“The best things in my life are the ones I’m not prepared for, that come by accident,” said Israeli composer-pianist-conductor Shlomo Gronich in a recent telephone interview.
Among these “best things,” he said, was the creation of the Sheba Choir, comprising 13 Ethiopian Jewish teens, which Gronich has led to renown in Israel and abroad.
The choir will present a concert as part of Milwaukee Jewry’s celebration of Yom HaAtzmaut (Israel Independence Day) on Wednesday, April 25, 7:30 p.m., at Congregation Sinai.
The concert will also honor local Jewish philanthropist and activist Martin F. Stein and mark the 10th anniversary of Operation Solomon, in which 14,400 Ethiopian Jews were airlifted to Israel during 36 hours in May 1991.
In that same year, Gronich — who already had a reputation as a versatile composer in Israeli classical music, dance, film and theater — was asked to prepare two songs to perform with a group of Ethiopian children for a television program about the Ethiopian immigration.
“It was the intention to do a performance only one time,” Gronich said. But after it was done, he and the children “didn’t want to separate. There was real love on both sides.”
At his own expense, Gronich began bringing these and other Ethiopian children to his home in Tel Aviv to rehearse and build a repertoire. But first, he had to overcome some cultural barriers.
As choir manager Dalya Meidan explained in an e-mail, these children had “an innate shyness…. Ethiopian children are expected to speak only when spoken to, avert their eyes when speaking with an adult, etc.”
“At the beginning, it was very difficult to make them open up and give,” said Gronich. “I remember feeling frustrated many times.” It also was difficult to get them to sing in harmony, as traditional Ethiopian songs are sung in unison.
Nevertheless, he persisted. “If you ask me why I fell in love with these children, it is their souls,” which are “so pure,” Gronich said. “You don’t see masks…. When you hear their voices, for sure you can hear their souls.”
In about a year, Gronich and the choir had built a repertoire, comprising Gronich’s arrangements of Ethiopian songs and his own compositions “inspired by this music.”
Gradually, Gronich added other music to the choir’s repertoire, including Hasidic songs and a black American spiritual, “Motherless Child.” And as the choir performed and released a recording in 1993, it was received “very warmly” by Israeli society.
The choir soon was performing in Europe and the United States. Today, according to Meidan, the choir performs about twice a month and tours the United States once a year. (The Milwaukee performance is part of a tour that will include Pittsburgh, Los Angeles and Chicago.)
In the choir’s ten years, there have been not only changes of personnel, but also a change in character, said Gronich. “The choir I have now is much more open and Israeli than the first generation I had,” he said. “It is easier for them to smile and move” and to sing in harmony.
Gronich was born into in Hadera in 1949 and was a piano prodigy, giving his first recital at age seven. He described himself as a child as “a curious creature” who “always wanted to try to cross borders,” as fascinated by music of the Beatles and of his Yemenite Jewish neighbors as by classical music.
He is still working on “crossing borders,” and not just with the Sheba Choir. According to Meidan, Gronich is in the process of creating a Jewish and Arab youth choir based in Tel Aviv-Yaffo and funded by the city government. This choir will sing music composed and arranged by Gronich with words in Hebrew and Arabic.
Admission to the Sheba Choir’s concert is $14 general, $10 for students. Patron tickets are available for $100, which includes two tickets, reserved seating and a complimentary CD. Tickets are on sale at the Milwaukee Jewish Federation, the Harry & Rose Samson Family JCC and Congregation Sinai.
Each family is asked to bring a non-inflammable new doll or soccer ball to the concert or to the Yom HaAtzmaut celebration April 26 at the JCC, to be donated to recently arrived Ethiopian children in the Milwaukee Jewish Federation’s Partnership 2000 Sovev Kinneret region in Israel. For more information call the Israel Resource Center (414) 390-5705.
Major sponsors of the concert include the Jewish Community Foundation, Mert and Dottie Rotter, Marty and Debra Katz, the Lappin Family Fund for Israel, the Jerome H. Weil Acharai Endowment, the Milwaukee Jewish Council for Community Relations, the Marcus Corporation and Congregation Sinai.
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