Sounding Together

A Conversation with Musicians from the Jewish-Palestinian Peace Initiative Standing Together Vienna

Abstract

This edited conversation examines the role of music in the Jewish-Arab peace initiative Standing Together Vienna, which was founded in October 2023 in response to the Hamas massacre on October 7 and the unfolding genocide in Gaza. The initiative organized vigils to mourn all Palestinian and Israeli victims, as well as protests demanding a ceasefire and just peace in Israel-Palestine. In Austria’s polarized political climate these events opened an alternative space that named the structural imbalance of occupation and refused ethnonationalism and racism in every form. The conversation brings together four Vienna-based musicians, Marwan Abado, Natalie Adler-Oppenheim, Golnar Shahyar, and Sakina Teyna, who reflect on their participation and musical performances at the movement’s first vigils in the fall of 2023. They discuss their motivations for participating in the movement, their considerations in choosing repertoire, and their experiences of navigating Austria’s repressive environment regarding discourse on Israel-Palestine, while also confronting pressures from within their own communities due to their participation in a joint initiative. The conversation contributes to ethnomusicological minority studies by exploring how diaspora musicians balance individual political articulation with community belonging in times of authoritarianism, war, and genocide. It illustrates how musical activism can contribute to peace work beyond romanticized notions of music as a unifier, by creating spaces of encounter where alternative futures can be imagined without flattening differences or power imbalances.