Israel Philharmonic Strikes Teen Chord

Wearing Ug boots and draped wool scarves, a chatty clique of
Milken Community High School girls slumped into their seats in a packed
auditorium. About 600 had assembled to hear the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra’s
(IPO) KeyNote Brass Ensemble perform with the school’s Chamber Ensemble and
Concert Choir.

The teens seemed unenthusiastic at best. But then the
KeyNote players explained how the shofar was the ancient ancestor of the brass
instrument family. They also performed “The Simpsons” theme song with the
Milken student musicians. Slowly, scowls turned to smiles, feet started tapping
and through the IPO’s KeyNote program, the Los Angeles teens learned about
instruments, music and the joy of playing.

“The assembly was amazing, and it was great to see my
friends play with a professional orchestra,” said Jessie Levine, a Milken
10th-grader. “Plus, I had no idea that brass instruments had Jewish roots.
That’s really cool.”

In 2002, The American Friends of the IPO received a grant from
The Jewish Federation’s Tel Aviv-Los Angeles Partnership to support the KeyNote
Program, a 4-year-old outreach program that has benefited more than 14,000
Jewish and Arab students in Tel Aviv. The grant required that the IPO conduct a
reciprocal program in Los Angeles. Milken Community High School, which has both
an in-house music academy and a sister school in Tel Aviv, was chosen for the
program.

The Dec. 11 program consisted of a joint rehearsal session
between the IPO Brass Ensemble and the Stephen S. Wise Music Academy students,
a joint concert, lunch for the professional and student musicians and Q-and-A
sessions in the general classrooms The day was designed to integrate the high
school students with the visiting musicians.

“We wanted our kids to have the experience of hearing the
IPO, playing with the IPO and working with the musicians in the classroom,”
said Dr. Russell Steinberg, director of Stephen S. Wise Music Academy. After
the assembly, musicians visited English, Hebrew and science classes where
students who had just attended the concert asked questions about music, the
position of a Jewish orchestra in Israel and general social, political and
cultural concerns.

The IPO was in Los Angeles in December, giving a dazzling
sold-out performance at Walt Disney Concert Hall and Dec. 11 at the Orange
County Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa (for more on the performance, see
next week’s Circuit).

Since its inception in 1936, the IPO has played at the
Proclamation Ceremony of the State of Israel in the Tel Aviv Museum (1948) and
on Mount Scopus in liberated Jerusalem after the Six-Day War (1967). The
orchestra has enjoyed associations with artists like Leonard Bernstein, Yo-Yo
Ma and Itzhak Perlman. But the current musicians, who hail from around the
world and tour at prestigious concert halls and festivals throughout the United
States, Europe and Asia, relish the opportunity to teach the young.

“We love playing with high school students because they are
the next generation of music lovers,” said Micha Davis, IPO’s bass trombone
player. “When we were in school there were musicians who played with us. It’s
an ongoing tradition.”

The Milken student musicians were thrilled to partake in the
tradition. After hearing the IPO perform at Disney Hall the night before, the
students were delighted to join the professionals on stage in their campus
auditorium.

“It was a really humbling experience. They are a world-class
orchestra, said Elizabeth Erenberg, a 12th-grade flautist who plans to major in
music next year at college. “I feel really honored to have met them and played
with them. They’re great people as well.”

The IPO, which travels the world as a cultural ambassador
for Israel, generated a new appreciation for music and a strong sense of Jewish
pride among the Milken students.

“I go to a Jewish school. I love music and I love Israel. So
today, was an incredible experience,” said Jason Abrams, a 10th-grade pianist
with the Chamber Ensemble.

“Knowing the current situation in Israel, it must be very
difficult for them to continue functioning like other major orchestras,”
Erenberg said. “I think it’s very admirable that they continue to make music.”

For more information on the KeyNote program, visit