Gil Shohat

From around the world

Shohat’s The Child Dreams — A mature work

Wes Blomster | Opera Today | Feb. 2, 2010

Gil Shohat, now 35 and Israeli’s top classical composer, was 15 when in the ‘80s he saw Hanoch Levin’s The Child Dream on stage in his native Tel Aviv. “I knew then that I would compose Dream, said Shohat in a post-performance interview in the Tel Aviv Opera House, where the premiere of the opera had taken place on January 18. Shohat’s plans were seconded by Israeli Opera general director Hanna Munitz, who had also sensed the operatic potential of drama when she saw it on stage.
True, the opera underscores the degree to which the Holocaust remains today a defining experience for the Israeli consciousness, yet the local critic who placed the new opera “among the most depressing and despair-radiating operas of the repertoire” missed the point of the transformation of the story through music achieved by Shohat and his director Omri Nizan. (Nizan, an old hand at the Cameri Theater, helped Shohat with minor changes in the text — nothing was added — and then served in the vastly more important role as director of the production.) Shohat has documented his superlative command of the composer’s craft in an incredible long and diverse catalogue.
In Dream, however, he travels on no new turf, but concentrates rather on giving musical meaning to an unusually demanding text.
Dream is written for reduced orchestra, and outstanding is the manner in which Shohat has woven the piano into the ensemble to achieve unusual effects. (The composer is a concretizing pianist as well.) It is unavoidable that some find the opera with its focus on the death of children depressing and even morbid. In so doing, they overlook the strong element of empathy that Shohat’s music brings to Levin’s turgid story.
In the final analysis, Child Dream is an affirmative work that deserves to be seen outside Israel. The production celebrates the 35th anniversary of Israeli Opera; it further marks the 10th anniversary of Hanoch Levin’s death and the centennial of the founding of Tel Aviv.

From around the world

Brave Israeli opera radiates despair

William Littler | Toronto Star | Jan. 30, 2010

Gil Shohat’s denies ‘The Child’s Dream’ is a Holocaust opera, saying its themes are universal. But the parallels are obvious and unsettling.
Nine years ago, I reviewed the premiere of Shohat’s first opera, Alpha and Omega, a retelling of the Adam and Eve story, a work also commissioned by the Israeli Opera and mounted on the stage of Tel Aviv’s handsomely modern (and Israel’s only) opera house. Back then, the Israeli-born composer was a precocious 26-year-old, anxious to show off his skills. The new score finds him writing in a less self-conscious, more lyrical and listener-friendly manner (one scene sounding almost like a paraphrase of Ravel’s “La Valse”). “Friendly” may seem an odd word to describe such a savage study of the contrast between the hopeful dreams of childhood and the realities of adult human behavior, but music often softens harsh truths and Shohat’s, with its sometimes soaring vocal lines for the mother and child, is no exception. An opera bound for the international circuit? More likely so than Alpha and Omega, perhaps, especially if David Stern (violinist Isaac Stern’s son) conducts, Omri Nitzan directs, if the cast includes soprano Ira Bertman as The Mother and soprano Hila Baggio as The Child, and if Gottfried Helnwein’s sets and costumes continue to be used. Although Shohat denies that The Child Dreams is a Holocaust opera, rightly pointing out that its themes are universal, the parallels are strikingly obvious and unsettling.
The handsome Tel Aviv production helps mark the 25th anniversary of the Israeli Opera, a company with 17,000 subscribers and a 97 per cent average attendance in a country with a very recent operatic tradition. That tradition has yet to embrace Richard Wagner, the German composer’s adoption by the Nazis having left a psychic wound that has yet to heal, but it does embrace four operas and a musical specially commissioned by the Israeli Opera from Israeli composers, of whom Shohat is now the most operatically experienced. Whether the daring subject matter of an opera such as The Child Dreams will be embraced by companies outside Israel may turn out to be the greater challenge. If the desire to be moved counts for anything, Shohat’s new opera has at least a fighting chance.

From around the world

Young violinist on the first string

Lawrence A. Johnson | Miami Herald | Feb. 13, 2008

The evening was clearly one for violinists at the Knight Concert Hall with Pinchas Zukerman and Itzhak Perlman in attendance for the performance by the Israel Chamber Orchestra.

