To those who have heard the atonal call of the ram’s horn during High Holidays services, traditionally blown in staccato bursts and long, one-note blasts, it’s difficult to imagine that the ancient Jewish instrument could produce concert-worthy melodies.
Performing at a recent concert with an orchestra (Photo: Stefan Maria Rother)[Missing Credit]
But with the help of Israeli composer Amir Shpilman, whose Jewish-themed compositions have given texture and shape to the unique sounds Zemach has managed to coax from the shofar, the young musician is reinventing that time-worn instrument, offering it a new channel for expression in an emerging intersection between classical and Jewish music.
Shpilman’s Niggun David, a composition rooted in the Shema Yisrael prayer, places the shofar at centre stage, and through Zemach’s performance the horn is lent a lively, pleading voice. Zemach’s repertoire also includes adaptations of Max Bruch’s Kol Nidre and Michael Wolpe’s Tru’a uNiggun, compositions which, thanks to his shofar sounds, are both traditional and dynamic.
But Zemach, based in Berlin since 2020, didn’t set out to be a strictly “Jewish musician”.
Born in Modi’in and raised in Tel Aviv, he comes from a secular household where he was surrounded by music. His father Nir is the principal trumpet player in the Israeli Opera Orchestra and his mother Tali was once a professional flautist. “It was kind of obvious that I would be a musician,” he said.
After my grandfather died, I went to the synagogue for the first time in my life just out of interest and started to be fascinated
Drawn, like his parents, to wind instruments, Zemach began playing the French horn as a child and kept up the habit, going on to earn resounding acclaim as a soloist in Israel and, later, across Europe.
He came to the shofar by way of his formerly Chasidic grandfather, Yehezkel, who, Zemach said, “was always connecting me to the Jewish religion”.
The musician as a child with his grandfather, Yehezkel[Missing Credit]
Bar Zemach and his grandfather Yehezkel[Missing Credit]
This included introducing him to the horn that has been an instrument of Jewish spirituality for millennia. When Zemach was 17, Yehezkel gave him a shofar of his own and proposed an unconventional idea: that his musically adept grandson learn how to play it chromatically.
“I was too young at the time to really realise how I would do it, and I thought, first of all, I want to be like everybody else: I’m doing orchestra auditions, I’m playing the French horn, I’m not sticking out of the company,” Zemach said.
“But after my grandfather died, I went to the synagogue for the first time in my life just out of interest, and I started to be fascinated by Judaism and the voices of spirituality. That’s when I decided I would tell the story about my grandfather and the shofar.”
Although Zemach’s performances most often take place outside of the religious sphere, it was important that his practical approach to playing the hallowed instrument remain in keeping with religious practice.
“I don’t use a reed because then it won’t be kosher – if you put in a mouthpiece, if you change it, it won’t be holy any more,” he said.
“And if I’m blowing and air escapes from the side, it’s also not kosher, because when you’re playing the shofar all your air needs to go through the instrument,” Zemach said, explaining why traditional shofar-blowers often put a finger against the mouth hole whilst blowing.
“This has also changed my way of playing because, of course, it’s even harder to keep all your air going through the instrument when you’re using this range, but it makes the sound even better.”
Besides being principal horn of Berlin’s West-Eastern Divan Orchestra under the baton of Israeli maestro Daniel Barenboim, Zemach said he’s stopped “almost everything I’ve done with the orchestras to concentrate on the shofar”.
“It’s a meaningful act,” he said. “I’m really hoping that when people listen to me play it, they gain some spiritual awareness.”
Zemach himself certainly has, not least because he continues to play exclusively on the shofar Yehezkel gave him. “I must say, I tried so many shofars since then, and this is still the best shofar I’ve ever touched,” he said. “It gives me a sense of spirituality – probably because it’s from my grandfather.”
