Voice of Galilee revisited: The annual Voice of Music Festival decamps for now

It is not generally easy to up stakes to a different neck of the woods, even if the decision to relocate was made willingly. The first edition of the Voice of Music Festival, to be held away from the Upper Galilee in 39 years will take place at the Tel Aviv-Yafo Music Center, December 19-21, with internationally renowned pianist Ofra Yitzhaki once more at the artistic directorial helm.

I opened by jokingly suggesting that, with the benefit of having headed the festival on three previous occasions, perhaps she is more relaxed in the run-up to December 19. Seems it is not quite that clear cut for Yitzhaki. “It is easier than the first time, but I have mixed feelings because it is not at Kfar Blum,” she says, noting the kibbutz up North which serves as the perennial festival base. “It feel strange.” Having attended the festival on quite a few occasions, the concerts and open rehearsals at the Charles Clore Centre at Bet Ha’am at Kfar Blum, I can vouch for the extraneousness slant.

That said, Yitzhaki is looking forward to enjoying a home-away-from home vibe from the new – hopefully temporary – venue. She is also impressed with the facilities on offer, a stone’s throw away from the Bloomfield soccer stadium, now in Jaffa. “It has undergone large scale renovations. It is beautiful.”

She and the festival benefited from a welcoming supportive hand from the local city hall. “When we were looking for somewhere to hold this year’s festival because of the security situation in Upper Galilee, Dan Weinstein from the music department of the municipality suggested the renovated center. The auditorium is gorgeous and the acoustics are great.” 

What more could a festival artistic director gearing up to present a broad range of classical music endeavor ask for? 

The usual composer suspects are in the programmatic mix, with works by Bach, Schubert, Mozart, Prokofiev, and Beethoven. But Yitzhaki has long been at the forefront of efforts to bring the world of classical music and, by extension, the listening and paying public up to date by programming and performing scores that feed off far more contemporary sides and dynamics. 

She also puts in an extra shift to make the material more accessible to those of us who do not belong to the disciplinary cognoscenti. On the first day of the festival (7 p.m.), for example, Yitzhaki will expound on the festival content focusing on the Landscapes series by 69-year-old Japanese composer Toshio Hosokawa complete with a video clip of Galilean scenery. 

The official curtain raiser, at 8 p.m. on December 19, duly features “Landscape III” by Hosokawa for harp and strings; “Flow My Tears” by English composer and lutist John Dowland; an excerpt from Bach’s Matthaus Passion; and a Schubert quintet. 

Not just any old concerts

They form part of an intriguing line-up that roams across broad stylistic and disciplinary tracts. There is Richard Strauss’s “Morgen!” and Arnold Schoenberg’s “Notturno for Harp and Strings” by – both from the late 19th century – lest we forget where the festival really belongs. 

“These are not just any old concerts taking place in Tel Aviv,” Yitzhaki stresses. “There will also be an exhibition of works at the center by artists from Upper Galilee.” That is certainly something to bear in mind while we sit back in our auditorium seats and enjoy the onstage action.

There is also a rendition of “Yamim Levanim” (“White Days”), which gives its name to the concert, originally scored by pop guitarist-vocalist Shlomo Yidov and arranged by Israeli composer Moshe Zorman, and “Winter“ by Uri Bar Or, a promising young composer who studied with Prof. Michael Wolpe at Sde Boker and fell in battle in Gaza last May at the age of only 21.

While Yitzhaki is fired up to keep the musical wheels well-oiled, she says she has no intention of simply skirting around our distressing life circumstances and just pushing out the cultural gems. 

“With the opening concert, I felt the need to do something that references the past tough year we have all had and are still having.” 

The Bach vignette certainly addresses the emotive side. In the lyrics, the composer begs for divine mercy as he unloads his sorrows. The Schubert work also feeds off suitably darker sentiments 

One challenge faced by many artistic directors of classical music events around the world is how to proffer material from outside the confines of the ever-popular and familiar, and how to get us to open our ears and broaden our minds to make room for the likes of Hosokawa and members of the even younger generation. Art must, by definition, constantly evolve and, after all, wasn’t Mozart once the – very young – new kid on the entertainment block?

