Alex Jacobowitz | |
---|---|
Background information | |
Born | New York City | May 19, 1960
Occupation(s) | Street performer |
Instrument(s) | Marimba, Xylophone |
Alex Jacobowitz (born 19 May 1960 in New York) is a classically trained concert artist and street performer who plays the marimba and xylophone. [1]
During the early 1980s he studied music at the State University of New York at Binghamton, studying marimba privately with Gordon Stout at Ithaca College, John Beck at the Eastman School of Music and privately with Leigh Howard Stevens. Soon thereafter, he began a busking career in the late 1980's, playing on the streets of New York City, including at Lincoln Center's [1] "Meet the Artist" program, Yeshiva University, Zabar's, Central Park, the 84th Street Synagogue, International House, the New York Hilton, Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Coney Island's "Sideshows by the Seashore". Alex Jacobowitz commissioned Edith Borroff to compose "Concerto for Marimba and Small Orchestra" in 1981, and it was premiered on November 23, 1981 with the State University of New York at Binghamton's University Symphony Orchestra, under conductor Paul Jordan. This work might be the first marimba concerto composed by a woman.
From 1984-1989 he was an Official Street Performer at the South Street Seaport in Lower Manhattan, a member of Musicians Under New York, and Young Audiences of Rochester and the Northeast Intermediate Unit#19 (Pennsylvania). He has performed at Arts Councils and Imagination Celebrations throughout New York State. He has performed on Entertainment Tonight, and has been an artist-in-residence at Artpark (New York) and Holland Village (Japan). He received his Master's Degree in Music Performance in 2021 from Ithaca College in New York.
In 1991, he moved to Europe, mainly performing in Germany, [2] and living in Berlin. Jacobowitz performed classic and Jewish traditional music on German television (ARD, ZDF, Third Programmes), and occasionally in Hungary, Israel, Italy, Luxembourg, South Korea, Poland, Portugal, Switzerland, Russia and Ukraine. In 2006, he was invited to perform at the Busker's Festival in Ferrara, Italy, and his music was often featured in radio, including NPR in the USA, Bayerischer Rundfunk in Germany and SFR1 in Switzerland.
In 1994, he began the study of traditional Jewish instrumental music (klezmer) with Giora Feidman. In 1997, he saw Brave Old World in concert, and trained under Alan Bern, their musical director.
Solo klezmer appearances include festivals in Jerusalem, Schleswig-Holstein, Safed, Kraków, Fürth, Bamberg, synagogues throughout Germany, including Oranienburgerstrasse Synagogue in Berlin, Chabad Houses in Prague, Geneva, Zürich, the Jewish Museum in Frankfurt, Hackescher Hoftheater in Berlin, Kibbutz Nahal Oz, Kibbutz Ma'ale HaChamisha, and settlement Mitzpe Jericho.
He has performed with Shelly Lang's Neginah Orchestra (NYC), the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, and the Berlin Kammerphilharmoniker. He has performed Jewish music at Pisa's Jewish Festival (Italy, 2011) Sydney's Shir Madness festival (Australia, 2010), the Warsaw Jewish Festival (Poland, 2012), the Trondheim Jewish Culture Festival (Norway, 2012), the Düsseldorf Jewish Film Festival (2012, Germany), the Budapest Jewish Film Festival (Hungary, 2012) and the 4th Munich (München) Jüdische Filmtage (Jewish Film Festival, January 2013), the Jewish Cultural Days in Vienna (2014), Jewish Week in Leipzig (2015).
Since 2010 he has been performing klezmer music with violinists Yona (Stas) Rayko or Mark Kovnatskiy at Jewish cultural festivals throughout Europe. At Witwatersrand University in Johannesburg, South Africa in 2013 he premiered Jeanne Zaidel-Rudolph's "Hebrotica" for solo marimba, a work dedicated to him. He has premiered Danse la princesse Dunya, a work for solo marimba by French composer Serge Bach in 2020, and commissioned and premiered Alan Bern's solo marimba work Gedanken (2021).
He is the recipient of a Meet the Composer award. His Art of Xylos CD was released in 2002 by Sony-BMG [3] under the Arte Nova label, and was nominated for the Echo Prize under the crossover category. He won competitions in Montreal (1981), Lucerne (1994), Ludwigsburg (2004) and Osnabrück (2007). In 2015, 2018 and 2020 he was accepted to the Central Council of Jews in Germany's (Zentralrat der Juden in Deutschlands) Artist Roster, which provides German government funding for his concerts in Jewish communities there; in August 2017 he was featured in their newspaper, the Jüdische Allgemeine. In 2019 he was declared a National Artist in Israel.
