Record affluence for El Djem’s 26-26 “Music and solidarity” concert as Viennese magic enthrals spectators
Tunis, July 15, 2008 (TunisiaOnline) --More than 6000 spectators attended the 26-26, ‘music and solidarity’ concert at El Djem’s open air Roman theatre on Saturday. Coming by specially commissioned trains, buses and by car, music lovers from all over Tunisia flocked to the former Roman city, which since 1979, is a UNESCO protected site.
The concert which was performed by the renowned Vienna Ball Room Orchestra, led by the Austrian conductor, Uwe Theimer, was a rare moment of grace alternating partitions from Verdi’s ‘La Traviata’, to Offenbach’s ‘Orpheus’, to Johan Starauss’ ‘the Blue Danube’.
Uwe Theimer even allowed himself the luxury of interpreting to a public truly under the charm, ‘Enti Omri’ an Arab musical masterpiece composed in the sixties by Mohammed Abdelwahab and sung by Oum Kalthoum.
In the word of the festival director Mr Mabrouk Layouni, “We have never had such an affluence for 23 years”.
In his turn, the Austrian maestro, pledged that he will not miss the concert another time ( a reference to last year’s concert which he could not attend), emphatically adding that “nothing again will make me miss El Djem, an important moment in my life as an artist and as a man.”
The proceedings of the concert will all go to Tunisia’s Solidarity Fund, also known by its postal account number as 26-26.
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