A few years ago, the painter and composer Avi Albers Ben Chamo took a close look at his ancestor, Rabbi Joseph Messas, a progressive thinker and author of liturgical music from a well-known Moroccan rabbinical family. Inspired by the chorales of J. S. Bach, Chamo found something new in the combination of religious texts and music. He created chorales with traditional and contemporary Jewish texts that deal with humanistic themes such as friendship, family and human interaction. In the texts in Hebrew, the influence of Bach’s music is clearly noticeable and builds a bridge between Israel and Germany, Judaism and Christianity, between the past and the future.
Laura Barchetti, soprano
Helen Ispirian, alto
Yuval Halpern, tenor / musical direction and composition
Markus Teichert, Bass
Avi Albers Ben Chamo, Composition
Avi Albers Ben Chamo (composition), born in Haifa in 1973, is an Israeli composer, musician and artist. He has lived in Berlin since 2011. He studied composition with Prof. Derek Remes, Gilad Hochman and Eran Zehavi, among others, and his works such as “Shabbat Shalom” and “Im Ninalu” have already been performed at the Laeiszhalle Hamburg, the Gewandhaus Leipzig and the Berlin Philharmonie. Avi started playing bass at the age of 13, played in various bands, composed music for theater projects and combined the different genres of pop, rock, blues and jazz. At the age of 25, he switched to the classical double bass. Since 2016, Avi has been a permanent double bass player in the Iranian-Israeli ensemble Sistanagila, in which Iranian and Israeli musicians play together, seeking similarities between their traditional musical backgrounds and combining them in old and new compositions. Avi Albers Ben Chamo initiated the Jewish Choral Project in 2020.
Laura Barchetti (soprano) has a university degree in singing. She studied in Modena with Tiziana Tramonti, Cinzia Forte and Marina Comparato. Laura has performed in various concerts and with different formations, in particular with the women’s ensemble Coranto, as a guitar duo and is a member of the Costanzo Porta choir, with whom she has taken part in various festivals. She is currently continuing her studies at the University of the Arts in Berlin with a degree in music education. She also conducts two choirs in Berlin. As a singer, Laura is involved in various chamber ensembles and has participated in projects with the Ilinx-Studio Ensemble of New Music at the University of the Arts and with the Kollektiv Unruhe at the 48 Stunden Neukölln festival.
Helen Ispirian (alto) initially studied singing, dance and acting at the University of Music & Performing Arts in Vienna and classical singing and music education at the Berlin University of the Arts. Before the versatile artist discovered her love of baroque music and formed the European trio OrgaVoce with which they perform early and new music, she has been a guest at the German Theater Almaty in Kazakhstan and has given chanson concerts in Moscow and several times in the Urals and Siberia at the invitation of the German Embassy and the Goethe Institute. Helen has been regularly engaged as an alto in various Berlin choirs since 2016 and is now a regular member of the Bamberg Symphonic Choir. As part of Neustart Kultur, Helen received a grant from the German Music Council and was selected for a further artist grant from the Musikfonds.
Yuval Halpern (tenor, musical direction) has lived in Berlin since 2006, where he graduated with a degree in media music composition from the Hanns Eisler Academy of Music. He previously completed his bachelor’s degree in contemporary composition at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague. In addition to musical theater and film music, Yuval also composes concert pieces. Since September 2016, he has been the musical director and composer of the Young Ensemble of the Neuköllner Oper Berlin. Yuval is the singer and musical director of Sistanagila, an Iranian-Israeli music ensemble. He has been the choirmaster of the Acappelli Choir Berlin since January 2023.
Markus Teichert (bass) was born and grew up in Berlin. He is a versatile artist who is passionately dedicated to the world of music and singing. His musical career began at the age of 6 as a member of a gifted choir. Markus studied to become a music teacher at the Berlin University of the Arts from 2013 to 2020. His main focus was on singing. In 2020, he continued his musical education, this time in the field of vocal pedagogy, also at the UdK Berlin. Markus Teichert has also made a name for himself in the Berlin choral scene. Between 2018 and 2020, he was a member of the New Chamber Choir Berlin and impressed both as a choral singer and as a soloist. He has been a member and soloist in the Neuer Männerchor Berlin since 2019. In addition, he has been involved as a voice coach in the Hanns Eisler Choir Berlin since 2021 and has been a proud member of the Jewish Choral Book Project, initiated by Avi Albers Ben Chamo, since 2022.
Tickets 26/18 (reduced 8) euros. Available in the webshop, by e-mail to karten@villa-seligmann.de or by telephone on 0511 844887-200. Admission 30 minutes before the start of the event.
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