Program For The Concert

Tomáš Tuláček and Friends - Between Prague and Tel Aviv

At Beit Hayozer, Tel Aviv, September 6th 2019, 13:00

A violin and viola player with extensive interest in both Baroque and classical repertoire and contemporary music, with an emphasis on composers from his region (former Czechoslovakia) and Jewish and Israeli composers. Born in Prague to a family of professional musicians for several generations. His first appearance was at the age of 10 in concerts and television programs in the Czech Republic, Poland and Germany. Among his well-known teachers are Dr. Joseph Mika and Prof. Nora Grumlikova. Lived in England for 20 years during which he performed extensively around Europe and today lives in Slovakia. Tomas frequently performs Jewish music by Ernst Bloch and others. Tomáš Tuláček often comes to Israel to participate in recordings and radio and television programs, and to perform works by Israeli composers including Ayal Adler, Yinam Lif, Eitan Avitsur, Hilat Ben-Kenaz, Boris Levenberg, Yuval Avni, Uri Brenner and Efrat Gerlich. Last year, he performed Efrat Rachel-Gerlich's Fantasia Concertante (its world premiere) with the Jerusalem Street Orchestra and conductor Ido Spitalnik.

Uri Brener - Jewish Suite (2017)

The suite's four movements are:
The Chotzer, Almost a lullaby, The Fiddler, Broigez Tanz
"Jewish Suite" is a series of images from the life of the old time European Jewry, originally written for a Trio of clarinet, violin and piano in 2017. In its entirety has six movements. First performed about two years ago with Tomáš Tuláček and clarinetist Delibor Dotsky in Slovakia.
Dr. Uri Brenner, composer and pianist, was born in Moscow. He studied in well-known institutes in Russia, Germany and the Netherlands. Has a doctor's degree in composition from the Bar-Ilan University.
In his works, Brenner combines different cultures and musical schools that he is well familiar of, from 20th-century Russian tradition, through contemporary European music to Jewish motives and jazz, with an emphasis on the immediate experience of the listener. To date, he has written more than 100 compositions in various styles and for many different ensembles. His works were performed in the most important halls in Europe, USA, Russia and more.
Uri has won numerous prestigious national and international awards, including the Prime Minister's Composers Award (2006 and 2017), three ACUM Awards and more.
Uri often appears on radio broadcasts and television shows.
In 2008, Brenner was appointed composer in residence of the Israeli Sinfonietta Beer-Sheva and since 2016 is the musical director of the "Micro" theater in Jerusalem.
In 2017, Uri was appointed director of the "Ron Shulamit” conservatory operating in Jerusalem.

Uri Netanel - Desert Landscape

The composer's notes about the work: Desert Landscape was written at about 1982 during my studies in the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance under the guidance of Prof. Zvi Avni and as a collaboration between a dancer-choreographer (Liora Schwartz), composer (me) and 'cellist (me) for a project in the academy calling for such collaborations. The desert was rather an abstract theme for us and with her rich imagination Liora enlivened it in what I would call figurative (realistic) movements. We worked on the composition and rehearsed it together. Soon after performing the 'cello version I made a viola version for my young brother Oded Netanel and he performed it at a concert at the Jerusalem academy and many years later (2015) with another dancer, Liora Ziet, at the Jerusalem Music Center.
For his coming Israeli tour violinist Tomáš Tuláček asked if I could transpose it for violin and I responded by arranging it for violin and piano for this concert.
Uri Netanel was born in 1958, studied composition in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. Among his teachers were Professors Zvi Avni, Isaac Sadai and Leon Shidlowski in composition, and Shmuel Magen in cello. Composed of songs by Shlomit Cohen-Asif, Heinrich Heine and other poets, as well as chamber, orchestral and choral works. Two love songs for words by his grandfather, the late Gedaliah Marmur were broadcast on Kol ha Musica radio station. His works were performed since 1981, at the Jerusalem Music Center in 2015, the Felicia Blumenthal Center in Tel Aviv, 2016, the Sounds in the Desert Festival (2015, 2017) and more. Participated in the "Liberty-Otherness-Responsibility" project of the Modalius Ensemble, in which 8 new works were written and performed at the Israeli Music Festival in 2016, including "African Story" by Uri Netanel. The work was also recorded by the Modalius Ensemble as part of the project. Received a gold medal for his work in music at the World Art Games Festival in Belgrade, Serbia, 2019. His work "Nuri" for flute, guitar and cello was performed and recorded at the New Music on the Bayou Festival in Louisiana, USA, 2017. Participated in "Talking Arts" conferences in Jerusalem, to promote the Arab-Jewish dialogue through the performing arts, which took place until 2012.

