Arie Vardi

Vardi grew up at Mikveh Israel, the agricultural school where his parents lived and worked.[5] His mother, Bella, née Mendelovitch, came from Belarus, and his father, Dov, also known as Boris, came from Ukraine.[3] Classical music played on the family radio, which was the only radio in the area, and Vardi recalled his parents telling him that he sang before he spoke.[3]

He first encountered the piano at six.[3] Although he initially wanted to learn the violin, no violin teacher was available, so he began lessons with a piano teacher who had arrived from Germany.[3] Recalling his path into music, he said, “I did not choose the profession; the profession chose me.”[3] His parents’ attachment to concert music also figured in his recollections: they chose an Israel Philharmonic subscription over buying a plot in Holon.[1] His mother later told him that, while pregnant, she had felt him respond to Arturo Toscanini’s conducting, prompting Vardi to joke, “Maybe that’s what made me a conductor.”[1]

Vardi attended the Rubin Academy of Music from 1952 to 1956 while also completing high school.[3] His teachers in Tel Aviv included Naima Rash and Ilona Vincze.[6] At 15, he gave a public recital in Tel Aviv, beginning his performing career.[6] He subsequently won first place in the Israeli Chopin Competition in 1960 and the George Enescu International Competition in Bucharest in 1961.[3][6] The Chopin victory was followed by his first appearance as a soloist with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra.[6]

During military service, Vardi initially held field roles and later commanded the Gadna Symphony Orchestra, then the national youth orchestra; his command ran from 1958 to 1960.[3] The orchestra was conducted by Shalom Ronli-Riklis.[1] Vardi organized its first foreign tour, to the Netherlands and Belgium, where it won international prizes.[3] He also pursued legal studies and earned a law degree.[2][1]

After completing military service in 1961, Vardi undertook advanced musical studies in Basel from 1961 to 1963.[3] He studied piano with Paul Baumgartner and composition with Pierre Boulez and Karlheinz Stockhausen, and later studied in Paris with Nadia Boulanger.[3] Following his Enescu competition victory, he also began concert tours in Europe.[6]

Vardi returned to Israel in 1964 and joined the faculty of Tel Aviv University’s Rubin Academy of Music.[3] He became a full professor and later directed the academy and chaired its piano faculty.[3][2] In 2017, he recalled that Eden Partos had appointed him deputy before he succeeded Partos, and that he remained in the leadership post for ten years.[5]

Alongside his academic work, Vardi performed with Israel’s major orchestras and appeared in recitals, chamber concerts, and concerts for young audiences.[6] His appearances took him to more than 130 communities across Israel, and he received the Arts for the People award in 1968 for his performances throughout the country.[6] He chose to base his international career in Israel and performed Israeli compositions abroad, including world premieres.[1] Many Israeli works were dedicated to him, and he encouraged his students to perform original Israeli music.[3]

His international concert activity extended across Eastern and Western Europe, the United States, Latin America, the Far East, Australia, and Japan.[2] He performed under conductors including Semyon Bychkov, Zubin Mehta, and David Zinman, and appeared alongside musicians including Yo-Yo Ma, Radu Lupu, Yefim Bronfman, and Pnina Salzman.[3][6] In 1992, he made his first tour of Russia, playing in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and other cities.[2] His festival appearances included Aspen, Verbier, Ravinia, and Salzburg.[3]

Vardi performed both as a pianist and as a conductor, frequently combining the roles.[6] His repertoire included the complete Bach and Mozart concertos, which he performed as soloist-conductor, and the complete piano works of Debussy and Ravel.[2] Some of his Mozart concerto performances used a historical fortepiano.[6] He recorded for radio broadcasters, including the BBC, and his RCA recordings received international awards.[6]

His participation in Israeli musical discussion extended beyond performance and teaching.[7] On November 30, 1971, he took part in a round-table discussion at the Tel Aviv Museum during concert number six of the series “The Musical Creation Today.”[7] The other participants were Zvi Avni, Ami Maayani, and Yitzhak Sadai, with François Shapira moderating.[7]

Vardi headed the Open University’s Music Department from 1980 to 1990 and supervised its music publications from 1978 to 2004.[3][2] He also published articles in Israeli music magazines and periodicals in 1988–1989 and 1992–1993.[2] In 1987, he began teaching piano at the Hochschule für Musik in Hanover, while continuing his association with the music academy in Tel Aviv.[3] In 1999, he was artist in residence at Juilliard and a visiting professor at Yale University’s School of Music.[3]

