Twenty Israeli Composers: Voices of a Culture

Israel's contemporary art music reflects a
modern society that is an intricate fabric of
national and ethnic origins, languages and
dialects, customs and traditions--a heterogeneous culture of cultures. It is a rich and distinctive environment--at once ancient
and modern, Western and non-Western,
spiritual and secular, traditional and progressive.

Twenty Israeli Composers, the first published collection of interviews with Israeli composers, explores this developing and distinctive music culture. The featured composers have earned distinction in Israel and abroad, and reflect the pluralism of Israeli art music, culture, and society In first-person narrative, they discuss the interaction of inspiration, method, and cultural context in their work, revealing both international and national influence and scope. Three generations of contemporary composers--immigrants from Central and Eastern Europe, North and South America, and native sabras--share their ideas about music, the creative process, and their experiences as artists living and working in Israel. Robert Fleisher furnishes a biographical sketch of each composer, followed by a summary of recent accomplishments. The book also includes a
bibliography, discography, and information
for further study

In part one, the late HanochJacoby, a first-generation immigrant composer who studied with Paul Hindemith in his native Germany, discusses the attempt to integrate his European musical heritage with the new
environment of Israel by employing rhythmic
formulas of the hora and other dances. In part two, Ben-Zion Orgad, who counts Aaron Copland among his teachers, and is one of Israel's most prominent second-generation
composers, reflects on the Hebrew language, and the articulation of time in the poetry of Paul Celan as resources for his compositions. Part three includes third-generation composer, Noa Guy, born one year after Israel's independence to a family that immigrated from Russia six generations earlier, who studied with Boris Blacher and worked as a calligrapher for Karlheinz Stockhausen, while creating chamber, electronic, and theater works. This book offers a timely perspective on the vibrant art-music culture of Israel at the mid-point of the nation's first century, and at the same time reflects the diversity of its population and cultural history.