Talking to conductor, singer and teacher Carlos Fernandez Aransay

Photo:P.Hickman

On March 30th 2010 I had the pleasure of talking to Carlos Fernandez Aransay in Buitrago del Lozoya, Spain. A singer, accompanist, teacher and choral, orchestral- and opera conductor, Maestro Aransay has published several articles, translates, has been assistant secretary of the Iberian and Latin American Music Society (ILAMS) and has taught vocal- and operatic repertoire at the City Literary Institute, London.

PH: Carlos, what are your first musical experiences?

CFA: I was born in Tarragona in Catalonia (Spain). My mother was a very fine pianist, winning first prize for her playing at the Murcia Conservatoire (where I was later to win first prize for Harmony studies.). So my first musical experience was hearing her play the piano. She played a lot of Chopin. At the age of 8, I began studying piano and solfege.

PH: And where did you continue your studies?

CFA: I went on to graduate from the Royal Conservatoire of Music (Madrid) in Piano, Theory and Composition. By then I was studying singing at the Escuela Superior de Canto de Madrid, where I was also working as an accompanist. I took post-graduate studies at the Royal College of Music (London) in Orchestral Conducting and Composition and sang solo recitals and in opera. I then went on to study conducting privately with Jacques Delacote in Vienna, becoming his assistant for two years in performances of “Carmen” with Jose Carreras in Munich, Zurich and Berlin.

PH: Would you like to talk about Coro Cervantes?

CFA: Yes. I founded the Coro Cervantes chamber choir in 1995 in London, where we performed our first public concert in 1996 at the Spanish Embassy. Under the auspices of the Instituto Cervantes, the ensemble’s mission is to bring Iberian and Latin American music to British audiences. In 1998, the Coro Cervantes became a professional choir, traveling to Mexico, Spain, Latin America - we performed in Mexico at the Guanajuato Festival, the biggest arts festival in Latin America – and to Russia. Singing in a reconsecrated cathedral in Moscow was a very moving experience for us.

We have 16 singers in the ensemble, two thirds of whom are British and one third, Hispanic. There is a core group of 10 singers, with others joining them to perform specific repertoire. All are professional singers. Our repertoire is varied, including both sacred and secular music, spanning from music of medieval times to much Renaissance music, right through to contemporary music, such as the works of one of Spain’s most distinguished contemporary Spanish composers, Anton Garcia Abril (b.1933).

Although we are often supported by the Spanish Embassy and the Spanish Institute of Culture, it is financially difficult to run a professional group in these times. We do, however, have a loyal following in Britain. London offers wonderful opportunities for the choral conductor

PH: Would you like to mention some of the different programs Coro Cervantes has presented as well as future plans?

CFA: Yes. We have performed a complete program of music from the Habsburg court - of the time of Philip II and Charles V - and music from the time of Catherine of Aragon. The concert focusing on the latter took place in Peterborough, where Catherine is buried. We also sang the London premiere of Spanish composer Bartolome de Escobedo’s (c.1500-1563) 6-voiced “Missa Philippus Rex Hispaniae”. In addition to works in Spanish, Coro Cervantes sings in Quechua (the Inca language), Nahuatl (the Aztec language), medieval Galician, Catalan, Basque and in other languages.

Another interesting project consisted of two programs in connection with literary works of Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616), one accompanying a play and another, a lecture. There is mention of many songs both in “Don Quijote” and in Cervantes’ short novels. The music is either anonymous or by composers contemporary to Cervantes or before his time, composers such as Luys de Navaez, Luys de Milan, Enriquez de Valderrabano, and others. The Globe Theatre was an inspiring venue for these events.

In October 2009, we sang in the opening of “The Sacred Made Real: Spanish Painting and Sculpture, 1600-1700”, an exhibition at the National Gallery, London.

PH: What about recordings?

CFA: We have recorded several discs. To mention just three, “O Crux”, our first disc, which presents Spanish sacred music of the 19th century, was chosen by Gramophone Magazine as one of the CD’s of the year.

“Oratio” – our disc of 20th century music from Spain and Latin America – was awarded 5 stars by the BBC Music Magazine. This disc includes Ginastera’s “Lamentations”.

“Yanomami” (the Yanomami tribes live in the rainforests of northern Brazil and southern Venezuela) is a disc of choral music accompanied by guitar. The disc, presenting music of Spain and Latin America, supports “Survival International”, a movement helping tribal peoples in defending their lives and protecting their lands.

At the end of 2010 in Madrid, we may be recording sacred Spanish- and Basque music from the 19th century, the choice of these much-neglected works being the result of collaboration between musicologists and myself.

PH: You mentioned that you studied Composition.

CFA: I obtained both a post graduate drgree and an Associateship from the Royal College of Music in London in Composition. I do compose now and then but hope to have time to do more in the future. I have a few songs and choral pieces I would like to perform. Most recently, I wrote two arrangements for our Epana CD.