Carmel Raz - Secret Ballad for Violin and Piano

Ido Shirom - Apocalypse for Piano Solo, Played by the composer

Ido Shirom was described by Michael Wolpe in the program of the “Sounds in the Desert” Festival as “one of the most original and courageous Israeli composers today who has chosen to express himself in a personal religious and spiritual style that has strong influences both of Bach and of minimalism (Philip Glass, Steve Reich and Arvo Pärt), whose style is always tonal and uses tonality with complex chords and polyphonic minimalism, and is also influenced by the style of rock and progressive rock bands (RADIOHEAD, U2, etc.). His personal style is characterized by conciseness, technical perfection and expressiveness.
Ido Shirom recorded his works for choir and orchestra with the world-renowned Yona Music Choir and the Lithuanian Symphony Orchestra. His compositions were played on the radio in Israel and Hungary, and were played in all major festivals in Israel, such as the Israeli Music Festival and “Sounds in the Desert”. The Jerusalem Camerata Orchestra conducted by Avner Biron successfully performed the “A Song of Parting” for strings in 5 concerts throughout Israel in 2015.

Daniela Cohn-Levitas - Sonata no.1

Composer's comments on the piece: I composed the sonata during my composition studies at Tel Aviv University with Prof. Ehrlich. It has been performed in various parts of the world, including the Louvre Auditorium in Paris.
Danielle Cohen-Levitas studied piano from the age of 6. Later, she studied composition at Tel Aviv University with Prof. Abel Ehrlich and at the Jerusalem Academy of Music with Prof. Zvi Avni. She also studied composition at the Frankfurt School of Music under the direction of Prof. Wolfgang Rihm. Her works are performed at concerts, festivals and competitions in Israel, Canada, USA, France (at the Louvre Museum) and other places around the world. Among her works are piano music, chamber music, symphonies and choir music.

Shaked Shachar - Midnight Journey for piano

“Midnight Journey” was written during the last year of Shaked's military service and gives a musical expression to this period of his life, in which he had to take a break from his constant pursuit of music to serve in a serious intelligence job which required a lot of time and sacrifice of his pursuit of music in favor of the state. The work describes the good and difficult moments in service and includes various musical ideas written during it, the main theme of the work being based on a harmonic progression he wrote in his room at the military base.
Shaked is an Israeli pianist and composer. He was born in Haifa and studied piano in the class of Anna Reitburg. Despite his young age, his passion and talent drove him to perform many concerts in Israel and abroad, both as an accompanist and as a soloist. Shaked was introduced to Ensemble Moscheles during their visit to Israel, where they performed together to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Czechoslovakia.
Since then he has performed concerts in Hungary, Slovakia, Switzerland and Israel.

Miroslav Miletič - Croatian Dance from Dalmatia (Israeli premiere)

Miroslav Miletić (1925-2018) studied in Zagreb, Salzburg and Prague. He collaborated with Karlheinz Stockhausen on electronic music and continued his studies of contemporary chamber music in Darmstadt in Germany. Miletić performed as a viola soloist with several orchestras, and since 1946 he was an active violist of the Zagreb Radio Symphony and the Zagreb Philharmonic Orchestra. He was also a viola and violin teacher and the founder, manager and member of the renowned "Pro Arte Zagreb" String Quartet. As composer, Miletić’s unique expression reflects his respect and devotion for Croatian national folklore. He wrote symphonic music, operas, concertos for different instruments, chamber music, piano works, as well as film and children music. His special interests and skills were devoted to viola, violin and guitar compositions. Every year, in his home town of Sisak, Croatia there is a two-day concert celebration in his honor entitled "The Music Days of Miroslav Miletić". His "Ples za Violinu Solo" (1958) is the most performed classical composition in the history of Croatian music. Miroslav dedicated it to his teacher in Prague Pavel Bořkovec, who probably oversaw its inception.

