The Daniel Barenboim Foundation supports transcultural dialogue through music education and concerts. The foundation strives to overcome frontiers and to contribute to important reforms and renewals. In this effort, music plays a key role: both as a universal language that can help to encourage mutual acceptance between people of profoundly different backgrounds and as an intuitive means of communication that has a major role to play in the prevention and reconciliation of conflicts.
The Daniel Barenboim Stiftung
is the umbrella organization for the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra and the
Barenboim-Said Akademie with the Pierre Boulez Saal in Berlin. Its major
activities include the management of all aspects of the international tours of
the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, various music and education projects primarily
in the Middle East—such as the Barenboim-Said Music Center in Ramallah—as well
as individual grant programs. The foundation believes that music has much to
give to this region and strives to support a musical culture that will become a
constituent part of its emerging civil societies. A welcome side-effect is not
only to increase contacts between Israelis and Palestinians, but also between
Palestinians living on the West Bank and in Israel. In addition, the foundation
aims to provide talented musicians from Israel and Palestine a window to the
world by supporting their further education in world-class academies and
conservatories abroad.
The foundation was established
in 2008 by Daniel Barenboim and is based in Berlin, where it is registered as a
charitable foundation. The Daniel Barenboim Stiftung collaborates with an
international network of foundations and partners. The Junta de Andalucía and
the Spanish Government have been faithful and generous supporters through the
Fundación Barenboim-Said in Seville. Additional support is provided through the
Barenboim-Said Foundation USA and the West-Eastern Divan Trust UK.