PH: I understand that teaching is close to your heart.

CFA: Indeed. A great deal of my work in London is as a vocal coach and I work much with young opera singers in Latin America. I also direct an important singing competition in Peru. I divide my time between choral work and teaching vocal technique. In addition to Coro Cervantes, I have a new choir focusing on opera – The London Lyric Chorus. Am guest conductor of choirs in Latin America and of the National Choir of Spain and guest lecturer teaching choral- and orchestral conducting at the National Conservatoires of Lima, Peru and Celaya, Mexico. And then I enjoy working with and conducting singers in international choral workshops, such as the Lacock courses. All the vocal work I do is based on my firm belief that high quality vocal- and choral performance must come from sound vocal technique.

PH: What about opera?

CFA: I love opera. Am off to Cuba soon to direct a gala of opera highlights with the Cuban National Symphony Orchestra and two wonderful singers.

PH: And when you are not working, how do you like to spend your time?

CFA: Reading…reading fiction and history. I go to theatre, of which London has so much to offer. The world of art interests me: among my friends there are some painters, and I attend exhibitions in venues on the London-Madrid circuit. As mentioned earlier, I love opera and try not to miss an operatic performance! I also love wildlife, travel and to spend time with my friends and family.

PH: Carlos, many thanks for giving the reader a glimpse into your professional life and ideas.

How to buy a Baas fortepiano over the Internet!

Fascinated to hear the story of Myrna Herzog’s new acquisition – a square fortepiano – I spoke to her February 24th 2010 to hear more about this wonderful instrument. Harpsichord player David Shemer spoke about the fortepiano from the point of view of a player. Dr. Myrna Herzog is the founder and musical director of the PHOENIX Ensemble; Dr. David Shemer is the founder and musical director of the Jerusalem Baroque Orchestra.

P.H: Myrna, where does the story begin?

M.H: It started by chance. My husband – an amateur Baroque violinist – is an early instrument enthusiast. He was aware of the fact that the PHOENIX Ensemble was performing Classical programs using the harpsichord – early Haydn trios and, recently, preparing for our latest program - “Mozart the Freemason”. He was also aware of my dream to play this repertoire on fortepiano, a seemingly hopeless dream. Actually, I had checked out the few fortepianos available in Israel, but they were beyond our reach for a variety of reasons. At home, for lack of a better option, we had begun playing Classical repertoire on modern instruments, but we were feeling frustrated about it. Then my husband, surfing the net, discovered a fortepiano being offered for sale at a furniture auction in Bayeux, a small town in Normandy (France)…and the auction was to be in two days time! According to the measurements in the auction information, this instrument would fit into our elevator, our apartment and the Mazda Five. Wasting no time in getting information on the square fortepiano, we found out that it was an original instrument built in 1800 in Paris by a keyboard instrument builder called Baas and that its table had a crack in it (a normal occurrence in these delicate instruments); the crack would, however, not affect the sound. We had not actually seen the instrument and the auctioneers could not tell us anything about its playing condition.

P.H: How could you know if the instrument would be playable?

M.H: There was no way we could! However, I contacted Alex Rosenblatt, an expert on early keyboard instruments, and sent him the only available photo of the fortepiano. Matching the photo with the scant information offering, we concluded that it would be the ideal instrument for playing music up to the early 1830’s – Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven. The auction was November 11th, we sent in a bid by email and bought it. We were thrilled.

P.H: So it was sent to you here in Israel.

M.H: Easier said than done! We were having it brought here through an Israeli transporting company, but their French counterpart did not agree to make a case in which to fly the fortepiano. A French company agreed to bring it to Paris, but not in a case. I knew this would be highly risky. Fortunately, I speak very fluent French. On the net I found a carpenter in Bayeux, contacted him and sent him a sketch of the case needed with all is measurements. The carpenter would be able to check the measurements of the instrument in loco! He agreed to do the job and managed to get the case completed right before the Christmas season; he even provided us with a fumigation certificate for the case (necessary for bringing it into Israel.) The carpenter packed the fortepiano into the case, screwed down the lid and it was sent off. It arrived in Israel December 24th 2009.

P.H: So the square fortepiano had found a new home.

M.H: Yes, and we were relieved to find that it did, indeed, fit into our elevator, the apartment and the Mazda - we want it heard in concerts all over Israel.

P.H: Would you like to tell me more about the instrument.

