Taiseer Elias recently finished a series of 10 concerts as musical director of the Andalusian Orchestra of Ashdod. The concerts took place across Israel, including in Tel Aviv, which was something of a novelty.
It is only recently that the type of music played by this orchestra has reached the mainstream of Israeli culture as defined by the concert-going audiences of Tel Aviv, the big city. But he has been patient.
“We play where we are best appreciated,” he observes. This means places that appreciate Arab and Oriental music. In this instance, he performed with the orchestra and the El-Karuen Choir. Besides the two performances at the Tel Aviv Museum, they appeared in Ashdod, Jerusalem, Kiryat Motzkin, Beersheba and Modi’in.
It has taken a long time for classical oriental music to become commercially popular in Israel – it was considered the enemy’s music. Elias has taken a major role in reversing this trend. Partly one suspects because he received a “Western” type of musical education, firstly at the Rubin Academy in Jerusalem, where he studied classical violin for eight years, before moving to the musicology department at The Hebrew University, where he earned his doctorate in Arabic music. He became an acceptable source for what he was about to do.
As much as he garnered a thorough musical education in the academy, he was also deeply influenced by his home environment. He came from a musical family, and was influenced by his brothers to take up the oud – an instrument that typifies music around the Mediterranean basin.
Yet even here he was encouraged by the academy: “Professor Daniel Cohen told me I had to go out and develop the oud, and this I did, partly from the influence of my brothers, but mainly from myself. Had I learned it from someone else, I would not have developed my own style of playing, a method that I have taught others. From being merely an instrument of folklore, I turned the oud into a virtuoso instrument so it could play a classical repertoire, and partake of Indian or Spanish music. I kept the tradition but I developed it in my own way.”
“Professor Daniel Cohen told me I had to go out and develop the oud, and this I did, partly from the influence of my brothers, but mainly from myself. Had I learned it from someone else, I would not have developed my own style of playing, a method that I have taught others. From being merely an instrument of folklore, I turned the oud into a virtuoso instrument so it could play a classical repertoire, and partake of Indian or Spanish music. I kept the tradition but I developed it in my own way.”
Taiseer Elias
On the instrument of choice itself he observes: “Every instrument has its possibilities but also its restraints. The oud is difficult to play chords on, because of its fret-less board. On the other hand, you can play quarter tones on it. One reason I chose the music I did for this last series of concerts was the lack of quarter tones, which are hard for other instruments to play along with. In fact, I included mainly music that accompanied Egyptian films that are screened on Israeli television every Friday night. As a result, many Israelis know the melodies.”
Many in the Jewish audience sang along with the music, the majority of which they were familiar as some had been adapted in their synagogues in Iraq, Egypt, Lebanon and elsewhere.
He also makes an observation about his musical traditions:
“Arab music has become increasingly acceptable and popular in Israel. Once it was almost impossible to hear Arab music, but since the advent of the Internet and YouTube, the whole world of Arab music is accessible to everyone. This exposure has brought a difference. Arab musicians now appear all over the world in all sorts of festivals. Once Arab music was closed off from the outside, but now it is more open and cosmopolitan.”
His own experience has made him an international name. In his very modest style, Elias recounts how he has played alongside some of the biggest names in world music: Ravi Shankar, Paco de Lucia, Jascha Heifetz, Hariprasad Chaurasia, Zakir Hussain, Ross Dali, Isaac Stern, and Itzhak Perlman.
Although he is now a professor at Haifa University, chairing the musicology department, Elias has been active in many areas of music outside the academic world, believing that “the great thing about music is its universality, it brings people together. It’s a very human connection.”
Elias has been instrumental in bringing young Arab and Jewish musicians together. He created the Jewish-Arab Youth Orchestra, as well as founding the first adult orchestra for classical Arab music in Israel.
His relationship with the Andalusian Orchestra of Ashdod goes back a long time:
“I’ve had a long connection with the Andalusian Orchestra. Its Arab music stems from the 10th century, when Ziryab, who was brought up in Iraq but had to escape to Spain, brought his music. There he developed this distinctive music, which then spread throughout the Maghreb of North Africa.” (The Maghreb includes Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Tunisia and Western Sahara.)
The Andalusian Orchestra of Ashdod, which was founded in 1993, has now been recognized as a national ensemble for Israel, on a par with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, under the administrative and musical direction of Ya’akov ben-Simon. A few years ago, ben-Simon invited Elias to be musical director, which he was for four years. But then with his appointment as a professor of musicology at Haifa University in 2018, he found it impossible to go down to Ashdod all the time. Ben-Simon however kept the connection.
“Ben-Simon decided on the Egyptian music for this series of concerts, which was called ‘Melodies of the Nile.’ But the actual repertoire I created. I tried to pick music that is less tricky, with known maqamim (scales), or those having fewer quarter-tones, which as I have mentioned, are difficult to play on Western instruments. It seems that Egyptian music is more acceptable in Israel than Syrian, Lebanese or Iraqi music, even though there are plenty of Israelis who come from those places. Although called Andalusian, the orchestra is flexible in its repertoire, and it’s great to play with a combination of Eastern and Western instruments. Included in the ensemble are the Oud, Ney, Darbuka, and Kanoon alongside the violin, viola, cello, the French horn and trumpet.”
When not teaching, Elias, 62, organizes small ensembles, playing music that is very attached to Arab traditions but which is also open to innovations, often of his own creations. He formed the “White Bird,” group, the Ziryab Trio (named after the founder of Andalusian music), Arabandi, which included Indian musicians, and was involved in perhaps the most successful of the groups, “Bustan Avraham.” All of these groups emphasized the transcendental quality of music in bringing Arabs and Jewish musicians together.
In addition, Elias has appeared as a guest soloist in orchestras both throughout Israel and abroad. His appearances have taken him to the US, where he played with orchestras in Minnesota, California, Wisconsin, in London’s Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and in Potsdam, Germany. He has composed music for films and theater, and instrumental and vocal music for the ensembles he has been involved in. He is often sent abroad by the Foreign Ministry in particular to showcase the Arab-Jewish ensembles he has created. He has also run master classes throughout the world.
Elias’ professorial duties have seen him head the Eastern Music Department at the Jerusalem Music Academy, as well as the Jerusalem Music Center at Mishkenot Sha’ananim. He also plans programs for Israeli television and radio. His public chores include the “Arts for the People” (Omanut l’am), and various roles for promoting music in the Education Ministry. In Jerusalem, he regularly participates in the annual Oud Festival.
Listening to Elias play either violin or oud is to hear these instruments played with purity and subtlety that underlies his outlook: “If you have the confidence in your music and it is of a quality, then it is no problem to play it anywhere.” ■