Strings of Solidarity: How a Community United for Gaza

Max Baillie and friends explore the extremes of human emotion in a performance of Beethoven’s op 132, raising £3,500 for Medical Aid for Palestine

By Richard Wistreich

Professor of Music History, Royal College of Music

The concert on Tuesday, 14 October, jointly organised by local world-class violinist Max Baillie and Felicity Laurence of Hastings Jews for Justice to raise money for Medical Aid for Palestinians, was a huge success. Not only has at least £3,500 gone to the charity, but the event once more demonstrated, as with our five-day sukkah the week before, the hunger among local people who are not necessarily activists, to have opportunities to come together in a safe and collectively supportive space to share with others their grief and despair about the horrors being perpetrated against the Palestinian people.

Max Baillie, who has an international career as an innovative and deeply thoughtful musician, has for some time been bringing to St Leonards equally top-flight performers from many genres, ranging from the classics to jazz, delighting local audiences. We are incredibly lucky not only to have him living here, but for the fact that he is so committed to his community. He has established a loyal and growing following, many of whom came to St John the Evangelist Church on Tuesday evening for this really special event. These ‘regulars’ were joined by an equally large number of others drawn in by the theme of the evening, many of whom had almost certainly never been to a classical concert, let alone a heard string quartet play live. Together they formed a wonderfully diverse audience, united in their collective solidarity with the people of Gaza.

On the programme was a great pinnacle of the classical music repertoire, one of the very last string quartets Ludwig van Beethoven composed, exactly 200 years ago. He wrote it when he was already completely deaf and isolated from the world: he never heard this music, except in his own head. Lasting 50 minutes, the piece is searingly beautiful while also at times sounding almost other-worldly, seeming to explore the very extremes of human emotion and yearning for connection. Rarely, if ever, have I felt an audience so concentrated and unanimously drawn together, and many were clearly deeply moved.

Max had had little trouble persuading three other phenomenal world-class musicians to drop everything and come and play together for no fee, donating their time and skills to people of Palestine. I learned afterwards that they had each been waiting all their lives to have a chance to perform this work – even Max himself had never dared take it on. You wouldn’t have known it, as this was as fine a performance as you would hear in any major concert hall anywhere in the world.  All the more amazing then, to learn after the concert that they had only been able to meet for the first time the day before. The musicians made it clear in conversation afterwards that this had been an emotionally demanding experience for them, too.

Before introducing the music itself to the packed audience of at least 200 people, Max explained that he and many other artists who have been as appalled as the rest of us at the genocide in Gaza, know that they have a special responsibility to use their platforms to express both solidarity with the Palestinian people and to raise the consciousness of their audiences.  

Felicity Laurence

Felicity Laurence from HJJ then spoke about our group and its commitment to ‘Never Again ‒ for Anybody’. She then talked about the musicians on the ground in Gaza who, against almost inconceivable odds, have continued to make music with children throughout the two years of the genocide, gathering groups together in the rubble to sing and dance, giving them a few brief moments in which they can reassert their humanity which Israel is constantly and brutally trying to eradicate. Felicity’s moving account drew a huge round of applause from the audience.

HJJ owes warmest thanks to the priest in charge, Father David Hill, for immediately saying yes to our request to use the beautiful church and also, of course, to the amazing Max Baillie. If you have not yet done so, you should definitely check out his upcoming concerts and sign up to his mailing list (St Leonards Concerts). Please do everything you can to support this brilliant and principled musician!