The Jewish High Holy Days snuck up on me this year. As the sun set on Labor Day, Rosh Hashanah was only just getting underway, kicking off the Jewish new year. 5782! How time flies. I hope it’s a happy, healthy, and sweet one for all of you who observe it.
In searching for something unusual to share, I happened across this Concerto for Violin, Horn, Shofar and Orchestra by Brazilian-born, Vienna-based composer Miguel Kertsman. Kertsman is a multidisciplinary musician. He founded the Amazonica Universal Orchestra, a Brazilian jazz ensemble, in 1989. He’s also interested in progressive rock, electronica, theater, film, and interactive video games. And of course, classical concert music. One thing’s for sure, he knows how to call up some colorful orchestrations.
I wouldn’t say the concerto is a festive-sounding one, necessarily, but it is romantic and evocative, incorporating plaintive tekiot on the ram’s horn (or perhaps the antelope’s), heard so prevalently on Rosh Hashanah and at the close of Yom Kippur. Three tuned shofarot are played during the course of the concerto.
Enjoy the music, and L’shana tova!
The composer’s website:
By merest coincidence, today is also Brazilian Independence Day!
PHOTO: Soloist Gergely Sugar sounds the shofar
At his home in Budapest: