Yemen, Netherlands celebrate years of cooperation

Blistars, a Dutch vocal jazz group wowed the audience at the celebrations.

For the first time in Yemen, a Vocal Jazz group performed at the Sana’a Culture House, celebrating thirty years of Dutch-Yemen development cooperation. The Yemeni audience was blown away by this new type of music, clapping their hands and stomping their feet along with the predominantly expat audience. Yemeni’s in the crowd were especially amazed by the harmony of the group, who performed without instruments and acted while signing.   

A large number of foreign diplomats and high ranking Yemeni officials enjoyed an hour of music performed by the Dutch Biltstars.

Saturday October 25th, Yemen and the Netherlands celebrated with the Biltstars’ performance the 30th anniversary of the signing of the “Agreement on Technical Cooperation” between Yemen and the Netherlands. This Agreement marked the beginning of Dutch-Yemeni development cooperation, which has continued without interruption until today. Over three decades the two countries have implemented a wide range of activities in Yemen in many fields, including education, health, water, governance, human rights, and women’s empowerment.

The Dutch Embassy invited the the Biltstars, a nine-person, mixed top vocal jazz group from the Netherlands to perform. Like in Yemen, singing is a popular method of cultural expression in the Netherlands. Unlike in the Arab world where most singing is either by a sole lead voice, or in ‘unison’ by a group of singers (for example ‘nasheed’ in Yemen), in the Netherlands mixed voice singing is very popular. There are many (both amateur and professional) performers in hundreds of groups all over the country. A-capella (using voices only, without instruments) close-harmony singing is one of the more difficult forms, mastered by the Biltstars in its best form. They perform not only by singing, but also with a subtle choreography. The embassy is proud, with the cooperation of the Yemeni Ministry of Culture, the Biltstars were able to present for a Yemeni audience their best performance in the one-and-half hour show on Saturday 25 October. 

The leader of the group, Harold Lenselink said they are very happy to be here and share this experience with Yemenis. "Music bridges all differences between cultures and people, we did special music with Yemen producing a piece with Yemeni lyrics and we mix the music that we make that is vocal jazz and we tried to mix them together. This helps us understand each other's cultures.” 

Dutch Ambassador Harry Buikema said the group was happy to show their culture to Yemenis in order to strengthen cultural understanding between Yemen and Netherlands." We are working with Yemen in development, but if you want to change the minds of people, if you want to do something with a focus on the future, culture is an important part of our work. So, in that sense, we are working on poverty alleviation program, but in that sense culture should be added in to that program," said Buikema. He said that this concert was organized to show that cultural exchange is very important and an integral part in our development cooperation with Yemen.  Yemen's Minister of Culture, Dr.Abu Bakr al-Muflhi, praised Dutch efforts at establishing stronger cultural relations between the two countries. He mentioned several cultural projects undertaken by the Dutch in Yemen, including restoration of the Old City of Sana'a, the restoration of the Jurhoom House in Shibam, Hadhramout, and the restoration of Madrsat al-Amriyyah in Rad'a, which won the Aga Khan Prize. "We are looking forward to expanding and increasing cultural cooperation with the Netherlands especially in theater, cinema, archeology, museums, protection of Zabid city, development of hand artifacts and other cultural activity.”

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