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Songs

EVENING BIRDS DANCES - (Lyrics - Natan Alterman) - 

The "Ankor" Choir Conducted by Dafna Ben-Yohanan, 1985.

The singers are children but this is no children song. The Alterman poem Is dedicated to the crazy circles of birds of many kinds in the summer afternoons. When I lived in Jerusalem on the 8 floors roof, I watched them and listened for hours. When conductor EILAT YUNGER asked  me to write a piece for her children choir "PAAMONIM" I showed her the poem, and we decided to do it A capella  and use graphic notarion to describe the climax scene of the flying birds.

The tonality was kept by small tuning forks hidden by the singers.  Afterwards the academia’s “ankor” choir recorded it in an album, sang it in many official occassions  and won prizes in europe, which makes it my most popular “classic” piece.

"Evening Birds Dances"

Ankor Choir

"Michael"

Shuli Natan

Songs from the film "The 81th blow"

1)"Michael", main theme of the film. The same melody appear 4 times with different texts. The texts which were written by the poet and director HAIM GURY told the story of the holocaust better than voice over. Shuly Natan sang all the songs ."MICHAEL" is the story of disbelief.

2."RACHEL" is the story of a young girl who was sent by the Lodge community to board a transport Nazi train and leave notes under the bench so that the Jewish cleaners would pick them back. The notes were found and are now in a museum. In 2004 we made another version of the same song with Rinat Emanuel.

"Rachel" + German Subs

Shuli Natan

"Rachel"

Rinat Emanuel

AVIDANIUM - An evening about poet DAVID AVIDAN - 2003

Conductor - Doron Salomon. Vocal- Rinat  Emanuel, Michal Goldberg (+ saxophone). Actor-Michael Warshaviak

"Avidanium"

Michal Goldberg & Rinat Emanuel

"A BRAVE MAN", "YA BA BA BA BAM". TEXTS BY DAVID AVIDAN. VOCAL-RINAT EMANUEL (LEVONTIN 7 CLUB - 2015).

"Avidanium" is a joint venture of composer Ron Weidberg and myself, incorporating the poet's voice, the poet's poems set to music by 5 composers, and acting out 7 dialogues from his book "My Electronic Psychiatrist". The book is based upon experimenting with a new software (for 1974!) called Elisa which is programmed to keep psychological answers based on the questions. the actor Michael Warshaviak knew the poet and his speech manners and he answers the pre-recorded questions PLAYED ON TAPE.

Rinat Emanuel collaborated with me in at list 20 songs. Here we had a whole date of singing my music for Israeli poets. 2 of them appear here .1) "A brave man" ("Ish Amits") which is a blues about himself and 2) "Ya ba ba ba bam" which is a Klezmer song written in English + musical  instruction - "Ya ba ba ba bam, I'm a Jewish bum. Frankly I wish to have Friday night my gefilte Hashish".

"Brave man" + "Ya Bam Bam"

Rinat Emanuel

 "Birds Hanging in the Square"

Songs from the installation "Birds hang in the Square" - directed and performed by Tami Raban and ensemble. The 1988 Israel Festival commission the work from Raban who became. later on, an international figure in the performance and installation scene and open important workshops. The work was very complexed: There was text + music to be heard on a bus going to Mount Scopus and the local electric authority moved a pole and agreed to decorate it with an artificial cloud. Young singer and pianist, Nogah Markman, sat on a cloud and sang 3 songs that I wrote.

Dream fountain, Wall  of joy  - 1991 (see also in audio-electronic)

 

This is the original recording of performer ETTI BEN ZAKEN of my Maya Bejerano texts from her book "Leviathan". It was sung and recorded in my 70th birthday and in premier of Ben Zaken's  disk in 2013 but the fresh theatrical of the 1st time is most touching, for me.

"Dreams Fountain"+"Wall of Joy"
Etti Ben Zaken

see "Audio - songs" for more info

"Tov Tov" from rock opera "Mami"

Mazi Cohen

songs from "ABS"

"ABS" - a political play by Diether Dehm (director: Reinhard Hinzpeter, music -Yossi Mar-Chaim) with the Free Frankfurt Acting Company.
Hermann Josef Abs coldly and soberly calculated (as head of Deutsche Bank) the greatest crimes of the Nazis such as the construction of Auschwitz and the invasion of the Soviet Union. Now a protest initiative wants his name erased from the register of honorary citizens of Frankfurt.

In this new play by Diether Dehm, a broadcasting company is now gearing up for an extensive TV documentary. The aim is to present the leading figure in post-war German financial history as objective and balanced a light as possible; In 1953, in order to prevent Germany to bear the true and entire reparation and debt settlement, A dealer was sent to London - A war criminal, Dr. Hermann Josef Abs. But in spite of a lot of evidence , against all odds, the station manages to whitewash the history of this important honorary citizen of the city of Frankfurt in the end, and much journalistic finesse, infotainment, polling, celebrity charm, songs and chorales are used in the process.
The music is naturally inspired by the Brecht-Weill body of works it does not remind a special song ,but emphasizes the tense ,cruel ironic of those horrible times of lies which continues, even more bluntly today.

see "Audio - cinema & TV" for more info

"Shir Hayored" - from "Lo Hakol Over" TV show, 1970

PURIM SHPIL - TELEPLAY WRITTEN BY YAAKOV SHABTAY-1978. Director-Shmuel Bunim. Produced by Dalia Gutman.

This production recruited a very professional and funny cast: Tuvia Zafir , Sefi Rivlin ,Dovale Reiser and more. Shabtay pays tribute to the traditional Yiddish theater, either by exaggerated manner of talking or by the way men imitating women, poor imitating the rich ,etc… I tried to do the same in music composition and the manner of singing.

"Et Hakir" - from "Purim Spiel" TV show, 1978

"Vashti" - from "Purim Spiel" TV show, 1978

"Esther" - from "Purim Spiel" TV show, 1978

see "Audio - Cinema & TV" for more info

Photo: Goni Riskin

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