In one sense the nation of Israel has only been in existence since 1948; in another sense, Israel as been around since, well, Genesis chapter 12 when God calls Abraham. This music has the heart of the latter, but the composers of the past three generations of the former, with composers and performers representing the colors as well as nationalities of one of the world’s great melting pots.
Pianist Liora Ziv-Li is featured on a number of tunes, the Middle Eastern dance of Paul Ben-Haim’s “Toccata” and spacious and dynamic “Three Romances by Ari Ben-Shabetal. Dark and ominous woodwinds, strings and percussion cry with agonize as the Israel Philharmonic broods on the dark “Bashrav”. H. Stephen wright conducts a chamber septet the includes soprano Denise Lundline on the stately “Wire”, with most intriguing ideas coming from a mix of Michal Tai’s piano and amplified voice on “Off Piano”. Voices of Bedouin schoolchildren juxtaposed together electronically make for a musical mural on “The Gown Of Nights’ and Elizabeth Brightbill’s flute is dreamy with Ruth Maayani’s harp for “Arabesque No. 2”.The old joke used to be that if you get 12 Jews together, you get 13 opinions; what kind of music do you get with the same number of Sabra tunes?