Cultural Voice

It was while wondering through "Katara", Qatar's cultural city that I happened upon a concert of the Qatar Philharmonic Opera. Their music filled the air, slightly chilled by the winds from the sea just beyond the amphitheatre. I decided to indulge in the sweetness of the musical vibrations from the Orchestra consisting 101 musicians who complemented the soloists Angela Gheorghiou and Roberto Alagna.  The Qatar Philharmonic Opera was commissioned by H.H. Sheika Mozah: “The mission of the Qatar Philharmonic Opera is to enhance community and culture within Qatar and throughout the region, bringing a message of peace to the world via the union of Arabic and Western Music.” “We will lead the way for children and adults to appreciate classic music and inspire those throughout the music field including composers, conductors and soloists. We share the Qatar foundation’s principle belief that a nation’s greatest resource is the potential of its people.” ...

In Doha, Qatar, one of the most constant things these days is a changing cityscape. It is rumored that 1 in 6 supercranes in the world are currently in Doha! As the city expands, there is chalky dust, roads lined with construction workers, construction matterials and off limit zones marked by advertisments in beautiful arabic and english everywhere. With plans for a super renovated airport to be completed within he next two years; and plans to create a man-made island; also for the development of the North Beach, which is to include 10 resort hotels, golf courses, 3000 villas, 300,000 sq meters of retail shopping, 6,000,000 sq meters of commercial sace and 12,000 apartments, there is no stopping the transformation that is happening in this city centre. But as the cityscape changes what of the cultural landscape, in a country where less that 20% of those resident are Qatari Citizens. The building boom started in the 1960s and attention is paid to integrate isla...

Culture continues to be the hot topic for discussion around the world and a panel consisting of cultural leaders and researchers discussed the role of culture and the creative industries as strategies for empowerment. Here are a few things that I took from the session. Hong Kong has been relying over the last 50 years on Financial Industries and is now looking to change focus. They plan to build a cultural district with very large performance spaces, museum spaces, and cultural infrastructure. The panel spoke to the many universities that were developing new programmes which combine the strength of traditional disciplines with input from the business schools and management studies. In this way the Universities are creating a cadre of cultural facilitators to support the development of Cultural Industries. China has adopted a policy specifically geared towards the development of cultural industries as a driver of the future economy of the country. One of the panelists shared h...