Founded in 1965 by Gary Bertini, the 37-member Israel Chamber Orchestra appears to be thriving under music director Gil Shohat. The hectic 13-city U.S tour schedule meant that the Miami stand was the ensemble’s third concert in 24 hours. Under the circumstances, the largely polished, spirited and responsive playing was even more impressive in a complex and generous.

In addition to his conducting, Shohat, 34, is an extraordinarily prolific composer who has written 10 concertos, nine symphonies, three operas and numerous other works. On Tuesday night he was represented by his Symphony of Fire (No. 3).

Cast in a long single movement, the rhapsodic symphony is unerringly well crafted and draws an extensive array of colors from modest forces. The composer elicited a refined, atmospheric performance, with the Israeli players attuned to the symphony’s surging waves and languid sensuality. But, although deftly scored, Shohat’s work is a rather sucrose-rich affair that fails to overcome its heavy debt to Scriabin.

Shohat is clearly a gifted and charismatic podium leader, as shown in a richly idiomatic and spirited rendering of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7. The Israeli musicians displayed signs of battle fatigue in the final movement, but, considering the insane tour schedule, the performance was surprisingly accomplished and exciting.

The chamber-orchestra forces inevitably sacrificed a certain amount of ballast, but Shohat made up the balance with his sure pacing, transparent textures and alert dynamic detailing. The conductor consistently pointed the dance-like rhythms with bite and drew an especially poised and atmospheric account of the Allegretto.

From around the world

Milwaukee Symphony: Shohat Songs of Bathsheba

Lawrence Hansen | American Record Guide | July/August 2005

Standing ovations are not unusual these days–almost any symphony or concerto with a blockbuster finale brings an audience to its feet now–but they are not at all common for large-scale 50-minute choral works written in 2003-04. Even so, Israeli composer Gil Shohat deserved the one he was given at the premiere of his new oratorio, Songs of Bathsheba Sharing the glory were conductor John Nelson, soprano Twyla Robinson, and the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra and Chorus.
Shohat is a young man with something to say–and it’s worth hearing. He has created a vivid, moving, powerful, and (most important) memorable vehicle for conveying the message that melodic beauty and emotions like love, hatred, jealousy, and remorse are timeless… He speaks with his own resonant voice.
He also makes no apology for writing in a rich, direct, melodic, late-romantic style. The audience at both the premiere and the following night’s repeat responded to it with spontaneous, vocal enthusiasm.

A powerful new work by a brilliant young composer and the work of a master sounding fresh and new–it was a night that even the most jaded concert-goer couldn’t forget.

From around the world

New work full of giant gestures

Tom Strini | The Milwaukee Sentinel | 23 April 2005

The overheated emotions, gigantic forces, monumental climaxes and grand gestures of very late Romanticism are all there, and Shohat handles these familiar elements expertly. Clearly, this young composer has prodigious command of orchestral color; you get the feeling that he knows exactly how that third trumpet part, say, fits into vast whole machinery of instrumentation around it.

More important, he knows how to handle harmony to build and to release enormous sonic and emotional tensions in a way that very few composers do these days. One of the two big ideas in this piece is a great choral, chromatic striving that surmounts one emotional summit after another. Shohat possesses the skill to give it weight and amplify its feeling with dense but beautiful harmonies.

Such harmonies stoke the boiler of the music, and they give off a lot of heat.

The contrasting big idea is a buoyant waltz, heard mainly in the orchestra. It gives the oratorio some rhythmic life and a little joy to leave the prevailing gloom. The text blended psalm and a new poetry Shin Shifrin focuses on Bathsheba’s guilt and regret when her son, Solomon, is crowned king of Israel. The ‘Song of Bathsheba’ oratorio succeeds on its own cathartic terms, the big crowd was raucously smitten with it, and Shohat’s undeniable skill can only be admired.

From around the world

Beautiful-sounding perverse opera – Gil Shohat’s “Alpha and Omega”

Peter Gradenwitz | Die Welt | 26 May 2001

Gil Shohat’s way of writing has a captivating quality with the expressive lyricism of the vocal parts and multihued instrumentation.