Daniel Barenboim is an Argentine-born classical pianist and conductor based in Berlin. From 1992 until January 2023, Barenboim was the general music director of the Berlin State Opera and "Staatskapellmeister" of its orchestra, the Staatskapelle Berlin.
Salamone Rossi or Salomone Rossi was an Italian Jewish violinist and composer. He was a transitional figure between the late Italian Renaissance period and early Baroque.
Louis Lewandowski was a Polish-Jewish and German-Jewish composer of synagogal music.
The Tölzer Knabenchor is a German boys' choir named after the Upper Bavarian city of Bad Tölz. Since 1971, the group has been based in Munich. The choir is ranked among the most versatile and sought-after boys' choirs in the world.
Recuerdos de la Alhambra is a classical guitar piece composed in Málaga by Spanish composer and guitarist Francisco Tárrega. It requires the tremolo technique and is often performed by advanced players.
Rykestrasse Synagogue, Germany's largest synagogue, is located in the Prenzlauer Berg neighbourhood in the Pankow borough of Berlin. Johann Hoeniger built the synagogue in 1903/1904. It was inaugurated on 4 September 1904, in time for the holidays of and around Rosh Hashanah. The synagogue stands off the street alignment and is reached by a thoroughfare in the pertaining front building.
The New Klezmer Quintet is a traditional klezmer band originally from the Washington, D.C. area. The group is also a neo-klezmer ensemble performing klezmer music while incorporating elements of modern Israeli folk music, ladino, jazz, Swing music, Latin music, and rock and roll styles. The band was formed in 2001 at the Lansing Michigan Jazz Festival when a group of independent conservatory trained professional musicians with their own bands came together to jam. The New Klezmer Quintet has an older sister band called The Kol Haruach Orchestra which plays private events, while the main band plays strictly concert venues. Kol Haruach means voice of the spirit which embodies the groups improvisational and audience pleasing performance style.
Ekkehard Wlaschiha was a German operatic baritone who specialized in Wagnerian "villains", such as Alberich, Klingsor and Friedrich von Telramund. He performed at the Bayreuth Festival and at the Metropolitan Opera, and left many recordings.
Igor Levit is a Russian-German pianist who focuses on the works of Bach, Beethoven, and Liszt. He is also a professor at the Musikhochschule Hannover. He lives in Berlin.
The Dresdner Kammerchor is a mixed chamber choir which was founded in 1985 by Hans-Christoph Rademann in Dresden and is still conducted by him. The semiprofessional ensemble of about 40 singers has appeared internationally.
Marga Schiml is a German opera singer who sings mezzo-soprano and alto. She has appeared at major European opera houses and festivals, such as the Vienna State Opera, the Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Hamburg State Opera and La Scala, at the Salzburg Festival and the Bayreuth Festival. She is also an academic voice teacher.
Babette Haag is a German percussionist, who specialises in Marimba playing.
Margarita Höhenrieder is a German classical pianist and a professor at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater München. She has performed internationally and recorded, with a focus on chamber music. She premiered compositions which Harald Genzmer dedicated to her.
Daniel Behle is a German classical composer and operatic tenor. He has performed at international opera houses and festivals, and has recorded both operas and Lieder recitals.
Johannes Skudlik is a German organist and conductor.
The Görlitz Synagogue in Görlitz, Germany was built between 1909 and 1911 in the Art Nouveau style and was the main place of worship for the city's Jewish community. Despite an arson attack, the synagogue was one of the few synagogues in the area to survive Kristallnacht, sustaining only minor damage. The damage could have been greater, but was lessened because the firefighters ignored the orders to let the synagogue burn. With the city's Jewish population depleted, the unused synagogue became a ruin in the following decades. In 1991, a restoration project began which was completed in December 2020. Owing to the COVID-19 pandemic, the opening ceremony was postponed until 2021. The synagogue duly opened on July 12, 2021. On September 12, 2022 a new Magen David was placed on top of the synagogue.
Florian Krumpöck is an Austrian pianist and conductor.
Rolf Kleinert was a German conductor.
The Sinfonietta Dresden is a chamber orchestra from Dresden founded in 1994.
Clara Hepner also known by the pseudonym Klara Hepner, or Clara Muschner, Klara Muschner, sometimes Clara Hepner-Muschner, born Clara Freund in Görlitz, in Lower Silesia, Germany. She is best known as a poet and author of children's stories.
http://www.juedische-allgemeine.de/article/view/id/29408 - Jüdische Allgemeine, 24. Aug 2017, Berlin
https://juedischerundschau.de/article.2020-11.goerlitz-und-der-davidstern.html - Interview with Jüdischer Rundschau, Nov. 2020, Berlin