Taking an Enticing Journey Into World of Hebrew Music

The idea behind the Musics Alive! series, sponsored by the New West Symphony, is to explore the cross-talk between world music traditions and 20th century concert music. Opening its fifth season, the series set its sights on Hebraic musical tradition, with a concert dubbed “Israel Alive!,” held in the sprawling atrium of the GTE California headquarters in Thousand Oaks Sunday afternoon.

The culture in question here is closer to the heart of western classical tradition than others addressed by the series (later concerts will focus on Indonesian and Japanese music), and the program was enticing from start to finish.

The guest of honor was Israeli cellist Matt Haimovitz, a formidable player whom we didn’t hear quite enough of. Unfortunately, he chose to jettison an intriguing work on the program, Gyorgy Ligeti’s Sonata for Solo Cello, but Haimovitz impressed with two solo pieces opening the concert, informed by a bone-deep musicality. They were studies in contrast. American composer George Perle’s 1945 “Hebrew Melodies” is as plaintive and songful as Israeli composer Tzvi Avni’s “Elegy” is cerebral, adhering to a more atonal logic and using coloristic effects to suggest both angst and rumination.

The post-impressionistic luster of Darius Milhaud’s “Poemes Juifs” (1916) was beautifully sung by soprano Anne Marie Ketchum, accompanied by pianist Philip Young.

In 1928, Aaron Copland made a rare foray into his Jewish heritage, elaborating on a simple Jewish melody for his piece “Vitebsk,” played masterfully by Haimovitz, violinist Mark Robertson and pianist Gloria Cheng-Cochran. Juggling folk sonorities and classical sophistication, it’s a fascinating jewel in the rough, replete with intentionally warbled intonation and knotty piano clusters that change the harmonic terrain.

A different tack, fusing klezmer with longhair tradition, is taken by contemporary composer Paul Schoenfield, an American living in Israel, with his 1990 Trio, performed dashingly by Robertson, Cheng-Cochran and clarinetist Gary Ginstling. Ginstling was the protagonist, nailing the klezmer-esque swoops and feints alongside the tidier articulations of classical phrasing, and elegantly blurring the line between the sounds of a Jewish wedding and a chamber music salon.