The Doha Philharmonic Orchestra

The moment I heard that there was a philharmonic orchestra (as opposed to a misharmonic?) in Doha, I had to go. If you are a Gentle Reader who visited Ireland with me in this blog, you may or may not remember my posting on the Limerick Community Orchestra. I was rather expecting something ragtag, but as with all in the Gulf States, you get an astonishing juxtaposition of situations. First, we had to go buy tickets at the Virgin MegaStore. My colleague Debra, who specializes in 18th century British literature, and I walked into the acoustic assault that is the Virgin MegaStore. The music was quite loud, and the people who worked in the store were dressed in fan costumes for the World Cup, which is currently possessing the entire city of Doha, nay the entire world, except maybe the United States. So Debra, a co-Janite, and I walk through the thumping beat of the bright red store populated by young people wearing huge furry rainbow hats to a little counter that says, on a handwritten sigh, "Tickets". We caught the eye of a young man in a Brazil futbol jersey (it was no use trying to speak), and I held up the little brochure for the Doha Philharmonic. He spent a great deal of time typing, stamping, and tearing, and then he handed over a ticket.

The next night we hailed a taxi whose driver looked at my ticket with great puzzelment. "Where do you want to go?" I pointed to the writing on the ticket, which was probably not as helpful as I hoped, "To the Aspire Zone Ladies Club for the Philharmonic." He asked, "Is that near the Villagios?" I had thought it was and indicated that. It seemed to be enough, and we took off. He seemed to think we knew where we were going and kept asking for directions. Finally, with the mall in sight, we just asked to be let out, and we would navigate from there. Luckily, Debra asked the next person who passed for the direction of the Philharmonic, and we had fortunately gotten out of the cab at just the right place.

When we entered the hall, it was like going through a little tardis-like warp. We were in a hall full of northern Europeans chatting away in two or three languages. There were some Qatari nationals taking tickets, or people dressed like Qatari nationals. Dress, demeanor, language: we could have been anywhere in norther Europe except for the fact that the tables in the foyer were covered with the ever present bottles of water.

We went into the ballroom that served as their concert hall to find out seats. These turned out to be plastic chairs set out on the ballroom floor with paper numbers taped to them. We sat in the back in 50 riyal seats (about $10). There were about 200 people there, tops. As soon as the doors closed, everybody in the back of the room immediately stood up and moved forward so that the whole audience was up next to the orchestra regardless of ticket price. This was clearly something normal to do as there was no furtive looking around before the back moved forward.

The first piece was emblematic of the wacky multicultural experience that is the Arabian Gulf. We were in Qatar, but there were only 5 or 6 nationals in the audience. The orchestra looked completely European and Asian, with the exception of one double bassist who might have been "from around here" in a rather general sense. The audience was most definitely not local. The composer of the first piece was Sudanese who wrote a piece about when he lived in Switzerland, so the music was supposed to evoke a Swiss landscape. There were chimes for church bells, flutes for bird song, a snare drum for trains passing, cello glissandos for cows mooing (quite enjoyably effective), and a cow bell to simulate the sound of cow bells ( to go with the mooing cellos). It was great!

The next piece was Tchaikovsky's concerto in D major for violin. Kolja Blacher was the soloist, and he was playing a 1730 Stradivarius which was being loaned to him by his Japanese patron. I have never heard this concerto played so fast: it was like Blacher was red shifting while he played, and this violin was a divine sound. Of course the astonishing technical precision of Blacher was amazing as well. The conductor, Thomas Kalb, was so enthusiastic in his conducting that he was jumping up and down on the podium and catching some serious air.

The last piece was a modern piece by a polish composer, Witold Lutoslowski, who seemed bent on wild inclusivity such that there was a huge gong, a tambourine, two harps, three pianos, every timpani available, much brass, and that cow bell left over from the first piece because, goodness knows, you can't have enough cow bell. This was a loud piece because everybody got to play for most of it. At one point in the euphonious cacophony, the snare drum came in as a series of rat-ta-tat-tats that sounded just like the neighbor banging on the door to get the orchestra to turn the volume down. When the tambourine came in, I almost leapt out of my seat because Mr. Lutoslowski had asked that one of the many percussionists running around in the back should hold up the tambourine and scrape the back of his thumbnail up the skin of the tambourine. I did not find the effect musical. However, according to the program, "The toccata is interrupted twice by chorales in the brass section." I waited on the edge of my seat to see how the bouncy conductor would deal with this interruption. It was great! He energetically motioned as if he were making a questionable gesture in Italy, and the brass barged right in with their chorale. It was very loud, very exciting, and utterly exhilarating. What a show: we clapped and clapped for them, and there were even people in the audience who hooted when the percussion section stood up to be acknowledged.

What does a gig in Doha mean for these world class musicians? Half way through the concert, half the audience left because England is playing the US tonight, and the game started during the intermission. This meant that when the concert ended, there were about 75 people left to appreciate these musicians. Of course we clapped until our hands hurt, and we hoped our enthusiasm would make up for our lack of numbers. As we left, and came around the side of the ballroom cum music hall, there were all the musicians making a beeline for their cars. I guess they were hurrying home for the futbol also? But back to the question of what a gig in Doha means for a professional classical musician. I bet the pay is good even if there are no real facilities and the audience is rather small. I wonder if it is a stepping stone for Greater Things, or if it is "any port in a storm". Whatever it is, they were really good and not many people in Doha know that.