The Dybbuk: Between Two Worlds – Opera by Ofer Ben-Amots

Semi-Staged Concert Performance 6:00pm Pre-Concert Lecture 7:00pm Concert Co-sponsored by The American Society for Jewish Music, Center for Jewish History, Jewish Music Forum This event has been postponed. New date TBD.

S. An-ski’s play The Dybbuk, with its rich depiction of  Jewish mysticism, folklore, and traditional shtetl life, is one of the most widely performed and influential Jewish theatrical works in history. Israeli-American composer Ofer Ben-Amots created a Hebrew language operatic adaptation of the classic play in 2007. It has since been performed over a half-dozen times, but never in New York City. Join us for a semi-staged concert performance of this chamber opera which features soprano Sophie Amelkin in the role of Leah, baritone Cantor Rafael Frieder in the role of the Rabbi, and clarinetist Kliment Krylovskiy in the role of Khannan, accompanied by Montage Music Society led by Debra Ayers consisting of clarinet, violin, cello, piano, and percussion.

YIVO’s Anne E. Leibowitz Visiting Professor-in-Residence in Music, Neil W. Levin, will deliver a pre-concert lecture on the opera.

Performed in Hebrew with English supertitles, the concert performance lasts 90 minutes.

About the Composer

Born in Haifa, in 1955, Israel, Ofer Ben-Amots gave his first piano concert at age nine and at age sixteen was awarded first prize in the Chet Piano Competition. Later, following composition studies with Joseph Dorfman at Tel Aviv University, he was invited to study at the Conservatoire de Musique in Geneva, Switzerland. There he studied with Pierre Wismer and privately with Alberto Ginastera. Ben-Amots is an alumnus of the Hochschule für Musik in Detmold, Germany, where he studied with Martin C. Redel and Dietrich Manicke and graduated with degrees in composition, music theory, and piano. Upon his arrival in the United States in 1987, Ben-Amots studied with George Crumb at the University of Pennsylvania where he received his Ph.D. in music composition. Currently Chair of the Music Department at Colorado College, Dr. Ben-Amots teaches composition, music theory, and a wide variety of liberal arts subjects.

Ofer Ben-Amots’ compositions are performed regularly in concert halls and festivals Worldwide. His music has been performed by such orchestras as the Zürich Philharmonic, Munich Philharmonic, the Austrian Radio Orchestra, Bruckner Orchestra, Moscow Camerata, Heidelberg, Erfurt, Brandenburg, the Filarmonici di Sicili, Milano Chamber Orchestra, Brooklyn Philharmonic, the Concerto Soloists of Philadelphia, North/South Consonance in NY, Portland Chamber Orchestra, and the Colorado Springs Philharmonic among others. His compositions have been professionally recorded by the Gewandhaus Orchestra of Leipzig, the Munich Chamber Orchestra, the Barcelona Symphony, Odessa Philharmonic, the BBC Singers, and the renowned Czech choirs Permonik and Jitro. Ben-Amots has received commissions and grants from the MacArthur Foundation, Fulbright Foundation, Amado Foundation, Schleswig-Holstein Musikfestival, Fuji International Music Festival in Japan, Delta Ensemble from Amsterdam, Assisi Musiche Festival, the Geneva Camerata and many others.

Ofer Ben-Amots is the winner of the 1994 Vienna International Competition for Composers. His chamber opera, Fool’s Paradise, was premiered in Vienna during the 1994 festival Wien modern and has become subsequently part of the 1994/95 season of Opernhaus Zürich. He is recipient of the 1988 Kavannagh Prize for his Fanfare for Orchestra and the Gold Award at South Africa’s 1993 Roodepoort International Competition for Choral Composition. His Avis Urbanus for amplified flute was awarded First Prize at the 1991 Kobe International Competition for Flute Composition in Japan. In 1999, Ben-Amots was awarded the Aaron Copland Award and the Music Composition Artist Fellowship by the Colorado Council on the Arts. In 2004 he won the Festiladino, an international contest for Judeo-Spanish songs, a part of the Israel Festival in Jerusalem. In 2015, Ben-Amots won the First Prize at the 4th Smareglia International Composers Competition in Udine, Italy. His innovative multimedia opera, The Dybbuk, has been produced in over ten different productions in the US, Germany, and Israel. The opera has been described as “a uniquely beautiful and powerful new work” and its production as “a service to music and to what is best in our humanity” (Listen for Life Reviews, by Donna Stoering, September 30, 2016.)

Ofer Ben-Amots’ works have been repeatedly recognized for their emotional and highly personal expression. The interweaving of folk elements with contemporary textures, along with his unique imaginative orchestration, creates the haunting dynamic tension that permeates and defines Ben-Amots’ musical language. His music has been published by Baerenreiter, Kallisti Music Press, Muramatsu Inc., Dorn, and The Composer’s Own Press. It can be heard on Naxos, Vantage, Plæne, Stylton, and the Milken Archive of Jewish Music.

About the Speaker

Dr. Neil W. Levin is a leading musicological and historical scholar and authority on the music of Jewish experience and connection in both its secular-cultural and sacred-liturgical realms. He is the Artistic Director and Editor in Chief of the Milken Archive of Jewish Music and emeritus professor of Jewish music at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. Dr. Levin holds B.A. and M.A. degrees from Columbia University and a PhD in Jewish music from the Jewish Theological Seminary. For many years, Dr. Levin was Editor of the scholarly journal, Musica Judaica, and in addition to two books, he has published more than 300 articles, essays, and monographs on numerous aspects of Jewishly-related music and its various historical, literary, and cultural contexts. He is YIVO’s Anne E. Leibowitz Visiting Professor-in-Residence in Music.