FEATURE: Gaza Music School, a Symbol of Resilience

Lillian Almadhoun is one of 120 students at the Gaza Music School (GMS), where she came to study Arabic music. Lillian hates Arabic pop, but her musical idol is none other than Canadian sensation Justin Bieber (she even keeps a few of his songs on her phone). Lillian came to the school to learn to play the piano, a popular choice, but she also learned the qanoun. “I like being here a lot,” she says. “When I play music, I do not know how to describe the feeling, but I feel different and that I am in a different place.”   

The Qattan Foundation launched the Gaza Music School project in July 2008 in response to growing demand for music education in the Gaza Strip. The GMS offers the first ever structured and long-term music education program in Gaza. None of the Gaza public or private schools has any music program, making this opportunity truly special for the more than 1.5 million residents of the Strip. The Edward Said National Conservatory of Music provided technical and academic support in order to help the school management establish its curricular and academic setup.


The Gaza Music School offers opportunities for musically talented children aged seven to 16 to learn the joy of music and to share it with their community. Around 120 students are currently enrolled in the school’s regular program which offers lessons in the following instruments: oud, violin, piano, guitar, qanoun, trumpet, and cello.

The school specializes in Arabic instruments such as the qanoun, a triangular stringed instrument a little like a horizontal harp, and the oud, a pear-shaped stringed instrument similar to a lute, and also teaches Western classical instruments and music theory. This music school defies Gaza's popular image, but it is already nurturing a young musical generation worthy of its peers anywhere else. Each of the students attends lessons three times a week after school for two sessions of learning an instrument and one for theory. While many had never touched a musical instrument before, they all completed and passed competitive hearing and rhythm tests to be able to enroll.

“Music is the heart, the center of Civilization, and we need the students to realize that,” says Ibrahim Al Najjar, music instructor at the Gaza School. Al Najjar studied music in Cairo in the late sixties and taught music in Kuwait and Romania for 37 years before returning to Gaza. In Gaza, he would teach music and later join the staff of the Gaza Music School.

The music schools face many logistical problems faced by staff and students at Gaza Music School, the only music school in the 360 square kilometer strip of land controlled by Israel. "It's a logistical nightmare," said Suhail Khoury, director of the Edward Said National Conservatory of Music.

Of course the music school cannot escape the harsh reality of the frequent Israeli military operations in Gaza. The Gaza Music School was destroyed during the Israeli war on Gaza in January 2009. In recognition of the vitality of the GMS to the social, psychological, and artistic development of children, and against tremendous odds, the School reopened three months later in a new expanded space, with additions to the staff to accommodate the needs of a growing number of students. Support for the reopening effort came from individuals and institutions locally. The Jerusalem Fund believes in providing a healthy escape for youth in Gaza; music is one option for some of those children living under siege and occupation.

On the destruction of their school as a result of an Israeli airstrike, Al Najjar comments, “My students lost faith and thought our music would be silent. I told them, ‘We will rebuild.’” After the attacks, he added, “Music was needed to help the children forget the war and look forward.”

A grant from The Jerusalem Fund to the Edward Said National Conservatory of Music allowed more children to benefit from the school’s programs. Scholarships help the students overcome the economic and the political burdens they are placed under. The Gaza Music School hopes to expand its programs to acting, and painting and is quickly becoming a symbol of resilience. The students of the Gaza School are already winning prizes in regional and national music competitions where they perform via video streaming since they are not granted permits by the Israeli military to leave to the West Bank.

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