JuliAn DAWes, composer March 2011 saw the first UK-based international conference onArt Musics of Israel. Themes included issues of identity, and the vast plurality of Israeli music was very
apparent.An impressive array of Israeli scholars, composers and performers interacted with colleagues from Britain. The lectures, roundtable discussions and concerts displayed a rich tapestry of work by Israeli musicians and academics, including art music, cantorial, cabaret and popular music, and jazz. Of the many things that engaged me I especially want to pick out the concert by Andre Hajdu and his Ha’Oman Hai Ensemble, which encapsulated the meaning of the whole
conference.Andre is a world-renowned composer, teacher and researcher, and his group of young musicians aims to bridge musical, social, cultural and spiritual divides. Their major influences include chasidic niggun, contemporary Israeli art music, popular music and jazz. They experiment with ancient Jewish melodies and texts, combining them into new, modern musical expressions, challenging traditional definitions of Jewish identity, culture and music, and providing a richly rewarding musical adventure.
BenWolFe, Director of the zemel choir The past ten years have provided a rich array of concerts and performances, many of them associated in my mind with the large-scale JMI events at the South Bank and Trafalgar Square. This makes it remarkably difficult to choose a highlight, particularly if that highlight has to be a single piece of music. However, I am going to be slightly immodest in choosing a piece that I commissioned: Rohan Kriwaczek’s concerto for klezmer band and orchestra, Nostalgia’s Own End. This has been a decade in which many composers (amongst them Ravi Shankar and Osvaldo Golijov) have combined orchestral sounds with the timbres and patterns of world music. Rohan’s concerto does this too, blending the world of klezmer into that of the symphony orchestra. It is thoughtful, but also wonderfully exuberant, and tremendous fun to perform. I am only sorry that it has not been performed more often…
music
MAlcolM Miller, musicologist, Director of JMi israeliMusic Forum One of the most significant musical works which explores issues of multi-layered Jewish identities within a wider, multicultural context is the song cycle Ayre by Osvaldo Golijov, theArgentinian-born American Jewish composer. Composed forAmerican soprano Dawn Upshaw and recorded in 2004, it followed two works similarly inspired by Jewish themes, Yiddishbbuk (2002) for the Kronos Quartet, and Tekyah (2004) for 12
shofars.As I wrote in my review of the European premiere at the Barbican (JRApril 2006), it takes its inspiration from Luciano Berio’s Folksongs, with a postmodern radicalism in the mixture of genres and styles, Sephardi and Ladino lullabies, klezmer clarinet, collages of Palestinian and Hebrew poetry, Christian andMuslimArab song, and echoes of minimalism, jazz and electronic rock.Avoiding constraining categorisations, Jewish music here resounds within a pulsating eclecticism redolent of music in the 21st century, and the result is a compelling work which broadens boundaries.
JeWish renAissAnce octoBer 2011 35
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