Michael Wolpe - Piano Trio No. 3 (1st movement)

Wolpe composed his third piano trio especially for the Jerusalem "Inbar" trio in the 1990s, and it is based on tunes of Hebrew songs.
The first movement of the piece is based on "The Song of the Field", composed by David Zahavi, a member of Kibbutz Naan and one of the pioneers of Hebrew music at the beginning of the 20th century.
Prof. Michael Wolpe is an Israeli musician and educator, a member of Kibbutz Sde Boker, a lecturer at the Jerusalem Academy of Music and a teacher at several schools in Jerusalem and the Negev. Musical director of the Sounds in the Desert and Pianos festivals.

Efrat-Rachel Gerlich - Macedonian Fantasy

The composer's notes about the work: Macedonian Fantasy is actually the third movement of a larger work, Fantasia Concertante, completed in 2017 under the guidance of Zohar Sharon. work was written in memory of members of my community of Monastir-Bitola (in former Yugoslavia) of whom those who did not immigrate to Palestine before the holocaust, like my father's family, nor joined the partisans, were transported in cattle carriages from the Monopol tobacco factory in Scopia to the Treblika crematoriums. None of these survived, and thus over 90% of the community perished. The origin of the community was the Spain and Portugal Expulsion. My father, Shlomo Albocher, wrote a detailed book "The Community of Monastir (Bitola)" and I felt I wanted to commemorate them through my music. For this purpose I chose a Macedonian folk song about a boy and a girl who live at two separate banks of the river and cannot fulfill their love. I felt they symbolize the people of Israel who for almost 2000 years could not fulfill their love to the land of Israel. The work was premiered in its full version in February 0218 at the Gonenim Music Center, Jerusalem, with Tomáš Tuláček as soloist and the Jerusalem Street Orchestra conducted by Ido Shpitalnik.
The SPCCF festival asked me to send a short piece for soloist and orchestra and so the idea was born to send the third movement as an independent piece. It was played by the Brazilian Orchestra (Orquestra Sinfonica do Teatro Nacional Claudio Santoro) conducted by Maestro Christian Schulz and violinist Lilian Raiol. The Macedonian Fantasy describes the revival and rebirth and is optimistic and replete with broken rhythms from Yugoslavia, Greece and the rest of the Balkans.
Efrat-Rachel Gerlich is a composer, and instrumentalist in recorder, accordion, piano and percussion. She has a BA from the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance in music and musical education using the Kodaly method. Established a band called Charisma that performed original ethnic jazz. She also specialized in percussion with Oren Fried.
For the last ten years, Efrat has been involved in composition and studied for five years with composer Zohar Sharon. She is a prolific composer of choral and symphonic music (her oratorio Daniel, Fanfare for the New Jerusalem), chamber music (Prayer of the Heart, Blow a Mighty Shofar, arrangements for the Noga Trio) and music for solo instruments such as French horn, marimba and piano.
She sings in the Liturgi-Kal choir and has founded her own choir “Haleluhu” which performs her songs and arrangements. Her works were performed in many festivals, among them the ACL International Festival in Vietnam (2016), the SPCCF Festival in Brazil (2018), the Sounds in the Desert Festival (2015, 2018).

Uri Netanel - Kaddish (Premiere)

Composer's comments on the work: The work is dedicated to the memory of my father, Moshe Netanel, who passed away in April 2007. I wrote it as a string quartet in the second half of 2007, and submitted it to several string quartets, but the work was not accepted by any of them. Recently, I was contacted by Tomáš Tuláček, through Efrat Gerlich, and I was told that he was looking for a Kaddish for solo violin and ensemble (for him and for the Moscheles ensemble). I enthusiastically returned to the work. The years that passed emphasized the changes I now wanted to do in my work: I discarded many secondary themes and focused on the principle one, my setting of the "Orphan's Kaddish" prayer, played primarily by the soloist. Alongside this, I inserted sections of another piece I wrote in 2009-2011 called Variations on Dreams. The theme of these variations originated in my sister-in-law's dream. In her dream, which took place about two years after his death, my father appeared and sung a sad tune with angels' voices, as Orly, my sister-in-law, called them. His singing included a whole texture: melody and accompaniment at the same time. Based on this dream, I wrote my variations for trio, and eventually quoted them in Kaddish, finally sounding together with the theme of the solo violin. Finally, the whole ensemble takes part in a fugato on my setting of the end of the prayer (with the words "Peace maker in His heavens will mercifully make peace among us, and among all. Amen").

