Includes unlimited streaming of Composing Israel: The First Three Generations
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Streaming + Download
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
The Three Romances (awarded the ACUM Prize in 1991) were composed for Liora Ziv-Li, who premiered them at London’s Wigmore Hall in 1986. This is the first commercially released live recording. Ben-Shabetai wrote: “I tried to capture the spirit of Romances by Schumann—the idea of invoking memories of distant places, nostalgia for the past, and the atmosphere of a dream world, through means such as echo effects, ‘Chopinistic’ writing, exotic rhythms, and tonal references. All these appear in contrast to, and within a framework of, a basically atonal musical language. The first and last begin and end in a contemporary language, while their middle sections bring back reminiscences of romantic music. The second begins and ends by invoking a late 19th-century style, while its middle section ‘romanticizes’ into a future, 20th-century style.” A more recent recording by Natasha Tadson appears in the ICL/IMC Psanterin anthology.
Ari Ben-Shabetai (b. 1954, Jerusalem) studied composition with Mark Kopytman at the Rubin Academy of Music, Jerusalem and with George Crumb and Richard Wernick at the University of Pennsylvania, where he earned his Ph.D. degree. The recipient of many awards including three Prime Minister’s Prizes in Israel, Ben-Shabetai’s Sinfonia Cromatica won first prize in the 1994 Israel Philharmonic Orchestra competition, subsequently touring Germany, France, Italy, and the U.S. with Zubin Mehta conducting. Magreffa, commissioned in 1995 by conductor Lorin Maazel for the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, was performed in both Pittsburgh and Jerusalem. Ben-Shabetai’s music is published by IMI and IMC. He recently retired after serving four years as Dean of the Composition, Conducting, Theory & Music Education Faculty at the Jerusalem Rubin Academy of Music, where he taught composition, orchestration, theory, and analysis.
