Fresh Air, Lorin Maazel, Bassam Aramin, and Zohar Shapira, March 10, 2008

De: Terry Gross

Hear Combatants for Peace co-founders Bassam Aramin and Zohar Shapira, and conductor/composer Lorin Maazel, on this edition of Fresh Air.

Bassim Aramin and Zohar Shapira are the cofounders of the Combatants for Peace, a group of Israeli and Palestinian individuals who were once involved in the cycle of violence in their area. Aramin was a member of the Fattah movement, and at the age of 17 began a seven-year sentence in an Israeli prison. He now works as a clerk at the Palestinian National Archives. Shapira served for 15 years in an elite unit of the Israeli army as combatant and commander. He is now a teacher in a Waldorf school in Israel. Combatants for Peace (C4P) is an organization of more than 550 Palestinans and Israelis.

Then, Lorin Maazel, who recently led the New York Philharmonic on their historic trip to Pyongyang, North Korea, at the invitation of the North Korean government. The program consisted of Dvorak's New World Symphony and Gershwin's American in Paris; the encore was "Arirang", a Korean folk song. A senior U.S. diplomat told Maazel that the concert "could well have done more for U.S.-North Korean relations than 30 years of diplomatic efforts." [Broadcast Date: March 10, 2008]

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