Biography

The Israel Philharmonic Orchestra serves as an unofficial Israeli national orchestra and is regarded as a cultural treasure of the Jewish state. However, the group performs a wide variety of repertory from many countries. European-style classical music performances began to take root in the Palestine region as early as the 1880s, and music education institutions were opened after World War I as the idea of Palestine as a Jewish homeland developed. However, a full-scale symphony orchestra was not founded until Jews began to flee Nazi Germany en masse in the 1930s. The key mover was violinist Bronislaw Huberman, who encouraged Jewish musicians forced to leave their posts in German orchestras to join the Palestine Symphony Orchestra, which he founded in 1936. The group's premiere performance was conducted by the anti-Nazi Arturo Toscanini. On that first concert, music by Wagner was heard, but since then, the orchestra has generally avoided his works. Huberman worked tirelessly to arrange immigration documents for the new musicians and their families, and he is thought to have saved some 1,000 people from German death camps. William Steinberg was the new orchestra's music advisor and frequently conducted the group in its early years; Leonard Bernstein held the same position in the late '40s and continued to appear with the group, making some of its first recordings in the late '50s. After the Israeli state was established in 1948, the group was renamed the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. For many years, it was led by guest conductors and advisors, including Paul Paray, Jean Martinon, and, from 1969 to 1977, Zubin Mehta. Mehta became the orchestra's first music director in 1977 and remained in that position until 2019; in 2020, he was succeeded by Lahav Shani, but he remained active as music director emeritus. The group is a cooperative owned by its musicians. The modern Israel Philharmonic Orchestra has about 110 members. Its main performance venue is the Heichal HaTarbut concert hall in Tel Aviv, formerly known as Mann Auditorium; the group also performs regularly in Haifa and Jerusalem and in various foreign countries. In 2011, the orchestra's performance at the BBC Proms was disrupted by pro-Palestinian protestors. The group frequently plays host to world-class soloists and guest conductors. Programming is cosmopolitan but frequently features works by Israeli composers. The Israel Philharmonic Orchestra released the album Tradition, featuring Israeli melodies, performed by guest violinist Itzhak Perlman, in 1987 on the Angel label, and the group recorded for Angel, EMI, Deutsche Grammophon, and other labels through the '80s and '90s. In 2006, the orchestra established its own Helicon Classics label, which reissued many of its earlier LP recordings. The orchestra has issued many recordings in Helicon Classics but continued its association with Deutsche Grammophon, releasing a recording of Paul Ben-Haim's Symphony No. 1 on that label in 2022. By the early 2020s, the orchestra's recording catalog comprised some 80 items. ~ James Manheim, Rovi