An extramural slot on day two (10 p.m.), which takes place at the Tassa club, down the road from the Tel Aviv-Jaffa Music Center features Finale, the young chamber troupe playing a variegated repertoire from Schubert and Mozart to Czech Holocaust-victim composer Hans Krasa and 20th-century Hungarian composer Erno Dohnanyi. Things take a far more modern turn after the intermission at Tassa when 50-something Swiss-based Israeli electric guitarist Yaron Deutsch takes the stage. Deutsch, whose bio includes founding Ensemble Nikel – which describes itself as “an alternative chamber music” outfit – will perform charts by 81-year-old French composer and philosopher Hugues Dufourt and 53-year-old Austrian composer and organist Klaus Lang. 

Even so, Yitzhaki is not looking to frighten anyone into submission. 

“Ninety percent of the festival program is bread-and-butter classical material. But to only present old familiar music feels irrelevant to me. On the Friday, there are five works that were written this past year by young Israeli composers,” she notes. “For me, to go to a concert when all the works being performed were written before 1900, that would be sad. What? Are we done? Is there nothing more to say in music?”

Point taken and, personally speaking, long embraced. But what about the folk who shell out their hard cash for concert tickets? Isn’t Yitzhaki wary of alienating large parts of the public and thus taking the risk of making the festival financially unviable? Thankfully, she has the facts on the ground to parry that particular concern. “This is not the first festival to include things that were written right now. That is core to this festival, combining all sorts of things. We have had modern works and the audience did not suffer,” she laughs. “Even when we had works by [20th-century avant-garde composers Gyorgy] Ligeti and [Giannis] Xenakis we got enthusiastic responses. People wrote they had been waiting for years for the festival to update itself.”

Yitzhaki backs her penchant for venturing into uncharted domains with a healthy dosage of realism. “There are always the moaners and others who are happy with what you give them. You can’t please everyone all the time,” she chuckles. Ne’er a truer word was spoken.

With that refreshing breath of adventurous air, along with a deep respect for the roots of the music, Yitzhaki seems to have her programming skills finely and sensitively honed.

For tickets and more information: 

It is not generally easy to up stakes to a different neck of the woods, even if the decision to relocate was made willingly. The first edition of the Voice of Music Festival, to be held away from the Upper Galilee in 39 years will take place at the Tel Aviv-Yafo Music Center, December 19-21, with internationally renowned pianist Ofra Yitzhaki once more at the artistic directorial helm.

I opened by jokingly suggesting that, with the benefit of having headed the festival on three previous occasions, perhaps she is more relaxed in the run-up to December 19. Seems it is not quite that clear cut for Yitzhaki. “It is easier than the first time, but I have mixed feelings because it is not at Kfar Blum,” she says, noting the kibbutz up North which serves as the perennial festival base. “It feel strange.” Having attended the festival on quite a few occasions, the concerts and open rehearsals at the Charles Clore Centre at Bet Ha’am at Kfar Blum, I can vouch for the extraneousness slant.

That said, Yitzhaki is looking forward to enjoying a home-away-from home vibe from the new – hopefully temporary – venue. She is also impressed with the facilities on offer, a stone’s throw away from the Bloomfield soccer stadium, now in Jaffa. “It has undergone large scale renovations. It is beautiful.”

She and the festival benefited from a welcoming supportive hand from the local city hall. “When we were looking for somewhere to hold this year’s festival because of the security situation in Upper Galilee, Dan Weinstein from the music department of the municipality suggested the renovated center. The auditorium is gorgeous and the acoustics are great.” 

What more could a festival artistic director gearing up to present a broad range of classical music endeavor ask for? 

The usual composer suspects are in the programmatic mix, with works by Bach, Schubert, Mozart, Prokofiev, and Beethoven. But Yitzhaki has long been at the forefront of efforts to bring the world of classical music and, by extension, the listening and paying public up to date by programming and performing scores that feed off far more contemporary sides and dynamics. 

She also puts in an extra shift to make the material more accessible to those of us who do not belong to the disciplinary cognoscenti. On the first day of the festival (7 p.m.), for example, Yitzhaki will expound on the festival content focusing on the Landscapes series by 69-year-old Japanese composer Toshio Hosokawa complete with a video clip of Galilean scenery. 