M.H: Yes. It is a square fortepiano, of the kind people would have had in their homes. (Mendelssohn owned a similar instrument.) Fortunately, it is in very good condition. Thanks to a signature inside it, I was able to find the person who had restored it in 1972 – fortepiano restorer Johannes Carda (who today still works at restoring early keyboard instruments.) He informed me that the instrument had been part of a collection in Normandy for the last 38 years. It has 120 strings. We had to order a tuning key for it and we have had a cover made; we also came up with a special device to make for smooth transportation. It originally had four pedals – a sustaining pedal, a moderating pedal, a lute stop and a bell. The bell was gone so Alex Rosenblatt removed that pedal, but not before photographing it carefully should we wish to reassemble it at a later stage. Alex spent much of four days on it, checking the felts and working on regulation and solving some problems caused by the natural distortion process of the wood. He needed to raise its pitch very gradually from below 392 Hertz, and the question was how the fortepiano would react to this change after so many years of no action. It is now pitched at 415 Hz. The restorer said it would take the fortepiano’s tuning four months to stabilize, as it would need to adjust to our dry climate after the damp climate of Normandy. Alex added two bars below it to make it safer to transport. By the way, the original legs are attached with wooden screws!

P.H: How did it perform on its first Israeli concert run – “Mozart the Freemason”?

M.H: It went well. Its characteristic sound is an interesting mix, evoking its clavichord origins, but also the piano- and harpsichord sound. What an interesting timbre it has – I would call it “wild” – quite a new reality, tempting the player away from a “well behaved” approach. On a fortepiano you can play forte in both hands, giving a clear and thrilling effect. Pianists and piano teachers were fascinated hearing it. At our concert at the Felicja Blumental Music Center in Tel Aviv, someone in the audience said they were experiencing the pleasure of hearing music performed “in a private salon”. Jerusalem Post music critic Uri Epstein referred to its “exquisite, delicate sonorities”. When we use the square fortepiano for playing Haydn trios, the audience will be able to hear why Haydn wrote his ‘cello parts the way he did, reinforcing the left hand role of the piano, and it will sound so right!

P.H: David Shemer, you played it in the Mozart concerts. What were your impressions of the Baas fortepiano?

D.S: I have spent many years playing harpsichords and have only played a few notes here and there on a fortepiano. The experience of playing it was amazing! It was like reliving history. I felt I was experiencing what a musician at around 1750-1760 would have sensed playing a new kind of instrument. It is somewhat familiar, yet it presents a completely new set of possibilities. Playing Mozart on it makes so much sense when it comes to dynamics, articulation and lightness of touch, even if the specific instrument does not always oblige.

P.H. Myrna Herzog, what are your plans for future performances with the fortepiano?

M.H: There are several. The first is a program of Beethoven trios and his arrangements of Scottish songs (opus 108). I fell in love with those Scottish songs in my teenage years and have been dreaming of performing them ever since. They will be sung by soprano Karin Shifrin, with Alex Rosenblatt playing the fortepiano. Another program will be of Haydn flute trios and a third will focus on the two Mozart piano quartets.

P.H: Myrna, thank you for sharing the exciting adventure of buying an historical instrument with us. How would you sum it up?

M.H: The issue of historical instruments is a controversial one. The question is whether we should play on them or leave them in museums. My opinion is that they are to be heard. They are “the real thing”. If this Baas fortepiano has a soul, it is surely happy at having been brought back to life and being heard. Luck was on our side. We were fortunate it was in good condition, considering its age; and what a privilege it is to have the original instrument and not a copy! As to how we went about purchasing it, what is life without risk??

An interview with Israeli soprano Revital Raviv

On February 22,2009, I interviewed Israeli soprano Revital Raviv.

Pamela: Did you begin singing as a child?

Revital: Yes. I grew up in Moshav Hogla in Emek Hefer and began singing in the Moran Children’s Choir at age ten. I was attracted to singing jazz, Israeli songs and songs from musicals. But as I slowly became more familiar with classical music, I developed a taste for it. When I was 15, I started taking voice lessons and became a soloist with the choir. Then, in the army, I sang with the Israeli Army Orchestra.

Pamela: After completing your army service, where did you study?

Revital: I enrolled to study voice at the Jerusalem Academy of Music, studying with Marina Levitt. At the end of my first year at the Academy, David Shemer formed a Baroque music ensemble which was to take part in an early music festival in Slovenia. That was my introduction to Baroque music, opening up a whole new window of opportunity. I went on to perform with the “Meltzer Consort”, the “Jerusalem Baroque Orchestra” and in the “Arcadia Ensemble”. I would say that Baroque opera is what I most enjoy doing at the moment.

I then spent a year in the Young Artists’ Program of the Israeli Opera, taking part in a number of projects, after which I left for London.

Pamela: I understand you spent some five years in London.

Revital: Yes. I took two years of post-graduate study at the Royal College of Music there, with Marie McLachlan as my vocal coach. I had also auditioned for Philip Pickett and this resulted in my joining his and Jonathan Miller’s production of Monteverdi’s “L’Orfeo”. With Pickett, I took part in a recital with “The Musicians of the Globe”, a group that explores a wide repertoire, much of it English and much of it inspired by Shakespeare’s works. I am still performing in Pickett’s production of Purcell’s “Dido and Aeneas”, which premiered last June.

