133 Israeli Composers Tal-Haim Samnon (b.1986) Tal-Haim Samnon was born in Tel Aviv. From the age of six, he studied with Hannah Shalgi at the Givatayim Conservatory. He graduated from the Thelma Yellin High School of the Arts and served as an outstanding musician in the IDF. Samnon completed his bachelor’s degree with honors with Professor Arie Vardi at the Buchmann-Mehta School of Music. Under the tutelage of Professor Evelyne Brancart, he completed his Artist Diploma degree at the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University. From a young age he has performed concerts in Israel, Europe and the United States, and last October he gave a solo recital in Carnegie Hall, New York. He has played as a soloist with many orchestras, including the Israel Philharmonic conducted by Zubin Mehta. Apart from his work as a pianist, Samnon is also a composer and a writer. The literary-musical work DE GA, consisting of 16 songs that he wrote and composed, all linked by his poetic text, was performed twice and most recently at the Felicja Blumental Music Festival in the Zucker Hall of the Tel Aviv Bronfman Auditorium, following which his book was published. Samnon composed the song ”Eimat Harik” - horror vacui [Horror of the Empty Space] to words by Tsvia Litevsky, three songs from Omri Livnat’s book ”Malachi” ”Memory and Variations” for piano solo and ”The Book of Esther” for orchestra, two-voice choir and singers. Last May his piece “The Infinite Garden” for Orchestra, choir, singers and narrator based on a poem written by the late Ronen Israeli was performed in the annual concert of the Ronen Foundation. He orchestrated 8 songs of Fanny Hensel Mendelssohn. They were performed by soprano Chen Reiss with the Jewish Chamber Orchestra Munich and were recorded by Onyx. Memory and Variations “Memory and Variations” is a recollection of the piece “Melody with Variations” by the composer Paul Ben-Haim, which I played in my youth. It is a personal and nearly blind journey in which each variation describes a memory from my life. The main theme “The Desert” describes the internal lyricism and emotion in the outer desolate space/ body. The first variation is enlightenment and the void starting to fill up. The second variation describes the two extremes of the poetic in my life - the high versus the low. The third variation is an imitation of the harp and describes the proximity to the heavens, with high pitched sounds. And from the Celestial we descend to the fourth variation – “Fire and Heroism”, the external or internal battle resulting in the body’s death. The fifth tragic variation mirrors the first theme, mourning for the death of the old. The sixth variation - “Toccata of Intrigue” - is the beginning of the soul’s renewal bubbling up out of a dark place. The seventh variation is the rebellion against everything that could have been good. The eighth variation is the bitter blind triumph, from which will remain a faint murmuring reminder of the main theme.
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