Michael Barenboim has traveled more than 4,400 miles from Berlin to play the violin and eat powdered eggs in Chicago. He says the eggs are unnatural, but playing music with his father, conductor Daniel Barenboim, is real.

The violence stemming from the Middle East is real, too. Daniel Barenboim demonstrates his concern for peace through music making and cultural dialogue.

The West-Eastern Divan Workshop for Young Musicians, which has been rehearsing at Northwestern under Barenboim’s baton, will perform chamber music Monday night at Pick-Staiger Concert Hall and orchestra music Tuesday night at Orchestra Hall in Chicago, illustrating progress in cultural peace.

“Music is a good vehicle for getting people to come to know each other as people without incendiary rhetoric and political postulating,” said Cliff Colnot, resident conductor for the Civic Orchestra of Chicago.

Still, the workshop reflects current Middle Eastern politics. Nearly 20 musicians from Egypt did not have permission to attend the program from either the Egyptian government or the Cairo Conservatory, program director Mat