In England, I also took part in the recording of a disc with the “Lieder Theatre London” whose aim is to present song repertoire with emphasis on introducing both its poetry and its music. This CD “Engel Lund’s Book of Folk Songs” is a unique collection of folk songs from 14 countries, it was first performed by Lund herself in 1936 and has now been revived by a number of young singers all singing in their native languages. I sing the Yiddish songs on the disc. It was both exciting and sad to be learning these wonderful melodies of a language and culture that have almost disappeared. My mother-in-law was of great help to me with learning Yiddish diction. I would really like to see this wonderful group perform in Israel.

London offers so much in the way of concerts and I found myself going to hear concerts and opera three times a week, gathering much listening experience and learning from other artists.

This coming May I will be returning to London to perform a concert of Victor Ullmann’s songs. Born in 1898 in Silesia, Ullmann was deported to Auschwitz in 1044, where he perished in the gas chambers.

Pamela: Hearing and seeing you perform, one is aware of your background in theatre.

Revital: In Emek Hefer, I performed in amateur theatre playing Mika in Moshe Shamir’s play “He Walked in the Fields” and in “Utzli Gutzli”, the Hebrew version of “Rumpelstiltskin”, the latter being a musical for children.

England has a rich musical tradition and at the Royal College of Music much of our training was a very thorough preparation for an opera career: we studied movement and acting and we performed scenes from operas, working under many different directors.

Pamela: So you are now back in Israel. What are your plans?

Revital: Yes. My husband and I returned six months ago. I plan to sing and perform as much as possible. The concert “Handel the Entertainer” I recently performed with the PHOENIX Ensemble was my first appearance since the birth of our son. It was a wonderful start to many more concerts to come. I loved playing the different characters in the arias from so many of Handel’s works. I am also interested in teaching voice and passing my own experience on to young singers.

Pamela: Do you enjoy performing to Israeli audiences?

Revital: Very much. Israeli audiences are warm and communicative. In London, I sang in large halls. In Israel, I enjoy performing chamber concerts in smaller venues and seeing the expressions on people’s faces.

During the Second Lebanese War, I performed three concerts here of “Songs of the Gondola”, works of pre-Baroque music from Venice, and was moved to see people taking time out from the tensions and anxiety of what was happening here to enjoy an hour and a half of music, to smile and relax. There is no greater satisfaction to the performer than that!

Pamela: Revital Raviv, thank you for giving us of your time. We, at Living in Harmony, and I am sure our reading audience too, look forward to hearing you in recitals and concerts and warmly welcome you back to the Israeli concert scene.

Talking to conductor and musicologist Leon Botstein

On January 12th 2010, I had the pleasure of interviewing American conductor and musicologist Leon Botstein in Jerusalem. Born in Switzerland in 1946, Maestro Botstein edits The Musical Quarterly, is president of Bard College (New York), and is musical director and principal conductor of the American Symphony Orchestra and of the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra.

PH: Maestro Botstein, what were your earliest musical experiences as a child?

LB: I was the youngest child growing up in a multi-language home and we moved to America; I was a left-hander but, as was a practice in those days, was made to change to writing with my right hand, the result of all these changes being that I became a stutterer. The problem actually had the result of rendering music as a natural outlet for me, a non-verbal language. So my entering the world of music was via my hearing experiences. Coming from a well-to-do, Eastern European, assimilated home, we were provided with a “good education”, meaning Hebrew school and after-school lessons in languages not taught at school – in our case, German – and, as a child, I also expressed the desire to study the violin. I then developed an ambition to be a composer and spent my teen years composing, this continuing on into my early college years. Improvisation also interested me and, as a first year student in college, I made some extra money playing piano improvisations for dance classes. By now, I also had my eye on conducting but had no training until later on.

PH: Not the usual way into a conducting career.

LB: Certainly not. I did not follow the conventional career track. I was not a “Wunderkind” virtuoso moving into the world of conducting. And, to add to that, since the destruction of European Jewry, it has become unfashionable for musicians of that background to be intellectuals, pursuing a comprehensive academic education and joining performing careers with academic work. (Mind you, it still exists in early music.) I feel that performing has become “Hollywoodized”, with emphasis often on the athletic ability of the performer. Of course, there are exceptions – Andras Schiff, Alfred Brendel, Ernest Ansermet, to name just a few.

PH: You have been the musical director of the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra for some seven years now. Would you like to speak about developments that have taken place in the JSO over that time?

