Yoav Talmi awarded Prime Minister’s prize

By Eileen Wingard

In a special ceremony at the Henry Crown Hall of the Jerusalem Theatre in Jerusalem, Yoav Talmi, Music Director of the Israel Chamber Orchestra, former conductor of the San Diego Symphony, and one of Israel’s most gifted composers, was awarded the prestigious Prime Minister’s Prize for Composers last week.

This honor, whose purpose is to inspire and enrich the quality of Israeli creativity, was presented to Talmi by Limor Livnat, Minister of Culture and Sport. Minister Livnat greeted the assemblage in the name of both Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and herself.

Talmi was presented with a framed certificate signed by Prime Minister Netanyahu, Culture and Sport Minister Livnat, and the Chairman of the Board of the Prime Minister Prize, former Minister of Education, Aharon Yadlin. The award includes a monetary gift that will enable the brilliant composer to devote himself to the creation of a new major work. Talmi plans to compose a piece for the Israel Chamber Orchestra to be premiered in Israel during the 2014-2015 season.

He then intends to present the work’s North American premiere during the ICO’s tour of North America in February and March, 2015.

Talmi’s selection for the Prime Minister’s Prize was awarded by a jury. Its judgment was based on two orchestral works, Elegy for strings, timpani and accordion (Dachau Reflections), dedicated to the grandparents he never knew because they were annihilated during the Holocaust, and De Profundis for choir and orchestra, which uses texts in several languages: Hebrew, Latin, English, French and Italian.

The jury found that both works “reveal impressive and multifaceted musical and compositional ability, that, by their unique style, successfully communicate expressions of desires, doubts, questions, pleas and hopes in a way that blurs the boundaries between private and public emotion, so that the listener can surrender to them and deeply identify with the music.  The composer clearly indicated the sources of inspiration in the titles and prefaces of the two works, the texts and the musical quotations he used, many of which related to sources and events (some personal) of the history of the Jewish people.”

The Elegy received two live performances in San Diego. The first was in 1998, when the California Ballet Company celebrated its 50th anniversary and Paul Koverman, one of the company’s outstanding choreographers, created a modern dance to go with the music.  The ballet orchestra, comprised of musicians from the San Diego Symphony Orchestra, were under the direction of the California Ballet’s conductor, John Stubbs. I had the pleasure of playing in the violin section of the ballet orchestra and recall the strong impression that performance made on both the audience and the performers.

The second time the Elegy was performed was when Talmi returned to guest conduct the San Diego Symphony in November, 2006, and programmed the work. It was greeted with great acclaim.

In 2001. a recording of the Elegy was played to accompany Paul Koverman’s choreography as part of a program entitled, “The Talmis Play Talmi,” performed at the Lawrence Family Jewish Community Center under the auspices of the San Diego Center for Jewish Culture. The remainder of the program featured songs and works for flute and strings, all composed or arranged by Yoav Talmi. “The Talmis Play Talmi” was one of the best received musical programs ever presented at the JCC.

De Profundis premiered in 2011 with the Quebec Symphony on the final program of Talmi’s thirteen-year tenure with the orchestra. Richard Boisvert, music critic for Le Soleil, Quebec, wrote: “The energy released by the big instrumental and vocal forces appeared both flexible and monumental. Under the conductor’s baton, the work sprang out like a true outcry from the heart.” The work was given its first performance in Israel in February, 2013, by the Jerusalem Symphony in collaboration with the New Israeli Opera, with three different choirs, all under the direction of the composer.

A native of Israel, Talmi was born on Kibbutz Merhavia, where his father was the music teacher. Young Talmi served in the Israel Defense Force (IDF), where he played the euphonium in the military band.  It is there that he met his talented flutist wife, Er’ella, and it is for that ensemble that he wrote the Zahal March, used by the IDF to this day.

Talmi has been composing since the age of six.  Many of his compositions feature the flute and are dedicated to Er’ella, who, like Talmi, was an America-Israel Cultural Foundation scholarship recipient and studied at the Juilliard School in New York. In addition to his music directorship of the Israel Chamber Orchestra, Yoav Talmi is the Head of the Conducting Program at the Buchmann-Mehta Music School of Tel Aviv University.

For those of us who played in the San Diego Symphony Orchestra during Yoav Talmi’s seven-year tenure (1989-96), and experienced his genius on the podium, we applaud the honor and recognition accorded him in his homeland.  We wish him continued productivity as a celebrated composer, world-renowned conductor and outstanding teacher.

For those of us who know him personally, we also appreciate Yoav Talmi as an inspiring, humble and compassionate human being. We hope San Diego will be a stop on the ICO’s North American tour in 2015 so that we can all experience the new work to be composed by Yoav Talmi.

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Wingard is a freelance writer and former violinist with the San Diego Symphony.  She may be contacted at eileen.wingard@sdjewishworld.com