Young Israel Philharmonic Orchestra

Jerusalem Music Center Jerusalem Theater December 10

Aconcert stage populated by 11- to 18-year-young musicians is an enormously enjoyable landscape.

Their shining faces reflected their pleasure of belonging to this ensemble, the Young Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, an initiative of the Jerusalem Music Center.

The concert’s obligatory Israeli piece, There is a Land, was played in commemoration of its recently deceased Israeli composer Noam Sherif.

Sherif had obviously not intended this piece for a youth orchestra, but some of its breakneck solo passages were rendered brilliantly by the young players, and the work was performed not only with perfect accuracy, but also with remarkable involvement and enthusiasm. So was also Grieg’s Holberg’s Time Suite.

The orchestra’s sound was lively and fresh, conveying the youngsters’ joy of playing, more than one encounters in some adult and blasé orchestras.

Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony on the other hand, a difficult work even for an adult orchestra, was a bit doubtful and too ambitious of a work for a youth orchestra.

The required transparency was sometimes missing, the instruments’ balance left too much to be desired, the forceful passages tended to sound boisterous, and the third movement’s pizzicato section was too tricky to be rendered crisply.

A less demanding classical symphony by Haydn, Mozart or even early Beethoven might have come closer to perfection.

Nevertheless, conductor Zvi Carmeli deserves praise for having achieved such a high performance level from these musicians.

With this orchestra, the future of the (adult) Israel Philharmonic Orchestra – after its present members will have been pensioned off – seems to be assured.