Noam Sheriff
Winner of Israel Prize 2011 and Emet Prize 2003 in music.
Composer, conductor, professor Tel-Aviv university, Dean of the music faculty at ONO Academic College, music director of numerous chamber and symphony orchestras in Israel.
Born in Tel-Aviv in 1935, Noam Sheriff studied composition and conducting in Tel-Aviv (Paul Ben-Haim), Berlin (Boris Blacher) and Salzburg (Igor Markevitch) and philosophy at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Since the premiere of his work , Festival Prelude, by the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Leonard Bernstein at the opening of the Philharmonic concert hall in Tel-Aviv in 1957, his works are regularly performed in Israel and all over the world.
Sheriff has been awarded numerous prizes in the categories composing and conducting. In 2011 Noam Sheriff received the Israel Prize for his life’s work. The Israel Prize is the highest decoration the state of Israel awards to its citizens. Having been awarded the “Acum” prize, he also won the coveted EMET Prize in 2003 and many other awards for his achievements and contribution to the musical life of the state of Israel.
He was commissioned to compose works for performing artists all over the world, among them the Twelve Cellists of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. His works have become part of the repertoire in Israel and the world over, and have been made known by conductors and performers like Zubin Mehta, Placido Domingo, Carlo Maria Giulini, William Steinberg and others.
Sheriff’s music attempts a fusion of Eastern and Western musical influences whereby the composer perceives himself as mediator between the musical worlds of the Mediterranean countries that spring from the sources of antiquity, and that of highly-developed occidental music.
Above all, Noam Sheriff drew from the Jewish sources that were his source of inspiration and an eternal spring of musical and philosophical motifs. He saw himself first of all as a Jewish composer.
Noam Sheriff appeared regularly as guest conductor around the world. He was music director of the Israel Symphony Orchestra, the Israel Chamber Orchestra, the New Haifa Symphony Orchestra, The Kibbutz chamber orchestra etc.
He began teaching composition and conducting in 1963 in institutions such the Jerusalem and Tel Aviv University Music Academies as well as the Musikhochschule in Cologne and the Mozarteum in Salzburg. Between 1998 and 2000, Prof. Sheriff served as Head of the Tel Aviv University Rubin Academy of Music.
Sheriff has a long list of credits for the direction and artistic supervision of many music festivals, television and radio programming in Israel and abroad.
Noam Sheriff was married in his last 36 years to the composer Ella Milch-Sheriff.
Noam Sheriff’s works are published by IMI and by C.F. Peters Edition, Leipzig.