In the outdoor hall of the Lebanese Academy of Fine Arts (Alba), in east Beirut, young musicians take their instruments out of their cases, set up music stands and plastic chairs in a semi-circle facing their conductor, Nidal Abi Samra. A few minutes later, the first notes of On the Hills of Manchuria, a waltz by Russian composer Ilya Alexeyevich Shatrov, ring out in the warm evening air. Clarinets, transverse flutes, saxophones, trombones, trumpets and percussion respond to each other with precision.
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