The official curtain raiser, at 8 p.m. on December 19, duly features “Landscape III” by Hosokawa for harp and strings; “Flow My Tears” by English composer and lutist John Dowland; an excerpt from Bach’s Matthaus Passion; and a Schubert quintet. 

They form part of an intriguing line-up that roams across broad stylistic and disciplinary tracts. There is Richard Strauss’s “Morgen!” and Arnold Schoenberg’s “Notturno for Harp and Strings” by – both from the late 19th century – lest we forget where the festival really belongs. 

“These are not just any old concerts taking place in Tel Aviv,” Yitzhaki stresses. “There will also be an exhibition of works at the center by artists from Upper Galilee.” That is certainly something to bear in mind while we sit back in our auditorium seats and enjoy the onstage action.

There is also a rendition of “Yamim Levanim” (“White Days”), which gives its name to the concert, originally scored by pop guitarist-vocalist Shlomo Yidov and arranged by Israeli composer Moshe Zorman, and “Winter“ by Uri Bar Or, a promising young composer who studied with Prof. Michael Wolpe at Sde Boker and fell in battle in Gaza last May at the age of only 21.

While Yitzhaki is fired up to keep the musical wheels well-oiled, she says she has no intention of simply skirting around our distressing life circumstances and just pushing out the cultural gems. 

“With the opening concert, I felt the need to do something that references the past tough year we have all had and are still having.” 

The Bach vignette certainly addresses the emotive side. In the lyrics, the composer begs for divine mercy as he unloads his sorrows. The Schubert work also feeds off suitably darker sentiments 

One challenge faced by many artistic directors of classical music events around the world is how to proffer material from outside the confines of the ever-popular and familiar, and how to get us to open our ears and broaden our minds to make room for the likes of Hosokawa and members of the even younger generation. Art must, by definition, constantly evolve and, after all, wasn’t Mozart once the – very young – new kid on the entertainment block?

An extramural slot on day two (10 p.m.), which takes place at the Tassa club, down the road from the Tel Aviv-Jaffa Music Center features Finale, the young chamber troupe playing a variegated repertoire from Schubert and Mozart to Czech Holocaust-victim composer Hans Krasa and 20th-century Hungarian composer Erno Dohnanyi. Things take a far more modern turn after the intermission at Tassa when 50-something Swiss-based Israeli electric guitarist Yaron Deutsch takes the stage. Deutsch, whose bio includes founding Ensemble Nikel – which describes itself as “an alternative chamber music” outfit – will perform charts by 81-year-old French composer and philosopher Hugues Dufourt and 53-year-old Austrian composer and organist Klaus Lang. 

Even so, Yitzhaki is not looking to frighten anyone into submission. 

“Ninety percent of the festival program is bread-and-butter classical material. But to only present old familiar music feels irrelevant to me. On the Friday, there are five works that were written this past year by young Israeli composers,” she notes. “For me, to go to a concert when all the works being performed were written before 1900, that would be sad. What? Are we done? Is there nothing more to say in music?”

Point taken and, personally speaking, long embraced. But what about the folk who shell out their hard cash for concert tickets? Isn’t Yitzhaki wary of alienating large parts of the public and thus taking the risk of making the festival financially unviable? Thankfully, she has the facts on the ground to parry that particular concern. “This is not the first festival to include things that were written right now. That is core to this festival, combining all sorts of things. We have had modern works and the audience did not suffer,” she laughs. “Even when we had works by [20th-century avant-garde composers Gyorgy] Ligeti and [Giannis] Xenakis we got enthusiastic responses. People wrote they had been waiting for years for the festival to update itself.”

Yitzhaki backs her penchant for venturing into uncharted domains with a healthy dosage of realism. “There are always the moaners and others who are happy with what you give them. You can’t please everyone all the time,” she chuckles. Ne’er a truer word was spoken.

With that refreshing breath of adventurous air, along with a deep respect for the roots of the music, Yitzhaki seems to have her programming skills finely and sensitively honed.

For tickets and more information: www.kol-hamusica.org.il