49 years old, composer, conductor, pianist and lecturer.
In a relationship and father of twins April and Jonathan.
Born in Ramat Gan and currently lives in Jaffa.
He composed nine symphonies, 12 concertos for solo instruments and orchestra, operas and chamber works.
Plays and performs all over the country, and will host Mickey Kam at the Storytelling Festival at the Givatayim Theater in Sukkot (October 6-17) in the show "Gil Shochat with Mickey Kam and Bach also".
When was the last time you showed up?
"Just three minutes ago I got off the stage. In my diary there are blue dots that describe a concert, conducting, recital or lecture, and it's all painted in blue two years ahead. I feel very lucky. I'm happy that the audience wants to hear classical music, there is real audience love for it. There is We are a very cultured people and this is not always reflected. I perform 340 concerts a year, 70 percent of them in Israel, in which I perform before diverse audiences, and I produce another 450 more concerts for the artists I represent, such as Mira Awad and others. I feed off the stage, she gives I have the strength of life. The corona virus was the terrible time in my life, when they took the stage away from me in a very violent way. All my projects abroad were canceled at once, I felt that I was less alive."
When was the last time you wrote?
"I write music almost every day, but in recent years more arrangements and orchestrations, mainly for Israeli pop songs such as by Aden Elena and Roni Dolomi, I have more than 2,000 of them, and this has somewhat replaced the very intense writing I had from a young age. At the age of 12, I composed a piece called 'The Storm' which has been performed thousands of times since then, and until the age of 40 I wrote classical pieces, symphonies and operas every day.
"At the age of 32 I was already considered the most prolific composer in the world, that's a fact, with a very large amount of works, but in recent years two changes have happened in my life: I perform much more than before and I became a father, and anyone who is a parent knows that life changes from end to end."
When was the last time you were angry?
"I was very disturbed by the misuse and exploitation of human fear during the closures. For the first time in my life I saw before my eyes and experienced in my body a situation of collective fear, I was a participant in it, and I was frightened by the reaction itself, it showed me a side of the world that I did not know. I always run forward with great determination, A bit like a soldier in battle, and I discovered that the world behaved a little differently from me and I didn't know what would happen from now on. Personally, I was boiling with rage at the policy of closures and I felt helpless. I thought I would be done a great injustice, this rage and anger really hurt me physically. After a while, I decided that I had to Stop being angry because it is a low frequency for the soul. Even if you are absolutely right in your right to be angry, you are always hurting yourself. The very fact that you are angry - is hurting you.
When was the last time you took pride in your surroundings?
"I was born in RG, but I always loved Jaffa and wanted to live there, and when I returned from abroad I fulfilled this dream. In my eyes, there is nothing like Jaffa in the whole country, it is a unique place unlike any other place. I was not worried during the riots, and I do not like the term 'coexistence' that is often used, we live in Jaffa and it is simply existence, we are not two, we are not different, we are all one human tissue. I believe in the human spirit and do not like generalizations, racism and self-importance. I like connections, collaborations, Love and friendship and all these things are in abundance in Jaffa."
When was the last time you spent time with the children?
"Yesterday, I took them to Jerusalem. It was their first time at the Western Wall and I asked them both to write what they wanted on the note. They asked questions and I explained to them that God would read their notes and I was excited to see what they wrote. My son wanted to succeed in acrobatics and my daughter wanted to succeed in circle, and both They also wrote that they wished the grandmother to be healthy and it was terribly moving for me, because it showed me that they were thoughtful and caring, that's what they chose to ask God for.
"A lot of people bring children into the world, I wanted to have children and it took a decade from the moment I started working on it until it happened in co-parenting. I had to go through an ocean of blood sweat and tears, sacrifices that only God and I know about, and I don't regret it. I have two lovely children with the help of The Lord and I learned from this that the question in fulfilling your dreams is not what talent and abilities God has given you, the question is what you are willing to sacrifice and pay for their fulfillment. This in my view is the most important in the subject of self-realization and the fulfillment of dreams especially in fatherhood and in general in parenting. Parenting is a sacrifice in all respects, but the result is worth it the sacrifice. I am a person of faith. All my life I have believed and I live the faith. Every journey of my life and my creation come from faith and constant dialogue with higher forces. I do not live in contradiction with religion, I can be gay and an artist and allow myself to do a variety of things that personal morality Mine allows me to do, and still love my religion and be proud of it."
