Audio installation featuring Avri Levitan (Tel Aviv) and Tyme Khleifi (Ramallah)

On the 65th anniversary of the formation of the Israeli State and the Palestinian Nakba, at the top of each hour the Rothko Chapel will play DUET an audio installation by Scottish artist,Ross Birrell. DUET features recitals of Birrell's composition Lift Me Up For I Am Dying, inspired by poet John Keats last words, performed by a Palestinian and an Israeli viola player in the historic Spiegelsaal of the Clärchens Ballhaus in Berlin. Standing in the same position, each musician performed separately and at their own pace resulting in renditions of differing tempo and duration. When the recitals are played back together a tension is produced in the displaced harmonies and mirrored dissonance of the resulting 'duet,' mirroring the shared geography but dissonant history of Israel and Palestine. The failure of the duet to find final harmony and its continued lapse into dissonance mirrors the fractured history of the Arab-Israeli conflict and its seemingly intractable condition. Equally, its evocation of a potential harmony, however fragile, reiterates the necessity of seeking a solution for sustained co-existence based upon mutual respect of the human rights of Arabs and Israelis, and the importance of defending and building upon every fragile ground of peace.