LB: Well, the JSO is basically a state orchestra and this is the first time in its history any private money has been channeled into it, enabling it to buy instruments and music and to tour - last year, for example, opening the Bach Festival in Leipzig. Despite that, the orchestra does not get enough state support and it has become a political battleground since my arrival. There is also, in some quarters, a belief that one has to “dumb down” the musical agenda for the public: the Discovery series has been cancelled and so have the pre-concert talks, despite the fact that these were enjoyed by large enough audiences! The public needs a larger choice of works in concerts, just as museums show a variety of art! There is a “masterpiece syndrome” here, preventing us from performing a host of excellent works less known. This is the Jewish state – culture and education should be of highest priority, unimpeded by constant controversy. I had never anticipated one could make enemies by doing the right thing! As an outsider, a non-Israeli working with the JSO, my duty is to the musicians themselves, to improve the quality of performance and I can say that the orchestra has never sounded better. At last week’s Schubert concert, the players – somewhat flabbergasted at first - showed flexibility, adjusting to different tempi that were new to them. We have performed some excellent Copland and Mahler on tour and there have been many JSO concerts broadcast in the USA over the last five years. I see all these as triumphs.

PH: You have touched on Israeli audiences. How do you find them as listeners?

LB: I very much like the audiences here. They are very attentive, they seem very thoughtful and are far more interested in seldom-performed works than one would think, considering the “bourgeois Musikkultur” in certain circles of Israeli society. In fact, I find Jerusalem audiences are wildly curious to hear different repertoire! I would like to see more publicity in the field of more ticket sales and to see more young people in the audiences.

PH: We generally associate you with orchestral conducting. How about the realm of early music?

LB: Actually, I played violin and vielle in the Collegium Musicum, the first early music ensemble in Chicago, conducted by the distinguished musicologist Howard Brown. As to early music performance today, I feel we have entered a better phase, whereby there is much improvisation. There was a period when the whole practice of early music was extremely rigid. One issue is that of period instruments, but the unsolved issue is a perceptual one, whereby how we hear sounds is conditioned by the acoustic environment in which we operate, in which our concept of balance, speed and quality of sound within the acoustics of our concert halls can not be equivalent to those of people of the 16th- and 17th centuries.

PH: So the reading of a score and its message is more complex than many concert-goers might imagine.

LB: Yes. This brings me back to 19th century music where we must ask “what was the expressive intent of, for example, metronome markings” in 1820, for example, when life was so much slower, when time was not standard, with every clock inside one particular city being different. So what would the perception of “allegro” or “allegro con fuoco” mean for people then? And how do we replicate the impact of Beethoven? By using the same tempo markings or not? As you get closer, how do you render the expressive gestures?

PH: Where does the audience come into the interpretation process?

LB: Well, we are about to perform Tchaikovsky’s Manfred Symphony, not often performed here; in Israel; most of the Israeli audience has not read Byron, whereas the composer and most of his audience would have. The symphony is narrative but the expressive rhetoric has changed, meaning that if I take the first movement “lento lugubre”, as Tchaikovsky marked it, the audience would be asleep in their seats. So our job as interpreters for the present day audience is indeed a complex task.

PH: On a totally different subject, would you like to talk about Bard College and Al-Quds University’s joint program?

LB: Yes. Partly as a result of my being here all these years, I thought, as an American, that creating a combination of culture and education would be a constructive gesture. Sari Nusseibeh and I created a three-pronged joint program, an honors course at Al-Quds for 500 students – a liberal arts education in the Anglo-American style, giving two degrees – the first dual degree program between an American- and Palestinian university. There is also a teacher training program for high school teachers in order to improve their quality of education and, thirdly, to build a high school under the jurisdiction of the university. I am not a politician: education will not cure anything but it will definitely not harm.

PH: Let’s move to your work in Musicology. What are you working on at the moment?

LB: I am writing a chapter for a book on Alban Berg. Another large project is a collection of my essays to be published by Yale University Press but I am not sure that that is worthwhile. I gave up on a project that I would like to return to - a book on the history of listening as a historical activity. And then I have been invited to give the Tanner Lectures at Berkeley; I need to write those as they are for publication. I am publishing a piece for a collection of a colleague at Cambridge - a speculative analysis of what I call “the end of the age of recording”. The golden age of the master recording has come to an end. We have lived through a period of time when technical advances in sound transmission allowed us to think that the recording was an adequate surrogate to live performance, or even better! The worst psychosis if this was Glen Gould who believed the studio was the perfect environment for the sanitized, clean, edited recording. We are now witnessing the death of the “high fidelity fetish”, greatly to the benefit of the revival of live performance. Unfortunately, so many conservatory students have been accustomed to learning a piece not by reading the music but by listening to a recording of it, and they end up adopting only one way of performing it! There is a wonderful story of a Jewish journalist by the name of Soma Morgenstern who, in a Vienna streetcar, first met Alban and Helene Berg sitting there, both reading a score of Mahler’s 2nd Symphony; the making of music begins from reading the score. If you perform a Mahler symphony nowadays, the audience is much more familiar with it than were audiences in the 1920’s and this is through their having listened to their favorite recording of it over and over. I have written an outline of this argument and called it “The Eye of the Needle” (the needle referring to the gramophone needle).

PH: Maestro Botstein, I am most grateful to you for giving of your time and for sharing so many ideas.

