Piano-playing barrister is bringing the music to Jewish Culture Month

A conductor turned barrister is putting Jewish music on the map in his local area by staging a concert as part of Jewish Culture Month.

Jonathan Gale, an accomplished pianist, who used to conduct opera, has put together a programme which spans works from Mendelssohn, Mahler and Bloch to Gershwin, Weill and Bernstein. There will also be a performance from SHARQIAH, a new group which plays traditional Jewish music from the Middle East and North Africa, including from Israel and Yemen.

Ofer Peled, leader of SHARQIAH[Missing Credit]

Gale, who is the treasurer of the Liberal Democrat Friends of Israel and is a councillor in Dacorum, Hertfordshire, said the idea for a concert during Jewish Culture Month came to him when he read the Board of Deputies’ manifesto for local government just before the recent elections. “It’s so important in a climate of rising antisemitism, when there is huge misunderstanding about Israel, whether it’s misguided or sometimes intentional, that we can showcase Jewish culture,” said Gale.

Asked what he thought constituted Jewish music, the 51-year-old said: “Can music be Jewish? I have deliberately called the concert ‘a celebration of Jewish people in music’.”

Ronald Samm (Photo: ronaldsamm.com)[Missing Credit]

Gale said he had intentionally designed a diverse programme “as I am keen to make the point that it’s a myth that Jewish music is just European. There has always been a Jewish connection to the Middle East, so SHARQIAH will be playing Jewish Middle Eastern music, and while we will start with traditional European pieces, we will move to music from Broadway. It will show how international music by Jewish writers is, but it’s also really good music. ”

Although Gale switched career in 2010 to move into the legal world, he continues to arrange concerts and give piano recitals.

Tanya Sweiry (Photo: Aiga Ozo)[Missing Credit]

On the night, he will play Bloch’s Baal Shem Three Pictures of Hasidic Life and Mahler’s Symphony No 5 Adagietto, with the violinist Tanya Sweiry, whom he heard performing on Holocaust Memorial Day. “She is brilliant,” says Gale.

He is also enthusiastic about welcoming the Sonorité Saxophone Quartet, who will be playing Broadway classics, including songs from West Side Story by Leonard Bernstein, as well as pieces by Irving Berlin and Harold Arlen, the latter of whom won an Oscar for Over the Rainbow from The Wizard of Oz.

Sonorité Saxophone Quartet (Photo: sonoritémusic.co.uk)[Missing Credit]

One of the highlights will be performances from celebrated tenor Ronald Samm, who will sing some of the most famous numbers from Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess and Weill’s Street Scene.

While there will be music by Israeli composer Paul Ben-Haim and some of SHARQIAH’s tunes are from Israel, Gale is clear that the concert, “is not about Israel; there won’t be people waving Israeli flags. It’s about music by Jewish composers.”

Nor is he hoping that people will come away with one particular message. “Music is music, not words. You can’t listen to music and think: ‘This is what it means.’ Anyone listening will take what they want from it.”

L’Chaim – a Celebration of Jewish People in Music

June 14, at 7.30pm in West Hertfordshire

This concert will NOT be available online

To purchase tickets, click here or go to:

jewishculturemonth.org.uk/events/lchaim-a-celebration-of-jewish-people-in-music

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Jewish Culture Month

Music

Piano-playing barrister is bringing the music to Jewish Culture Month

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