It’s going to be a lot of fun down in Eilat on January 18-20. OK, so that’s probably not exactly startling breaking news for most, particularly at this time of the year when the sun is far gentler and the sea is nonetheless a sparkling, lilting, inviting prospect.
But the enticement ante will elevate this weekend when our southernmost resort town plays host to the Isrotel Classicameri Festival.
The festival has been around since 1998. Over the years, it has hosted a plethora of musicians and artists from various disciplines from here and around the world. The sonic repertoire has spanned classical endeavors, from the time of Bach, Beethoven, and Tchaikovsky through to contemporary fare.
This year will feature internationally renowned Israeli conductor
This year’s edition, with internationally renowned Israeli conductor, composer, pianist, and accordion player Omer Meir Wellber at the helm, encompasses a wealth of works performed by artists with more than one eye on the feel-good factor.
The accent is clearly very much on giving the audiences down South entertainment value for their hard-earned cash, while the Red Sea ripples away under the caress of the January sun and the twinkling desert starry nighttime sky.
Not that Wellber will have too much free time for basking on the beach over the three days. For starters, he performs in five concerts, and there are all sorts of people to collaborate, and touch professional and personal base with.
“It is a sort of microcosm [at the festival],” he says. “You get there and you have no idea if it is day or night outside. All day you either play or conduct or are in a rehearsal or in a concert.”
But this is far from being a case of the proverbial dull boy who only has time for work, and none for play. “It is wonderful,” Wellber enthuses.
“I don’t know if I’ll have time for a dip in the sea. Maybe one morning. But that is what I love, specifically, about the Classicameri Festival in Eilat. We [musicians] are all friends. There is a sort of family ambiance there, especially now in the current [security] situation. I think there is something therapeutic about the festival now.”
Knows the magic of music
Wellber has a better handle than most on the magic of music. He spent two priceless apprenticeship years, 2008-10, as assistant conductor to Daniel Barenboim at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden (Berlin State Opera) and at the La Scala Theater in Milan. He also serves as music director of the Ra’anana Symphonette Orchestra, and filled a similar post with the Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía (Queen Sofia Palace of the Arts) in Spain.
The 42-year-old’s bulging bio also includes his current tenures with the Teatro Massimo Vittorio Emanuele opera house in Palermo, Sicily, and the Vienna Volksoper (Vienna People’s Opera), before he moves on to Germany next year, where he is due to take up prestigious positions with the Hamburg State Opera and Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra.
THE MAN clearly knows his Bach from his Britten, but he is also very much a person of the here and now. Running one’s eye down the Eilat agenda, it becomes immediately evident that Wellber is no classical aficionado snob. He wants his audiences not only to appreciate the proffered repertoire and the expertise of the folks on the stage, he would also very much like us to have a rollicking good time.
Take the 9 p.m. slot on the opening day of the festival. The concert title spells out a large part of the curatorial ethos: When Mendelssohn Met Mintus in Italy.
Wellber’s old pals from the Ra’anana Symphonette Orchestra are on board for the ride, as well as pianist Guy Mintus who, over the past decade or so, has built up a reputation for scintillating readings of classical works with more than a touch of heart-on-sleeve vibes.
With a solid grounding in jazz as well as classical climes, he seamlessly marries the two genres, and has enjoyed fruitful and alluring synergies with instrumentalists and vocalists across a broad range of styles and artistic fields.
That suits Wellber down to the ground and he has cooked up all kinds of intriguing, layered brews for our listening pleasure in Eilat. “It is a very special project,” he notes.
“It is not the Italian [Symphony No. 4 by Mendelssohn] per se. Yes, Mendelssohn is in there but there are a lot of special touches in there too.”
When embarking on such an adventurous avenue of performance, it helps to have the right personnel to get the job done in the best improvisational way possible. “We have Guy Mintus, who is so capable. We have worked Italian Neapolitan songs into the score, which are connected to the melodies Mendelssohn used himself.” The Puritans may not like that, but, almost two centuries after the symphony was first unveiled, it seems to make perfect sense.
“It is like a big symphony. In each movement, the theme and the songs ebb and flow, in and out of Mendelssohn. It turns into a jam session, into an hour-long symphony. There are lots of things in there.”
That seems to be the case right through the three-day program. The first day opens with a Bach mandolin-based concert starring Spain-based Israeli mandolin player Yaki Reuven, an old sparring partner of Wellber’s, and the Israeli Mandolin Soloists.
The artistic director says the transposition, away from the original instruments, is perfectly natural. “Many composers, even the great Bach, wrote for specific voices, not for specific instruments,” he explains. “They were very open. The works could be performed on oboe, violin, or something else. No one made a thing of it. It was all fine.”
THE FIRST day of the festival closes at 10:30 p.m., with Wellber’s old pal David Sebba conducting the Ra’anana Symphonette Orchestra, which will be joined by Sderot-born pop, rock, blues, and Israeli music vocalist Maor Cohen, and an as-yet-unnamed guitarist, in a program of Israeli and blues numbers.
There are surprising lineups everywhere you look; for example, Sebba and the Symphonette are returning on Friday to perform Prokofiev’s Lieutenant Kijé, originally written as the soundtrack to the eponymous 1934 Soviet movie.
The Eilat reading has been adapted for a smaller ensemble and the evening will close with an enlightening discussion about Prokofiev’s movie music.
There are dancers in the festival program, and more in the way of instrumental refashioning when Wellber reprises his Four Seasons project, in which he marries Vivaldi’s enduringly popular work with 20th-century Argentinean tango composer Astor Piazzolla’s composition of the same name.
Wellber, naturally, goes with the extemporizational flow. “It looks like just a concert with the Four Seasons by Vivaldi and by Piazzolla. Everyone is familiar with that. But the people that come to the concert will realize they don’t know it. There are mandolins, an accordion, violins, and everything is turned upside down. I play a lot of accordion in the Vivaldi, but a lot of harpsichord in Piazzolla.”
That sounds charming and definitively unstuffy. That is the name of the game right across the Isrotel Classicameri Festival rollout. Rock and pop fans may also be drawn in by, for example, the closing gala concert featuring stellar rock-pop singer Ran Danker – who just happens to be Wellber’s cousin – Mintus, percussionist Tomer Yariv, violinist Nitai Zori, and soprano singer Daniela Skorka. Sebba and the Symphonette are also in the mix for the finale.
Entertainment, surprises galore, sumptuous eclectic musical offerings, and the Red Sea. As George Gershwin posed in I Got Rhythm almost a century ago, who could ask for anything more?
For tickets and more information: www.isrotel.co.il/eventssale/classicameri2.
