The first session was held in July 2006, in
Damascus, Syria. Nearly 100 young musicians from a lot of different Arab countries, aged between 18 and 26 years old rehearsed in the Syrian capital with workshop professors and German conductor Walter L. Mik, and gave two concerts supporting the Palestinian and Lebanese people. The concert programme included works by
Marcel Khalife,
Gamal Abdel-Rahim and
Antonín Dvořák. In 2007, the orchestra gathered again, in Germany this time. Young musicians from
Egypt,
Syria,
Lebanon,
Tunisia,
Algeria and
Sudan took part in the project. After ten days of workshops and rehearsals, the orchestra gave its European premiere in
Bonn, followed by two other concerts in
Bayreuth. The programme included a commissioned work by Algerian composer
Salim Dada,
Felix Mendelssohn's
Italian Symphony and
Robert Schumann's
Cello Concerto (with Egyptian cellist Mahmoud Saleh). == See also ==