Nava Semel-libretto, Ella Milch-Sheriff-music "And the Rat Laughed"

“And the Rat Laughed”, an opera, is based on Nava Semel’s book of the same name (published 2001); the music was composed by Ella Milch-Sheriff, with the reworking of the book into the libretto by both Semel and Milch-Sheriff. It was premiered April 9th 2005 at the Cameri Theatre in Tel Aviv, with the Israel Chamber Orchestra conducted by Ori Leshman, and has played extensively in Israel, Romania, Warsaw, and, most recently, in a new Canadian production by Opera York, in Toronto. “And the Rat Laughed” will be performed at the Cameri Theatre Tel Aviv December 3rd 2009, opening the Isra-Drama Festival (December 3-8), a five-day symposium conducted in Russian, in which works of some 50 playwrights will be presented, some in full.

Born in Tel Aviv, journalist and art critic Nava Semel has written 16 books, 4 plays, 70 short stories, television scripts and the libretto to “And the Rat Laughed”. Semel and Milch-Sheriff are currently collaborating on a new production - “Flying Lessons” – at the Cameri Theatre – a co-production with the New Israeli Opera and the Israel Sinfonietta Beer Sheva.

Ella Milch-Sheriff was born in Haifa. She has performed widely as a solo singer in Europe and Israel, focusing on Lieder and works of 20th century composers, and began composing at the age of 12. Her compositional oeuvre includes opera, chamber music, orchestral-, solo- and vocal music, popular music and arrangements.

“And the Rat Laughed” revolves around the Holocaust story through memory sixty years later. It centres around the story of a five-year-old girl hidden in a potato pit, and abused, by a Polish rural family. Her only source of company is a rat. The farmer’s wife eventually entrusts her to the village priest, who takes her in, risking his own life to save and heal her physically and emotionally, without his having any intentions of converting her to Catholicism. The crux of the opera is a Mass scene, in which we see Father Stanislaw’s own faith questioned by the experience. Semel asks a pertinent question; how do we remember and how do we pass on memory to the year 2099? I had the pleasure of talking to Nava Semel and Ella Milch-Sheriff November 15th, 2009.

Pamela Hickman: Nava and Ella, both of you are daughters of Holocaust survivors. Was the subject of the Holocaust discussed at home when you were growing up?

Nava Semel: No. My mother, who survived Auschwitz, did not talk about it for a long time. However, when my book “Hat of Glass” was published, a collection of short stories whose main characters are the children of Holocaust survivors in Israel – the Second Generation – people who carry their parents’ scars and suffering, she was deeply shaken. Her response to the book “And the Rat Laughed” was profound sorrow at not being able to protect me from submerging myself in the Holocaust subject and writing such a book. My father, also overwhelmed by it, could not understand how I had managed to hide my own suffering while putting pen to paper, as the experiences of the book were taking a hold on me, the fine line between reality and fiction becoming temporarily blurred.

Ella Milch-Sheriff: The Holocaust has been an integral part of my life for as long as I remember myself, but more through the silence surrounding it rather than through words. My parents passed on to my sister and me their sadness and suffering, rather than the facts themselves. I learned much more of my parents’ story from my father’s diary of 1943. “Can Heaven be Void?” (2003) for mezzo-soprano, narrator and orchestra is based on Dr. Baruch Milch’s diary. The opera I am in the process of writing at the moment reflects my own experiences as a “second generation” daughter as well as my parents’ story. My mother was present at the premiering of both “Can Heaven be Void?” and “And the Rat Laughed”. Words failed her - she could only cry - but she was extremely proud of me.

P.H: So what was the driving force behind creating an opera from “And the Rat Laughed?”

E.M-S: I read “And the Rat Laughed” in 2003. I found the book powerful and moving and, still in the process of reading it, decided I wanted to use it for the libretto of an opera. I had not previously written opera. Not knowing Nava well at that stage, I approached her with the idea.

N.S: I was most reluctant about it and thought the subject matter would not be suited to the dramatic stage, let alone to musical performance. I asked myself who would want to hear an opera on the subject of the Holocaust!

E.M-S: I requested a free hand in producing a first draft of a libretto and Nava gave me her consent. Once she had approved the concept, we then set to the task of collaborating to write the libretto together.

N.S: All the texts were taken directly from the novel itself, with Ella’s music as “lead player”.

P.H: With each of the five chapters of the book taking a different approach, how were you able to include the story, legend, poetry, futuristic fantasy and a diary as an operatic work?

E.M-S: We combined all of them on the stage: past, present and future exist together. The opera actually begins in the future and then moves backwards and forwards through time.

P.H: As in memory?

N.S: Yes. A relay race of memory. Ella’s musical vision had enabled me to choose the appropriate texts and lyrics from the five parts of the book in conjunction with the music.

P.H: Into what genre would you fit this unusual work?

N.S. Well, it is a sung work but it is, indeed, theatre; it now part of the Cameri Theatre of Tel Aviv’s repertoire, directed by Oded Kotler and produced together with the Israeli Chamber Orchestra.