Henry Weinblat (Arr. Efrat Gerlich) - Aaronic Blessing

Efrat Gerlich, the arranger, about the work: I made the arrangement of the Aaronic Blessing in 2015 shortly after Henry Weinblett passed away. I've known Henry for many years. He was a Holocaust survivor who did not have a family but was not alone because the beautiful melodies he wrote brought him many friends who played them many times, even in his lifetime. It was not difficult to arrange this tune because Henry himself gave it the title "God bless you". Henry unknowingly turned the Biblical Hebrew phrase into a simpler spoken Hebrew. Henry was a man of prayer, therefore I took the Biblical text from Numbers 6, 24-26. Originally I arranged the tune for two soprano singers and two violins. Later I extended the accompaniment to a full string quartet and this is the version performed today.

About the composers and players

(*Translated by google)

Aviram Netanel, keyboard arranger, processor producer, and information systems engineer. Born in Israel in 1984. He studied at the Rimon School for Pianists and writes music for videos and plays.

The three songs are taken from his debut album, which he himself produces and participates in, with various musicians, including Efrat and Uri “The Natanels”.

Uri Netanel, composer and cellist, was born in 1958, holds a BA from the Jerusalem Academy of Music and a master’s degree in composition from the Tel Aviv Academy of Music. His works were performed at the “Sounds in the Desert” festival under the artistic direction of Prof. Michael Wolpe in 2015 and 2017. Among his performers are the Meitar Ensemble, the Modalius Ensemble, Ayelet Cohen, the Carmel Quartet, the Spectrum Ensemble and the Tel Aviv Saxophone Quartet. Participated in the New Music on the Bayou Festival in Louisiana, USA, 2017.

“The Non Dreamer” is one of Shlomit Cohen Assif’s poems set to music by the composer.

Efrat-Rachel Gerlich is a composer, and instrumentalist in recorder, accordion, piano and percussion. Born in 1959, she holds a BA from the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance in music and musical education using the Kodaly method. Established a band called Charisma that performed original ethnic jazz. She also specialized in percussion with Oren Fried.

For the last ten years, Efrat has been involved in composition and studied for five years with composer Zohar Sharon, the musical director of the Revolution Orchestra.

Her works were performed at the Desert Sounds Festival (2015), the Mishkenot Sha’ananim Music Center, the Vietnam International Festival (2016), the Osmos Festival in Belgium (2018) and more.

Her works were performed by Trio Noga, the vocalists Leonid Axelrud and Marina Gurevich, the violinist Tomas Tulacek (Slovakia) and the Jerusalem Street Orchestra conducted by Ido Shpitalnik and others.

Ido Shirom was described by Michael Wolpe in the program of the “Sounds in the Desert” Festival as “one of the most original and courageous Israeli composers today who has chosen to express himself in a personal religious and spiritual style that has strong influences both of Bach and of minimalism (Philip Glass, Steve Reich and Arvo Pärt), whose style is always tonal and uses tonality with complex chords and polyphonic minimalism, and is also influenced by the style of rock and progressive rock bands (RADIOHEAD, U2). His personal style is characterized by conciseness, technical perfection and expressiveness.

Ido Shirom recorded his works for choir and orchestra with the world-renowned Yona Music Choir and the Lithuanian Symphony Orchestra. His compositions were played on the radio in Israel and Hungary, and were played in all major festivals in Israel, such as the Israeli Music Festival and “Sounds in the Desert”. The Jerusalem Camerata Orchestra conducted by Avner Biron successfully performed the “A Song of Parting” for strings in 5 concerts throughout Israel in 2015.

