Mr. Seroussi is one of Israel's leading classical
guitar players, concertizing in the country and abroad. He currently teaches
composition, theoretic subjects and guitar at the Rubin Academy of Music
and the Musicology Department at Tel Aviv University. Mr. Seroussi won
the Prime Minister's Award for Composition, 1994.
PARTITA for two guitars (1975; IMP 674)
LUDI for two trombones (1976; IMP 673)
STRING QUARTET (1980; IMI 6940)
METAPHORE for solo cello (1981)
CANTO AL ANTIGUO SOL for 2 oboes, xylorimba, timpani, harp and Double
bass (1982; IMI 6503)
CANTATA for 12-part mixed choir and percussion (1984; IMI 6986)
2 POEMS BY ANTONIO MACHADO for high voice, flute & guitar (1986)
THE ECHO for children's choir a cappella (1987; IMI 6739)
RONDO for woodwind quintet (1987; IMI 6941)
DIFERENCIAS I for string quintet and brass quintet (1989; IMI 6943)
DIFERENCIAS II (A STILL UNANSWERED QUESTION...) for guitar and chamber
orchestra (1990; IMI 6985)
CE DISCRET CHARME... Hommàge a Luis Buñuel, for
clarinet, viola and piano (1990; IMI 6939)
"JAZZ", à propos de Matisse, for piano trio (1991; IMI 6992)
NOCTURNE for symphony orchestra (1993; IMI 6978)
WALKING AROUND for alto or bass-baritone & nine instruments (1993).
Text: P.Neruda.
LUX... in memoriam Mordechai Seter for chamber orchestra (1995; IMI
7048)
A VICTIM FROM TEREZIN for narrator/singer and chamber ensemble. Text:
The Terezin Diary of Egon Redlich (1995; IMI 7051)
PLAYTIME, (Mr.Hulot évoqué) for trombone & chamber
ensemble (1997; IMI 7102)
EA JUDIOS, chamber cantata for 5 singers (S,M,A,T,B) string quartet,
harpsichord, guitar & percussion (1997; IMI 7135)
Articles
WILL IT WORK? Little Suite
for Guitar by Abel Ehrlich
IMI-News 96/3-97/1, May 1997
Selected list of Performances
1984 The
Chamber Consortium; Chicago, USA; R. Shapey, cond.;
Canto
al Antiguo Sol
1990 Ensemble
Modern; Koeln, Germany; D. Shalon, cond. In the framework
of the "Encounter between Israel and Diaspora" - WDR.; Canto
al Antiguo Sol
1992 Ensemble
Oriol; Berlin, Germany; S. Gottschik, cond. In
the framework of the "Judische Lebenswelten" exhibition.; Diferencias
1992 Ensemble
Modern; Warsaw, Poland; F. Goldmann, cond. Work
selected to represent Israel in the ISCM World Music Days; Diferencias
II
1995 Luxembourg;
Jazz...a
propos de Matisse
1995 Musica
Nova Consort, Tel-Aviv; Dresden, Germany; M. Zakai, contralto;
Dresden Music Festival; A Victim
from Terezin
1997 Accademia
Daniel; Thessaloniki ,Greece; Ea
judios
1998 New
Juilliard Ensemble; New York, USA; J. Sachs, cond.; Playtime
| SELECTED REVIEWS | ||
| "Far more appealing was an instrumental work,
Ruben Seroussi's 1982 'Canto al Antiguo Sol' (Song to the Ancient
Sun). A fusion of would-be primitive and modern musical impulses, this
ritualistic parade of events is sometimes dense with aural information,
but the sounds themselves (i.e., two oboes in Arabic dissonant seconds
over the rumbling of drums) are often so otherwordly in effect that the
ear has no trouble following their progress."
Chicago Tribune, June 11, 1984 |
||
| "However the
most interesting of the works presented was Ruben Seroussi's "Poems
by Antonio Machado" for voice, flute and guitar. The vocal line creates
a pivot round which the instruments bustle in constant motion Seroussi's
style here is economical and most original."
Jerusalem Post. March 17, 1986 |
||
| "No less impressive was Ruben
Seroussi's Rondo for woodwind quintet.At the
beginning, everything seemed to get lost in a great confusion. The five
instruments seemed to release a huge stream of cluttering motifs, ostinati,
single tones. But slowly, a clear pattern evolved: polyphony, heterophony,
atonal planes, even melody. The form of the rondo then emerges clearly.
Seroussi seems to have already acquired great compositional skill and this
is the creation of a highly original mind."
Jerusalem Post, November 1988 |
"Klytemnästras
unruhige Nächte und böse Träume kamen ver allem in dem "nocturne"
Ruben Seroussis in den Sinnächtliche Alpträume in Tönen.
Das Stück beginnt denn auch mit einem aufrüttelnden vollinstrumentïerten
Schlag, und jegliche romantische Lyric andeutende Melodik - Seroussi kann
nämlich lyrische Melodien schreiben - wird durch verzerrte Bläser-Einwürfe
gestört."
Süddeutsche
Zeitung, February 2,
|
|
| "Greatly enjoyable was 'Playtime'
for trombone and ensemble, Ruben
Seroussi's new and very amusing work. The work's title refers to Jacques Tati's film, which features the well known philosophic-comic person of Mr. Hulot; the work is like a soundtrack derived from the film. We are in front of a mess, but a happy one, deliberate, and supposedly anti-technological, that manages to convey a feeling of complete clearness. That is due, perhaps, to the fact that when the things are getting obscure in one plane, we suddenly pass to another one, and there the problems are clarified or vaporate. Lots of generations were grown under the precept of valuing consistency as a compositorial virtue. Here the supposed lack of it, the pluralism in principle and technique with which Seroussi pass from a dramatic conception to one of thematical development, finding in beetween, quotations and insinuations full of associative links (principally from the realm of light music), paves a way to a very consistent and cathartyc process, that salvates a great part of its materials from their - chosen on purpose- banality. Kol Ha'ir,
|
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| "Ruben Seroussi's works bring to
light his vivid, fascinating and often
surprising imagination. His work has no national orientation, either in melos or language, nor does he relate to the reality that surrounds him. Most of his works are complex, sophisticated
and rather clever.
From the jury's appreciation, Israel Prime Minister Prize, December 1994 |
||
| "
a musical work of a sharp
artistic profile...'A Victime from Terezin' threw light into a completely different emotional world... authentic and actual in its essence..." Ha'aretz, December 13, 1998 |
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