Ra’anana Symphonette brings color to new season - review

The Ra’anana Symphonette Orchestra opens its new concert season which is both musically and visually colorful, on October 21.  Their concert brochure is artistically splashed with the colors of Monet’s palette, linking each of their 12 programs at the Ra’anana Music and Arts Center to a different culture and mood.

Colors and music seem to go together. The rare neurological phenomenon of chromesthesia is the ability to actually see sounds as different colors. However most of us, dramatically speaking, perceive the low musical notes to be associated with dark colors and negative feelings, whereas higher notes are associated with bright colors and positive feelings.  

Such is the case for Tenor vs. Baritone, the title of the season’s opener, which features the RSO conducted by the young and critically acclaimed Italian conductor, Niccola Simoni, who will share the stage with Argentinian tenor Carlos Natale and French bass-baritone, Rodrigue Calederon. In Italian opera, the tenor voice is usually the hero and the deep voice of the baritone is sometimes a friend, sometimes a rival, or often the villain. 

Both Natale and Calederon have illustrious careers in Europe and will be performing in Israel for the first time. Their evening will feature opera overtures performed by the RSO, and well-known, loved duets and arias from famous French and Italian operas of the 19th century such as Rossini’s “William Tell”; Donizetti’s “L’elisir d’Amour”; Gunoud’s “Faust” ballet music and arias; and Bizet’s “Carmen.”

November brings the Israeli/French conductor/pianist Nimrod David Pfeffer to the Ra’anana stage.

Pfeffer is an immensely popular young conductor who is a yearly guest conductor at the Israel Opera, as well as on the conductor’s roster at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, the Valencia Opera, the Lyric Opera in Guatemala, and the Opera Company of the Julliard School of Music. 

Closing the year with music

This concert, entitled “Pastoralia,” highlighted by the very positive yellow color, will feature works from the Viennese Classic repertoire: Piano Concerto No. 21 in C Major by W.A. Mozart (which Pfeffer will conduct from the piano) and Symphony No. 6 by Beethoven (the “Pastorale.”)

The next concert, November 29-30, will return to the world of opera with overtures by Felix Mendelsohn and Carl Maria von Weber, and the world of love. The centerpiece of this program is the premiere of “Concerto d’Amore,” commissioned by the RSO and composed by the young Israeli composer, conductor, and guitarist Bar Gottfried, the son of conductor Yaron Gottfried and grandson of jazz great, pianist Dan Gottfried. “Concerto d”Amore” is a suite following Romantic poets and music throughout the ages, from Shakespeare to Lorca.   Gottfried will play the solo guitar part and be joined by conductor Nitai Rach and soprano Tom Cohen.

The RSO will tie up 2023 with its Operetta Gala conducted by David Sebba, starring soloists from the Meitar Opera studio. January 2024 will open with the popular Shubertiade Chamber concert, inviting the best musicians: David Gertler on piano, Haggai Shaham on violin, Raphael Walfisch on cello, Arnon Erez on piano, and the Cecilia Vocal Ensemble, for an intimate and enriching evening.  

The RSO brings back “Rhapsody in Blue” with Matan Yona, conductor, and Guy Mintus, piano, due to popular demand from a sold-out and ecstatic audience. Next is a special concert hosted by composer/musician Avi Bergman and his virtuoso trio. They will tell the story of the Theremin, the first electromagnetic instrument in the world, invented and patented in 1928 by Leon Theremin. With a backup of a variety of instruments and vocals, they will explain and perform on this amazing instrument.

Noted pianist and conductor Gil Shohat will celebrate his Jubilee with the RSO and a bevy of excellent musicians, performing the music from Beethoven to Matti Caspi, which shaped his life and music making.

Finally, Associate Music Director of the RSO Keren Kagarlitsky will celebrate a top-notch All Tchaikovsky program with soloists Nittai Zori, violin, and Ira Berman, soprano, followed by the June concert “From Rococo to Rococo,” featuring cello soloists, Hillel Zori and the young and gifted Nahar Eliaz.