From around the world

The epidemic which followed original sin

Gian Luigi Mattietti | L’opera | March 2001

Gil Shohat’s Alpha and Omega was an immense, unprecedented success. A contemporary opera which received a standing ovation!. An opera which even the toughest critics considered an outstanding work by the national opera. Shohat’s music is lyrical and emotional, like all of the composer’s recent works. It is characterized by a definite, strong and stable vocal line, asserting a versatile style – a musical quest culminating in expressive climaxes, underpinned by harmonic writing and composition and brilliantissimo orchestration.

From around the world

New Israeli Opera’s Garden of Eden story in tune with our time

William Littler | The Toronto Star | 3 February 2001

Shohat is an undeniably masterful orchestrator and in Alpha and Omega he has produced a score embroidered with easy to follow and frequently to climax melodies.

From around the world

In the beginning was cloning

Gerhard R. Koch | Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung | 23 January 2001

The young composer does not see himself as avant-garde: what matters to him is intelligibility, sensual suggestion, both vocal and instrumental lavishness, and a corresponding level of effectiveness. This at any rate he achieves time and time again. The term “neo-Romantic” would be too prosaic a way of defining this style: this is music which cannot be narrowed down even to pure tonality. What Shohat does manage to do is to draw great melodic arcs, above all making the vocal parts soar bewitchingly. Shohat represents a generation of composers, in the West too, including Germany, who programmatically behave in an anti-dogmatic fashion. As interpreters who are active on an international level, cosmopolitan, self-assured and articulate, they represent their position with verve…

From around the world

Mintz and Shohat: Sweet oasis of sounds

Angelo Foletto | Repubblica | 2 June 1997

Gil Shohat’s work is like a beautiful painted panel of sounds, which arouses impressionist feelings of drops of water evoking a delicate, transparent spell, hints of mysterious ocean waves, in a rich bel canto style, and a horizontal panorama of sound extending to the furthermost boundary of the ear.

Israeli review

The Child is Incredible

Hanoch Ron | Yediot Aharonot | Jan. 20, 2010

The Opera “The Child Dreams” by Gil Shohat, based on the play of Hanoch Levin. The Israeli Opera. Director: Omri Nizan. Conductor: David Stern.
“Oy, Children, you were born to break our hearts,” says Hanoch Levin in his wonderful play “The Child Dreams.” Now comes the composer Gil Shohat and turns everything into a gorgeous operatic requiem. These are not just the children who die on stage, the children in us, are the ones who die. Wrapped in a shroud of poetry. The child dreams? More than just that. The “Child” is incredible.
In the space between despair and compassion – there you will find Hanoch Levin, and in the gap between the drama and poetry – you will find Gil Shohat. Shohat combines in this masterpiece the erotic power of Richard Strauss and the electrifying horror of Shostakovich. This is an opera that come from emotion, appealing to the sensual sound, and goes from there to the beauty of song – Simply fascinating.
The Rishon Le-Zion Orchestra played beautifully. Shining especially were the brass players. The conductor David Stern, lead them confidently.

Israeli review

“The Dreaming Child” – A Badge of Honor to the Opera

Tzvi Goren | Habama | Jan. 19, 2010

In many ways, Shohat turned in to a ‘dreaming child’ going out on a long journey to create his greatest masterpiece to date.
It must be said that the outcome of this challenging task was extremely successful, and what was shown on stage yesterday at the Israeli Opera is a badge of honor to all the many people who contributed to making this dream come true. We received a spectacular masterpiece of a complex and demanding piece of music, text, and presentation in the operatic genre.
Levin’s unique text presents the Opera creators a challenge… I’ll only say that this is a roaring river of musical ideas.
I was delighted with the lyrical orchestra and feminine vocals in the show, beginning with Shohat’s decision to create a “Greek Chorus” of nine women who accompany us through the journey and become part of it. Levin’s text was served well by this nonet in shaping the characters of the Mother and the Child, the helpless refugees, and finally the Dead Children who occupied the final exciting and incredibly moving act (also in its amazing visual effects) of this masterpiece.
“The Dreaming Child”, the Gil Shohat version, directed by Omri Nizan, is a brave work of art worthy of praise, and an important stop on the Israeli Opera’s journey to realizing its great and true mission of becoming a originator of original Israeli art.