P.H: How did you envision its success?

E.M-S: We were not sure how the public would receive it. The Cameri Theatre and the ICO took upon themselves to give it a trial run of five performances. However, since then, we have had some 85 performances and the work is now into its fifth season.

P.H: Ella, would you like to talk about the musical style used in the piece?

E.M-S: Yes. My musical language is tonal yet, at the same time, contemporary. For me, the music must clearly express the emotional idea at hand. I make much use of contrast. For example, the music to the poems reflecting the child’s thoughts when she was locked in the cellar is sung by a girl’s choir: the harmonious sounds of their sweet, young voices create a more vivid contrast with the horrific lyrics than the most dissonant music could ever do. Actually, on reading those poems, it was clear to me that I wanted to set them to music well before the concept of an opera was born.

The concise Roman Catholic Mass for priest and choir is original music, Christian and liturgical in style. The priest does not renounce his Catholic faith, but, as the story unfolds and he becomes more involved in the Jewish question and his own deliberations, the music takes on more and more Jewish motifs.

For parts depicting the future, I make use of more monotonic motifs, “robotic” if you like.

The music is generally “user friendly”, even to people who are not familiar- or comfortable with classical music and opera. It includes contemporary styles, even pop, belonging to today’s music, thus communicating easily with people. This “cross-over” experience allows audiences to connect with the work and understand it through their own emotional reactions; many people attending performances find themselves overwhelmed by the work.

P.H: Nava, you and Ella have recently returned from Toronto, Canada, where Opera York presented four performances of “And the Rat Laughed” in Hebrew.

N.S: Yes. This was certainly a unique and deep experience. All the singers were Canadians and all sang the work in Hebrew! For two intensive weeks, Ella and I worked with the 12 wonderful artists on both language and music. Of the 12 singers, 11 had never heard a word of Hebrew before. By opening night, they not only sang with clear enunciation but were all totally aware of the texts they were singing! The opera received rave reviews. Professor Timothy McGee of the Music Department of the University of Toronto referred to the work as “a masterpiece” and “a compelling experience” and to the performance as “a wonderful triumph for Opera York”. There is now every chance that the opera will travel to other cities in Canada.

E.M-S: And I am sure that this is the first time an Israeli opera has been produced anew overseas, with different (non-Hebrew speaking) singers in Hebrew. With this production, we have joined the worldwide trend of works being performed in their original languages in countries where that language is not generally spoken. I would like to think that this will encourage other Israeli composers to do the same.

P.H: Nava Semel and Ella Milch-Sheriff, talking to you has been most enlightening. Many thanks for your time.

Michal Dworzynski conductor

Polish-born conductor Michal Dworzynski was in Israel to conduct the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra in the gala opening concert of the 2009 Israel Festival on Sunday May 24th in the Henry Crown Symphony Hall of the Jerusalem Theatre. This event, closing the “Polish Year in Israel”, included works by two Polish composers - Henryk Gorecki (b.1933) and Frederic Chopin. Of the three soloists, soprano Iwona Hossa and pianist Jacek Kortus were from Poland; they were joined by Israeli pianist Dorel Golan. I had the pleasure of talking to Maestro Dworzynski on May 21st.

Pamela: Maestro Dworzynski, when did you begin learning music?

Michal Dworzynski: When I started school at age 6, I wanted to learn the piano but my father, an orchestral bassoonist, was against it, insisting that a pianist’s life was too difficult. So I took up the violin, which I studied for twelve years. But I was interested to conduct and started to teach myself the art of conducting at age twelve, watching conductors at concerts and on video films. I later graduated from the Fryderyk Chopin Music Academy, studying conducting there with Antoni Wit and took graduate studies with Christian Ehwald at the Hanns Eisler Academy of Music in Berlin.

Pamela: So here you are in Israel to conduct the IPO. Is this your first meeting with the orchestra?

M.D.: Yes. This is my debut with the IPO. Of course, I have heard recordings of the IPO and then I was present at their concert in Warsaw where they played under the baton of Maestro Zubin Mehta. I have always known it was a top class orchestra and now I have first-hand experience of the fact. Each player is a fine musician. Every orchestra has its signature sound: the IPO’s sound has a velvety, blended quality; the musicians play as “one group”. They are also friendly people.

Pamela: This is going to be a very interesting program. Would you like to say a few words about Gorecki’s Symphony no. 3, the “Symphony of Sad Songs” ?

M.D. Yes. Composed in 1976, it uses different Polish texts for each of the movements. Here, they will be sung by Iwona Hossa, with whom I have worked before. The work is very beautiful, it is almost an hour long and has three slow movements. The score itself does not appear to be difficult; indeed, the problems in it are not technical problems. The essence of the work is in its deep sadness, its sense of hopelessness. In the second movement, for example, the text is a message scratched into the wall of a Gestapo cell during World War II. It is the first time the IPO will be performing the symphony and, after two days of rehearsals with them, I am enjoying the fact that the players are getting a good and authentic feel for the work.

