Starting a new season at the Jerusalem Festival
Dear friends,
Our ninth season opening is just around the corner!
We are very happy to come back and play at the prestigious Jerusalem International Chamber Music Festival. This time we will take part in four concerts during the festival. We will open the very first concert with a premier of a piece by Omri Abram, Iridescence, written especially for us and commissioned by the festival. In addition we will perform our original theatrical version of Berio’s Opus Number Zoo. The staging of Ari Teperberg was received enthusiastically in previous performances so we are excited to play it also for the wonderful audience in the YMCA concert hall. All of the festival’s concerts will be broadcasted live on Israeli radio.
Berio’s piece would also be the pivot of the other three concerts of this tour (Jerusalem, Haifa and Kfar-Saba) in a program dedicated to music corresponding with other arts, from the Habanera dance through the cabaret of Weill to the film soundtrack of Nino Rota.
Click on the picture below for more details.
Echoes from the previous season: Launching our debut album and Switzerland tour
The 2016 - 2017 season was full and exciting. In December we launched our debut album in a festive concert tour in Israel. The CD includes some of our favourite pieces from eight years of joint playing.
For details and online order please click on the picture - the CD is now available also on iTunes, Deezer, Amazon and Spotify.
With Ari Ben-Shabetai, composer of ‘Winks’, a piece dedicated to our quintet.
It is included in the album along with pieces by Beethoven, Bach and Piazzolla
In addition to 28 (!) concerts all over Israel, educational projects and masterclasses, last season we also toured Switzerland for the first time. The Soprano Einat Aronstein joined us for a program dedicated to the music of Jewish composers from around the world, arranged by Yuval Shapiro especially for this tour. We had successful concerts in Bern, Basel and Zürich and received several enthusiastic reviews:
"...the young Israeli musicians captured the audience from the very first note...beautiful, sensitive interpretations throughout the evening...vivid interpretations of the ensemble fascinated the audience and made the evening into a wonderful journey "
(Tachles Magazine, June 2017)
Performing at the Yehudi Menuhin Forum in Bern with soprano Einat Aronstein
During the tour we also had the chance to meet maestro Sergio Azzolini for an inspiring working session.
He used this oppurtunity for a short private oboe lesson...
Updates on quintet members
Some joyful news on the personal level - our clarinet player Danny Erdman won the position of principal clarinet in the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, starting this September. Check out the orchestra’s concert schedule here.
Itamar Leshem performed recently as a soloist with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of maestro Zubin Mehta. Three orchestra members joined him for Schumann’s Concert Piece for four horns, played in Israel and on a tour in South America.
Itamar on stage at the Mann Auditorium in Tel Aviv, and backstage with Maestro Mehta and the colleagues Dalit Segal, Yoel Abbadi
and Michael Slatkin
Roy Amotz released a new solo CD during the summer. It includes pieces by Rachmaninov and Reinecke under the title ‘Dreams’. You can hear samples and purchase it online here (click on the picture):
A sneak peak to the next season
This upcoming season we continue to perform and conduct educational activities all over Israel.
In October we will collaborate with the music department of the Thelma Yellin High School of the Arts - this collaboration will be seen and heard in a festive concert of the Ronen Foundation in the Tel-Aviv Museum of Art. In the frame of our extensive winter tour (from Akko to Be’er-Sheva) we include special concerts dedicated to Israeli music as part of the ‘Poem Balev’ concert series, supported by the Israel Music Institute. In February we will renew our collaboration with the Israel Composers' League, featuring a new program of premiers in the Israel Conservatory Tel Aviv.
The last tour of the season in May will bring us a guest all the way from Brazil, the pianist Gustavo Luiz Carvalho.
You can find all of the information in our updated concerts page - save the dates!
Wishing you all a Shana Tovah and a wonderful year, filled with great music.
Yours,
The Tel Aviv Wind Quintet
With pianist Yaron Kohlberg during our tour in April, performing a house concert in Even Yehuda.