His concerto for saxophone soprano and strings won the 2009 “Desert Sounds Festival” award.

Yuval Shay-El Composer, jazz player with piano and trumpet, choir singer and physicist. Born in Israel in 1963. Married with two children. Studied composition with Zvi Harry Nadel, Charles Fassel and Lucas Fuss. He has a master’s degree in composition from Boston University and a meteorology from Tel Aviv University, and since 1984 he has written many works for chamber ensembles and symphonic orchestras, and his musical style combines modern compositional techniques with traditional, folk and jazz influences. And in Israel at festivals and prestigious ensembles, including Music Nova, the chamber series of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, the Meitar Ensemble, Etti Ben-Zaken and the Modalius Ensemble, piano duo Kenazawa-Admoni, the Kolot Renaissance Ensemble Tel Aviv, String Quartet ‘, The Israeli Music Festival, the’ Sounds in ‘festival Bar ‘, a series of’ beating heart ‘Tel Aviv Museum, and broadcast on radio. He has produced several CDs featuring his works in both modern and classic jazz.

The Yuval Shay-El CD includes four violin and piano sonata, a piano suite, eight light duo for violin and cello, and “Song of Songs” for voice and piano, string quartet. 2 (2009) premiered by the String Ensemble Spectrum Ensemble at the Desert Sounds Festival in Sde Boker in December 2017. The CD from 2014 is a jazz composition composed of jazz compositions composed according to the principles of the classical symphony performed by the jazz quartet And his “Love Thy Neighbor” (2016), commissioned by Etti Ben-Zaken and the Modalius Ensemble for the 2016 Israeli Music Festival, and performed in it and at another concert at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art (2017).

Shiri Reisman, born in 1992. Composer, singer and conductor. She graduated from the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance for a fourth year. The student of Yosef Bardanashvili for composition and Yuval Zoran for conducting. She is a graduate of the Thelma Yellin High School and is a graduate of the Jerusalem Music Center and is a recipient of the Sidai Scholarship from the Jerusalem Institute of Contemporary Music in 2017 and 2018. She was educated and grew up in various musical cultures: classical Western music, jazz, Indian music and Arabic music.
Her works were performed by various ensembles – Modalius, Meitar and others.

Pianist Ofra Yitzhaki was described in Ha’aretz as a “virtuoso and profound artist” and “Israeli artist of the highest level,” and her playing was described in New York Magazine as “sensationalism in the full sense of the word.” She holds a Ph.D. in Music Art from the Julliard School of the Arts in New York and is the recipient of the Carnegie Hall’s Contemporary Music Competition for the Millennium for Contemporary Music.
Ofra Yitzhaki performs regularly in Israel and around the world in recitals and chamber music and soloist with orchestras. She has performed as a soloist with orchestras such as the Berlin Symphony, the American Symphony Orchestra, the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, the Jerusalem Chamber Orchestra, the National Concert Hall of Seoul, the Seoul Arts Center Korea Museum), the Tel Aviv Museum and the Jerusalem Theater.
Ofra Yitzhaki is a member of the faculty of the Buchmann-Mehta School of Music at Tel Aviv University and has served as a judge in competitions such as the Prime Minister’s Award for Composers, the Paul Ben-Haim Competition for Israeli Music and the Spring Competition of the America-Israel Cultural Foundation.

The soprano Rivka Falk, a native of Chile, a resident of Israel, graduated from the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance, won first prize at the Jerusalem Studio Opera. Won the competition Romances in Petach Tikva in first place. Studying sound development in Italy and Israel.

Keshet Zamir Raveh – Soprano Singer – Born in Haifa. Graduate of the Music Department at Reut School of the Arts, Haifa. As a member of the choirs she sang solo roles several times. In the opera workshops of her school she sang the role of Fiordialigi (so do all) selected parts of the role of Queen of the Night (the magic flute) and the role of Elice (Plastaf).
Keshet participated in the program for outstanding singers at the Mishkenot Sha’ananim Music Center, an ambitious program for young opera singers. She was also chosen to participate in master classes of renowned artists. Today Keshet continues her studies with Rona Israel-Kolat.