His master classes and lecture recitals took him to institutions including Juilliard, the Paris Conservatoire, the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory, London’s Royal Academy of Music, Beijing’s Central Conservatory, and Seoul National University.[3][2] He also taught master classes in Tokyo.[6] Vardi described Hanover as a school that attracted pianists from around the world, and he maintained a selective admissions process for his own studio.[5]

Among his pupils was Yefim Bronfman, whose private studies with Vardi were enabled by a 1974 America-Israel Cultural Foundation scholarship awarded in a competition chaired by Isaac Stern.[8] The scholarship also brought Bronfman to the attention of philanthropist Frederick Mann, who gave him his first piano.[8] Li Yundi was another of Vardi’s students.[2] By 2017, Vardi said that about 50 of his students had won first prizes at important international competitions.[5] He described their common foundation as detailed knowledge of every note, “like a Torah scribe,” followed by the development of each pianist’s individual personality.[5]

Vardi served as artistic adviser and jury chairman of the Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Master Competition, as well as a juror at numerous other international competitions.[2] His judging engagements included the Chopin, Van Cliburn, Tchaikovsky, Leeds, Busoni, Beethoven, and Cleveland competitions.[3] In a 2021 interview, he recalled serving on the Rubinstein jury since 1980, missing only one competition because of concert commitments abroad.[1]

As jury chairman in 2008, Vardi participated in the decision not to award a first prize at the Rubinstein competition; second place was divided between Roman Rabinovich and Ching-Yun Hu.[9] He explained that no contestant had reached the standard expected of a first-place winner and that fatigue had affected the finalists’ performances.[9] During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021, he supported a format combining live and recorded performances rather than another postponement.[1] Calling performances “the lifeblood of an artist,” he said that young pianists who had already been unable to perform for a year should not be asked to accept a further delay.[1]

His recollections of the competition also included Arthur Rubinstein’s personal presence in its early years.[10] Vardi remembered “electricity in the air” when Rubinstein entered the hall, even before playing.[10] He recalled that Rubinstein accepted the jury’s decision in the first competition despite wanting Janina Fialkowska to win, and later made his own concert appearances conditional on her being invited to perform.[10]

Vardi’s work in explained concerts began after Roni Abramson, general manager of the Israel Camerata, invited him to participate in concerts for children and families.[5] He developed an accessible, one-hour format without an intermission, using short works and spoken introductions.[5] Vardi recalled that these family concerts helped sustain the orchestra at a time when its regular series had few subscribers.[5] The format subsequently informed his concerts with the Israel Philharmonic and his television work.[5] He founded, managed, presented, and conducted educational and family concert series, including the Israel Philharmonic’s family series.[3][2]

From the 1970s, television programs including Master Classes and Intermezzo with Arik made Vardi a familiar musical presenter in Israel.[2] His television projects included a six-part series on Baroque music, conversations about music and composers, and a 60-part series combining discussion with his performances of classical music.[3] Another series comprised 27 concerts filmed at the Culture Palace with the Israel Philharmonic, incorporating his explanations and demonstrations.[3] His programs also included Conversation with Ten Fingers.[6]

For Intermezzo with Arik, Vardi served as host and scriptwriter, discussing musical subjects and presenting performances by leading artists.[3] By his 2017 interview, more than 450 episodes had been recorded.[5] The weekly program continued on Israeli Educational Television until the broadcaster closed in 2018; in all, 500 episodes were filmed and broadcast.[10]

Vardi received the Minister of Education’s lifetime achievement award in 2004 and the Israel Prize in Music in 2017.[3] The Israel Prize recognized his achievements as a performing artist, his contribution to advancing and sustaining classical-music culture in Israel, and his promotion of Israeli music and musicians internationally.[4] At the time of the award, he was a faculty member at Tel Aviv University’s Buchmann-Mehta School of Music.[4]

His teaching extended across generations of pianists and piano teachers, with his students collectively winning more than 50 international first prizes.[3] His work with students also included the promotion of original Israeli compositions, many of which were dedicated to him.[3] Alongside his institutional teaching, his youth concerts and television programs combined musical performance with explanation and demonstration for audiences outside the conservatory.[3]

The Israel Prize citation highlighted his interpretations of Debussy, Ravel, Chopin, Haydn, Mozart, and Schubert.[3] It particularly emphasized his sound in Debussy and his use of the pedals to illuminate the composer’s complex harmonies, while also recognizing the awards and international attention received by his recordings of Mozart, Debussy, and Ravel.[3] His documented work thus encompassed concert performance, the training of internationally successful pianists, the presentation of classical music to families, and the performance of Israeli compositions at home and abroad.[3]