Paul Ben-Haim

Paul Ben-Haim was born in Munich, Germany, in 1897. After early successes in his country of birth, both as a composer and a conductor, he immigrated to Eretz-Israel (Palestine) and immediately became the central figure on the local music scene, in particular among the composers who strove to establish an Israeli national school. Ben-Haim was deeply impressed and influenced by the oriental songs he discovered on arrival, in particular by the songs of the late Bracha Zefira, many of whose songs he arranged and whose oriental melos pervaded his own personal musical style. Soon enough, his compositions became models for what was later called by Max Brod ‘the Mediterranean Style’. Ben-Haim was also a most influential teacher and educator. Among his pupils were some of the leading composers of the ‘second generation’: Tzvi Avni, Ben-Zion Orgad, Ami Maayani, Noam Sheriff and others. He was awarded the Israel Prize in 1957. Paul Ben-Haim died in Jerusalem on January 20, 1984.