So you want to start a Festival do you? Why on earth would you want to do that? A glutton for punishment? Perhaps. Looking for an excuse not to practice? Maybe. Wanting to find an opportunity to get your friends and colleagues together for the joy of making music together? That’s more like it.

How many of us wish we could choose how we look by altering the color of our eyes or hair? Imagine a world in which a singer could choose his/her voice by shopping for it in a great voice shop in a major musical capital? For a string player, the unique opportunity of "finding" a voice is a reality.

In music, the combination of sensation and understanding which opens the doors of improvement as a process of discovery is the very backbone of real growth and development for student and professional alike. Active self-awareness and consistent review of the process of learning ensure productivity. Thinking this way means there really is no point of arrival. Instead, there are many points of departure.

A figure of great grandeur in Jewish history, King Solomon also has the stature of a tragic hero. In and around 900 BCE his vast empire stretched far beyond the boundaries of present day Israel. He was undoubtedly one of the wealthiest men of his time. He had everything: power, material riches, many wives, wisdom, respect, children. He, and he alone, was responsible for the life and, at times, the death of his people - the population of an entire country.