Symphony by Israeli composer Baruch Berliner to be performed in Istanbul

Last week, President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan hosted rabbis from a number of Muslim countries, and on February 11, in Istanbul, there will be a concert where the the symphonic poem Genesis for orchestra and narrator by the Israeli composer Baruch Berliner will be performed. The work has already been successfully performed in 18 countries around the world. This is the fourth Muslim country that gets acquainted with the music of the Israeli composer.

The work will be performed by the Istanbul State Symphony Orchestra (IDSO), which was founded in 1827 by the brother of the famous Italian opera composer Gaetano Donizetti, who was invited by the Turkish Sultan to create the Imperial Orchestra of the Ottoman Empire.

Over the years, world-famous conductors and soloists have performed with the orchestra: Aaron Copland, Yehudi Menuhin, Luciano Pavarotti, Jean-Pierre Rampal, Gidon Kremer, Lazar Berman, Natalia Gutman and many others

The premiere performance of Berliner’s work in Istanbul will be led by Russian conductor Mikhail Kirchhoff, who is invited by initiator of the concert, Israeli producer Nachum Slutzker not by chance. In recent years, maestro Kirchhoff has become one of the main performers of the Israeli composer’s works.

According to the famous conductor: ”Berliner’s music brings its listeners back to classical music thanks to melodies that touch hearts and souls, special harmony, topical and universal themes that affect the audience anywhere in the world”. The Bible text will be read in Turkish for the first time, so the orchestra’s management ordered a special translation into modern literary Turkish because in each country the narrator reads the biblical texts in the local language.

Baruch Berliner was born in Tel Aviv in 1942 and moved to Berlin with his parents at the age of 13. After his return to Israel in, he worked as a senior research fellow at Tel Aviv University until 2007. In recent years, Baruch Berliner has been working closely with producer and musician Nachum Slutzker.