When was the last time you celebrated a birthday?
"This month I celebrated my 49th birthday in front of 5,000 people, quite spontaneously. When the concert started, the symphony orchestra surprised me and played me a surprise birthday song and the audience sang along with it, the mayor of the city of Raz came on stage with a cake and a candle, and when I blew it out they applauded me and that was it was very exciting.
Age has no meaning for me, I don't think about it at all.
I have met 20-year-olds who feel 90 years old, and 90-year-olds who felt 20-year-old consciousness and anyone can change their consciousness in seconds.
I believe that health is inclusive, everything is a matter of consciousness, mental and spiritual.
I am not without mistakes, I fall and dive into the vanity of the body, the lie of the body, but thanks to music I return and rise to the existence of consciousness, which in my eyes is much more important than age."
When was the last time you cleaned the house?
"I clean every day. I have a compulsive order and cleanliness disorder. I have a housekeeper but he comes once a week, so me and my children and my partner - we all live in a regime of order and cleanliness that only worsens over the years. I am unable to function in a place that is not clean and orderly. Everything Must be in order, and when something is out of order it affects everything. For example, I love light fixtures and I have dozens of fixtures and hundreds of bulbs. When one bulb burns out it really throws me off balance until I replace it, I'm just not able to do anything else. I'm used to it That's it, it's at least a distraction that leads to your house always being neat and clean."
When was the last time you discovered something new about yourself?
"The Corona crisis, which for me was a mental crisis, taught me a lot. I went through training to get out of the crisis, and I discovered that I have mental powers a thousand times greater than I imagined. This led me to the conclusion that humans are stronger than we know. We say, 'I can't stand it. ', but we are able to withstand it."
When was the last time you read a book that impacted your life?
"In the last year I had time to read Yuval Noah Harari, and each of his books had a great influence on me. From elements of his books I wrote an outline for a new opera, the basic idea of which I got from the book 'Abridged History of Mankind', and I even wrote a book myself called 'Abridged History of Music' ". It is currently being edited and will be published in a few months. I am not a staunch supporter of all the things that Yuval represents, and there are things that I am against, but in terms of influence, he had a great influence on me."
When was the last time you had a soul talk?
"Last night. I was with friends and I had a conversation with one of them, Asanat, about life, parenting and music. I really like conversations. What is our life worth without conversations, what is a conversation worth if it is not a conversation? Arguments and chatter about Politics bores me to death. To lose yourself in verbal knowledge is the dullness of the punch in my eyes. I like conversations that penetrate into universal human questions, and I believe that if the conversation between human beings was a deep conversation, humanity would rise very quickly to the top. In my opinion, at the moment the general conversation is very shallow, and it hurts In the entire human fabric. I get terribly bored with shallowness and react badly to it. I am who I am because of the soul conversations I've had in my life, and I ask people around me, honestly, when have you had a soul conversation with a gay man or an Arab or an Ethiopian? And what would you discover about yourself from a deep conversation Such, not just a conversation, but a conversation about the essence of life? I think a lot can be discovered.
When did you first visit Rome?
There is no city in the world like Rome.
I arrived there a week after my discharge from the army on June 23, 1995. It is the happiest date of my life.
I arrived in the evening in the city, I saw its incredible beauty and its power, and that for me was my renaissance as a person, as a man and as an artist.
I was reborn because I learned that our world is much more beautiful than I thought and knew, and that humanity knows how to create beauty that has no limits.
Everything is in Rome, both the old and the new.
I admire the Italian people, I speak the language, I lived there for three years during which I learned to admire the Italian culture.
In Rome I received the most respectful treatment in the world.
I got there a talented kid, and there I became a star.
I came to Rome to do a PhD in music composition and piano at the Italian National Academy Santa Cecilia and I found that they were really interested in what I had to say, much more than the Israelis.
I had a few pounds and I didn't know how I would manage, but I lived like a billionaire during those years because in Rome you don't need any material element to feel like a king in a palace
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