Pamela: There are two Chopin works on the program.

M.D. Yes. The Variations on “La ci darem la mano” in B flat major from Mozart’s opera “Don Giovanni” constitute one of Chopin’s first works for piano and orchestra. Here we have a very young Chopin, sometimes a little naïve; however, in some of the variations, his genius shines through. Some might say the orchestral score is “not very interesting”; the truth is that it needs thorough reading into to find the small musical gestures lying there and the IPO players are certainly doing that.

Chopin’s Concerto no. 1 in E minor for Piano and Orchestra is also quite an early work, written around the time the composer was 19 years old, still in Warsaw. Chopin had just fallen in love and was inspired to compose. So it is a very romantic work, the slow movement in particular, with young emotion running throughout the concerto.

Pamela: Maestro Dworzynski, we welcome you to Israel and wish you much joy and satisfaction working with the IPO on this interesting project. Thank you for sparing the time to talk to us.

Konstantin Keytlin - clarinetist and saxophonist

On July 2nd 2009 I had the pleasure of interviewing clarinetist Konstantin Keytlin. Keytlin was born in Dnepropetrovsk in the Ukraine and immigrated to Israel in 1998.

PH: What were your earliest musical experiences?

KK: I would say I was “born in the opera”. My mother is a choral conductor and my father sang in the Dnepropetrovsk Opera; so I spent much of my childhood behind the scenes. I grew up going to a lot of opera and ballet performances. Actually, at the age of five, I had a small part in Moussorgsky’s “Boris Gudunov”, playing the child who steals money from a beggar. At home, we heard records of Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald and Robertino Loretti; and my grandmother sang Yiddish songs.

PH: You certainly were exposed to many kinds of music! And when did you actually start taking lessons?

KK: At age eight I started studying the clarinet with Arkady Gurfinkel. It was my parents’ decision I should play the clarinet. Gurfinkel was the best teacher in the city and I feel lucky to have studied with him. Many of his pupils have won prizes for performance. When I was 14, Gurfinkel immigrated to Israel and I continued my studies with a student of his. At age 15 I began playing in the orchestra of the Dnepropetrovsk Opera.

PH: How did your studies continue?

KK: On finishing secondary school, I was accepted to the Donetsk State Music Academy in the Ukraine. In my first year of studies, I gave several recitals and joined the Donetsk Opera orchestra. During my second year there, I took third prize in the Rovno Competition. My mind was set on studying at the National Music Academy of Kiev and I applied to the school but they did not accept Jews there. That is when I made plans to leave for Israel.

PH: So you came to Israel in 1998.

KK: Yes. I made my home in Jerusalem and continued my studies at the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance for another two years, studying clarinet with Professor Ilan Schul. I won an outstanding musician’s award in the Israeli Absorption Ministry’s competition for immigrant musicians and a Sharett Scholarship from the America-Israel Cultural Fund Grant for Young Artists. I then began auditioning with orchestras here and now freelance, playing with the Ra’anana Symphonette Orchestra, the Holon Orchestra and Mordechai Sobol’s Cantorial Orchestra.

PH: You are considered a versatile musician. Can you mention some of your other activities?

KK: Yes. Singing comes naturally to me after having heard much vocal music in my childhood and having taken part in opera chorus rehearsals. I am a member of the Musica Aeterna Choir, which was founded by its conductor Ilya Plotkin in 1996. I also sing in the Tel Aviv Philharmonic Choir and in the choir of the Great Synagogue (Heichal Shlomo) here in Jerusalem. I have conducted a children’s choir in Israel.

A few years ago, I joined the “Apropos.Art” klezmer-jazz group – violin, trumpet, keyboards, bass, percussion and clarinet. We perform at festivals of Jewish music here in Israel and we have played in Holland, Poland and Germany.

I tune pianos, play the saxophone and teach clarinet, saxophone, piano and organ.

PH: How do you see yourself as an artist?

KK: I feel I communicate with my audience, be it one person or a packed concert hall. In my ten or so years here, I have performed in symphony concerts, in the synagogue, in operas, operettas, evenings of Yiddish songs and concerts of old songs of concerts under the auspices of the Absorption Ministry. And I love Yiddish songs; that is my grandmother’s legacy!

PH: How would you like to see your future?

KK: I would like to have a permanent position in an orchestra, to become as professional as possible in all the styles I play and to give my children the musical background my father was able to give me. I teach my 10-year-old son the clarinet and he plays it in ceremonies at school.

Within myself, I am looking to find a synthesis of the various styles of music with which I have grown up, to combine them with Israeli music and perhaps come up with something new. My future is in Jerusalem. I love its unique atmosphere and climate. This is my home.

PP: Konstantin, many thanks. I wish you much joy and satisfaction in your rich musical life.

Konstantin’s email address: clarinetto@rambler.ru