphony Foundation
Craig Cogut
Pegasus Capital Advisors
Deborah Cogut
Polyphony Foundation
Seth Novatt
Adolf Busch Award
Terry Tamminen
Seventh Generation Advisors, Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation
Timothy Jessell
Greenberg Traurig
Helen W. Nitkin
HB Nitkin