Ella Milch-Sheriff

Ella Milch-Sheriff, recipient of the 2022 Lifetime Achievement Award from Israel’s Composers and Authors Society (ACUM), is one of Israel’s most widely performed composers. Born in Haifa, Israel, she began composing at the age of 12 and later graduated from the Academy of Music at Tel Aviv University. Her unique musical voice blends contemporary Western styles with Jewish, Israeli, and Middle Eastern motifs.

Her work “The Eternal Stranger” for actor and orchestra was commissioned by the Gewandhaus Orchestra in Leipzig and premiered in 2020. The piece has since been performed internationally, including at Teatro Massimo (Palermo, 2020), Elbphilharmonie (Hamburg, 2021), with the BBC Philharmonic (Manchester, 2022), Israel Philharmonic (2022), Boston Symphony, Tonhalle Orchester Zurich, Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra (Stockholm, 2023), and Wiener Symphoniker (2023)—all conducted by Omer Meir Wellber.

Milch-Sheriff’s oeuvre spans operas, orchestral, chamber, vocal, and solo music, as well as popular compositions. Her works are regularly performed in Israel (by the Israel Philharmonic under Zubin Mehta and all major Israeli orchestras), throughout Europe (including Berlin, Hamburg, Düsseldorf, and Vienna), the U.S., and beyond.

In 2005, she was awarded the Israel Prime Minister Prize for Composition. Her first opera, “And the Rat Laughed” (2005), won the Tel Aviv Rosenblum Prize for Outstanding Achievement and has been staged in Europe and Toronto. Her opera “The Banality of Love,” which explores the relationship between Hannah Arendt and Martin Heidegger, was commissioned by Staatstheater Regensburg and premiered in 2018. “Baruch’s Silence” (2010), based on her family’s true story, premiered in Braunschweig, Germany, with subsequent performances in Tel Aviv, Fürth, and Vienna (2016).

Currently, she is working on a new opera set to premiere in Vienna in 2024. Her works are published by C.F. Peters (Leipzig), and by the Israel Music Institute (IMI).