Paul Ben-Haim - A Concert Biography

Works by Paul Ben-Haim and Danielle Lurie (world premiere)

Elias Krischke, acting and dance
Daniel Grossmann, conductor

JEWISH
A Jewish biography: The young Munich composer and conductor Paul Frankenburger left his promising career behind when he emigrated to Tel Aviv in 1933. Everything was different in his new homeland: his new surroundings and the unfamiliar sounds inspired him, and he not only changed his name to Paul Ben-Haim, but also his compositional style. Hand in hand with the founding of the State of Israel, a new music emerged: Ben-Haim became the founder of Israeli classical music and influenced generations of musicians.

TODAY
In today's globalized world, we can hardly imagine how impressively Paul Ben-Haim experienced his strange, new homeland in 1933. Nevertheless, the young Israeli composer Danielle Lurie attempts to recreate it: inspired by Bavaria and Bavarian folk music, she is writing a new work for the JCOM as a reflection of Paul Ben-Haim's work "between the worlds."

FOR ALL
We all know this: in a foreign land, our perspective changes. When a foreign land becomes home, our perspective changes. For concertgoers, Ben-Haim's biographical milestones become audible, and together we experience the mirror-image experiment: how does the music of our homeland affect a composer who received her training at Ben-Haim's place of work?

In cooperation with the Ben-Haim Research Center of the University of Music and Theater Munich

From the 2025-26 season, the JCOM will be the 'Orchestra in Residence' at the Munich Kammerspiele.