Give me rock and roll, and violins: Tislam and the Philharmonic meet for one evening Israel today

Twice in the past the people of Tislem collaborated with a classical orchestra, when they teamed up with the Rishon LeZion Symphony in 2015 and 2018.

Both shows were successful and brought together the beloved Islamic rock and roll with orchestral arrangements, and now the band is doing it once again - but in a slightly different way and some would say even more total.

On February 28, Danny Basan, Yizhar Ashdot, Yair Nitsani, Tsuf Filosof and Yoshi Sade will take the show for the first time to the stage of the Culture Hall in Tel Aviv, produced by toMix, and this time they will do it together with what they call the "Holy Grail" of classical music in Israel, the Philharmonic Orchestra the Israeli one.

"Our symphonic romance started with the Rishon Lezion orchestra, but actually it started with the conductor Ilan Mokhish, who also created the new show with us," says Ashdot.

"There are all kinds of approaches to this type of show. Here it was really important for us to have a real meeting, and that neither side cancel themselves for the other. I think it succeeded for Ilan and us to connect and bring together these two semi-trailers, the band and the orchestra."

The Israel Philharmonic Orchestra // Photo: Oded Antman,

Would you say that the orchestral "outfit" has an element of rediscovery of songs you've known for years?

"There's something about it. Since the orchestra is a huge machine, you don't understand the impact of how it sounds until you do the rehearsal before the show. But there's also the matter of cracking on a musical level. Ilan asked us about a song like 'Morning of Fun', And we told him that he was inspired by Grace Jones's 'Libertango.'' When we told him that, then he went to the source and actually took a piece from there and put it together.

"On 'Radio Hizq' we told him that someone had discovered that there was a melody of monks from the Middle Ages that was almost identical to the chorus of the song, so he addressed that as well. In all our meetings, Ilan gave me a lesson. For example, how something in the chorus is not composed correctly from the classical theoretical point of view. It was interesting to see where I, as a composer, composed songs 'by the book' and where I didn't."

Which songs came out more successful?

"I think we are very satisfied with everyone. In fact, a simple pop-rock song like 'Another Meeting' turned out to be very special. Danny and I always sing the 'Bridals of Voice and Image' alone, just the two of us, and suddenly the orchestra joined in and turned it into a huge song."

It can be assumed that there are songs that are more difficult to make "classic".

Let's say "Radio Strong", which is really a proper rock and roll song.

"This is a question that was legitimate to ask in 1975, but since then there has been a tradition of rock bands and orchestras. In the 1970s it was a meeting of generations, between the new rock of the young and the traditional orchestra of the previous generation. Robert Plant and Jimmy Page did That, Metallica in the late 90s had the connection with the San Francisco Symphony. Today the rebellion comes from completely different areas, of electronics and hip-hop, so I don't think the connection is too difficult."

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