Israeli review

The Dreaming Child: ” Intensive and Incredibly Powerful “

Ora Binur | Galatz (Radio) | Jan. 19, 2010

“The production of The Dreaming Child gives us great pride as it turns out that we have such great amount of exceptional acting, directing, and musical talents.”
“It is impossible not to point out the music of Gil Shohat, which is intensive and incredibly powerful. The Dreaming Child – can’t miss!”

Israeli review

Classical winter in Eilat

Simona Solomon | Ynet Magazine | February 4, 2008

Two stars stood out for their virtuosity and enchanting performances: the orchestra’s musical director, Gil Shohat, who conducted the main concert of the tenth ClasiCameri Festival in Eilat with virtuosic ease. The string ensemble of the Israel Chamber Orchestra opened the concert with Elgar’s Serenade for Strings in a very enjoyable and coherent performance and interpretation. … Shohat never stopped “conversing” with the orchestra and the public, and he chose to finish the concert with an amazing performance of Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony. It’s clear that Shohat has fully mastered the nuances of this well-known symphony, and he demonstrated that he knows how to breathe new life into it. He extracted from the score and the orchestra a whole new world of exciting sounds in very exact portions. Under Shohat, the performance was touching, just as a truly inspired masterpiece like the Erorica should be. After the first movement, which was wonderfully performed by the orchestra, Shohat amazed the audience with his conducting of the second movement: the Marche funèbre is always an emotional experience, and the cellos, the contrabasses, and especially the first oboist played excellently. … At the end of the event Shohat and the orchestra received standing ovations and extended applause from the audience, whom they had succeeded in delighting the whole evening.

Israeli review

The trumpet salutes the violins

Yakir Ben Moshe | Time Out | November 8, 2007

I never liked concerts until I go to the concerts of the ICO. GS, who was appointed only two years ago as the musical director and chief conductor of the orchestra, has turned for me the experience of listening to classical music into something that is much more than music. Suddenly the concerti of Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven, which beforehand were not more than a collection of instruments on the stage, started to rub against each other, creating a spark that is so needed and so talked about in concerts.

Israeli review

The many faces of Beethoven

Ora Binur | Maariv | Feb. 24, 2007

…Finally, the conductor Gil Shohat sat down at the piano and took upon himself an incredible challenge: performing Beethoven’s large-scale Emperor Concerto while conducting it at the same time. Shohat’s musical enthusiasm demanded quite a lot of acrobatics and infected both the orchestra and the audience, bringing the entire marathon of Beethoven concerti to a very interesting and satisfying end.

Israeli review

The courage to be understood

Haggai Hitron | Haaretz | July 11, 2007

Even the severe critics of Gil Shohat will have to admit that his masterful orchestration is extremely impressive. This was the case in his new piano concerto for four hands. If “concerto” is a contest, then the orchestra with a large variety of colors stands in this concert as a contestant who is even more interesting compared to 20 fingers of the pianists. The 25 minutes long concerto shows a very characteristic aspect in Shohat’s approach and that is his courage to be understood, exposed, and honest. He presents a very communicative music with no compromises. His piece doesn’t try to be pretentious by breaking any stylistic traditions. The listener and the players are asked to be entertained and have fun in the face of what the composer does being a very natural family member of the western music in all its kinds.

Israeli review

Tourists turn to dust

Meirav Yudilovitch | Ynet.com | November 27, 2006

The stage adaptation of Aharon Applefeld’s novel Badenheim 1939 is a work of genius. Shohat’s music behaves like a text, a dance that accompanies the plot like a Greek choir, and a theatrical language that demands the spectator to make intellectual connections. The textual narrative is presented by the actor Oded Teomi, but all the undercurrents of the story are told through the music of Gil Shohat, the composer and conductor, along with the Israel Chamber Orchestra. Shohat’s music advances on two levels: the first is filled with the joy of life, honorable grand gestures, and hedonism on the border of decadent madness. The second level is made up of a threatening and dramatic orchestration, the poetry of lamentation, and the infinite murmur of weeping violins that seeps deep into the realms of horror. On the one hand, Shohat writes for dreamy flutes and singing violins. On the other hand, there’s the billowing menace of the tympani. The music serves as a drug that blinds and intoxicates the consciousness of the visitors to Badenheim.