The choice of Nasreen Qadri to sing at the opening ceremony of the Israel Festival is not to be taken lightly. Qadri, 30, is an Arab Israeli born to Muslim parents in the coastal city of Haifa and currently lives in the suburban Tel Aviv town of Rishon Lezion. On June 1, she will stand on the large stage erected at the foot of the walls surrounding Jerusalem’s Old City and sing at the opening of the most prestigious Israeli festival, which this year will also mark a half century of the city’s unification, since the 1967 Six-Day War.
The festival directors decided that the best way to mark the unification of the Jewish and Arab parts of the city and to showcase its multiculturalism would be through groove music, which has developed in Israel in recent years fusing innovative Western sounds, quarter tones, traditional Arab-style improvisations and Mediterranean rhythms.