Eight years ago, pianist and composer Daria Mosenzon (32) experienced one of her peak moments as a classical pianist.
It was a concert of modern classical music at a prestigious festival and an impressive hall.
Mosenzon played compositions with the band, with female singers, and even a long piano solo.
But this peak was accompanied by completely different emotions.
"I was missing something very significant," she recalls, "everything was very intellectual and cold, there was no communication with the musicians who played with me and there was no communication with the audience."
Following these feelings, Mosenzon abandoned the classical musical direction she had followed since childhood and began to delve into jazz.
Later on, following a random meeting with violinist Elad Levy, she discovered Andalusian music and fell in love with it, but it wasn't until 2018, when she performed for the first time in Morocco, that she realized she had found her calling.
This week, when she is already an Andalusian musician and has many performances behind her, she will perform at the third Polish Jazz Festival which will open tonight in Tel Aviv.
Mosenzon will take part in a show that has become a tradition, in which the musicians are asked to connect their world to the works of the Polish composer Frederic Chopin.
Mosenzon's Andalusian composition will be called "Chopin in the Maghreb".
How do you make Andalusian adaptations of Chopin?
"I played alone and then with the oud player in my ensemble, Shirley Sabah. From listening to his playing and playing with him, the arrangement was born. I come to it from a deep learning of the tradition with a lot of respect and at the same time - with uncompromising independence. I learn, and then put aside all What I learned and create the most beautiful music I can."
Mosenzon grew up in a strictly Ashkenazi Jerusalem household with a lot of music.
Her grandmother was a classical pianist, and she had a significant part in choosing the instrument she started playing at the age of 5. At the end of high school, it was clear to her that she would pursue music, but she was looking for her own path.
She studied for a bachelor's degree in musicology which included studies in theory, playing and conducting.
"When I realized that playing the piano is what interests me, I started studying intensively, practicing and performing," she says.
Then, almost by chance, through friends of hers who studied with the Andalusian violinist Elad Levy, the artistic director of the Israeli Andalusian Orchestra Ashdod, it happened.
"My friends studied in Elad Levy's ensemble, and I heard them practice with recordings from the class that one of them recorded on an old phone. When I heard the recordings, I couldn't believe that they had such a treasure and that they listen to it like any other music," she recalls.
Coincidentally, the pianist in the ensemble led by Levy left, and Mosenzon asked to step into her shoes at the upcoming concert.
"I didn't believe that Elad would agree to let me join," she says, but to her delight Levy told her: "You have three weeks to sit through the recordings. If you succeed, you're in."
How did you feel in the initial encounter with this music?
"It was really falling in love. I sat with the music before the performance, and it was clear to me that I was starting to study with Elad regularly. I realized that this music had everything I was missing before. Andalusian music has depth and lightness with infinite shades of expression and emotion. The audience is part of the performance No less than the person who plays it. It's music based on rhythm, and I always feel like dancing to it."
The group that started as a school group was named, "Andaluss".
One of the first things they did together was to enter the studio and record an arrangement by Elad Levy to the music of the Algerian singer and oud player Dahman El-Kharashi.
The music video for the song reached more than 6 million views on YouTube, and a year after it was released, Levy and Mosenzon came with "Andaluss" for a performance tour in Morocco.
How did you feel at your first performance as an Andalusian musician in Morocco?
"The audience was an integral part of the music. They welcomed us warmly, and we felt as if we were performing in front of our families. The audience sang with us and clapped. It was a wonderful experience. I found there everything I was missing in classical music."
The performances in Morocco brought the young musician together with one of the great Moroccan singers, the Israeli Raymond Abacsis, who performed together with Hajah El-Hamdavia.
"I got off the stage and tried to get into the hall. It was almost impossible. The hall was filled to the brim for the performance of these two giants, both over 70 years old," Mosenzon says.
And this was not the last meeting of the two.
Mosenzon with her trio members, Shirley Sabah and Mattan Caspi, photo: Ronen Golmedan
During the time of the Corona, Mosenzon established her own band, and when the music she wrote began to take shape for the show, she had no doubt who would be a guest on it.
"I found Raymond's phone number and called," Musinzon says, adding: "She listened to my story and immediately asked: 'What about you and this music? What about you and Raymond?'
She thought I was working on her. Raymond is a smart woman and a legendary figure. I learned a lot from the conversations with her, and I fell in love with her and her music again and again."
Despite the time that has passed since the joint performance, Raymond is still moved by the gesture: "I always felt that my music was orphaned without sufficient institutional recognition from the Academy of Music. And here comes a young musician, from the Academy in Jerusalem, who does not come from my area, and is interested in my music and my work. When I sang with her I felt as if I had received the award from the Academy which I never received."
You are an Ashkenazi who plays Moroccan music. How do the musicians who play with you and the audience treat it?
"Due to the tension created by the fact that Moroccan culture still receives discriminatory treatment, I present this tension because I look Ashkenazi and play music from a different tradition that I entered at a relatively late age. The fact that the Andalusian scene in Israel welcomes me with open-heartedness and openness is very meaningful to me. It's great music, and there I have a great privilege to be involved in such beautiful music."
The Polish Jazz Festival will open today (Tuesday) and continue until Thursday.
For three evenings there will be jazz shows in which the best Polish and Israeli artists will play.
The festival will be opened by the Marcin Wasilewski Trio, one of the most important and influential ensembles in European and global jazz in recent decades, coming to Israel for the first time after 14 years.
The younger generation will be represented by the Marta Wajdzik saxophonist quartet, one of the rising forces in European jazz, which is making its first visit to Israel.
A fascinating collaboration is expected between the renowned jazz pianist Uriel Herman and the percussionist Maayan Duari (Idan Reichel, Rita and more) and Piotr Steczek's string ensemble.
The final performance of the festival will be an original production by Amit Friedman, one of Israel's leading saxophonists, who together with his quartet will play the music of Bronislaw Keiper, the Jewish-Polish composer who wrote the soundtracks for about 150 Hollywood films known as Hollywood's gold.
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