In Lebanon, single-concert festival serenades empty ruinsMaestro Harout Fazlian conducts rehearsals ahead of the Sound of Resilience concert inside the Temple of Bacchus at the historic site of Baalbek in Lebanon's eastern Bekaa Valley, on July 4, 2020BEIRUT - A philharmonic orchestra performed to spectator-free Roman ruins in east Lebanon Sunday, after a top summer festival downsized to a single concert in a year of economic meltdown and pandemic. The Baalbek International Festival was instead streamed live on television and social media, in what its director called a message of "hope and resilience" amid ever-worsening daily woes. Festival director Nayla de Freige told AFP most artists performed for free at the designated UNESCO World Heritage site. The concert aimed to represent "a way of saying that Lebanon does not want to die. Baalbek itself became a militia stronghold during Lebanon's 1975-1990 civil war, but conservation and tourism have revived the ruins over the past three decades.

Source: Bangkok Post July 05, 2020 19:41 UTC