Noam Sheriff

Noam Sheriff was born on January 7, 1935, in Ramat Gan, under the name Zisel Sheriff, after his maternal grandfather.[1] The name Noam was later suggested by Aaron Shechtman, subsequently known as Shamir, and his official name became Noam Zisel Sheriff.[1] The official Israel Prize biography also identifies Ramat Gan as his birthplace, while Encyclopaedia Judaica lists Tel Aviv.[2][3]

Sheriff attended Herzliya Hebrew Gymnasium from 1948 to 1952, later describing those years as "the happiest days of my life."[1] During his schooling he developed a distinctive German-Jewish accent by imitating teachers including the composer Paul Ben-Haim and Ze'ev Priell (Friedländer), though German was not his mother tongue.[1] He began studying composition with Ben-Haim while still in secondary school.[2] He also studied conducting and piano with Ze'ev Priel and horn with Horst Salomon; Encyclopaedia Judaica dates his composition studies with Ben-Haim from 1949 to 1957.[3]

During his military service, Sheriff played French horn in the Israel Defense Forces Orchestra, and from 1953 to 1955 he served as an assistant conductor within that ensemble.[2] He had already conducted the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra of Israel Radio as early as 1952.[2] From 1955 to 1959 he studied philosophy at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he also founded and led the Hebrew University Orchestra.[1] In 1955 he attended a conducting course with Igor Markevitch at the Mozarteum in Salzburg.[2] Between 1959 and 1962 he studied composition with Boris Blacher at the Berlin Musikhochschule before returning to Israel.[3][2]

A major breakthrough came in 1957, when Sheriff's orchestral work Festival Preludes (Akdamot le-Mo'ed) was submitted anonymously to a competition to select music for the opening of Tel Aviv's Culture Hall—the Mann Auditorium—and won.[2] The Israel Philharmonic Orchestra performed it at the inauguration under Leonard Bernstein, and the work received the Sol Hurok Prize.[3] Two years later, his Shirei Ha-Ma'alot won first prize in another Israel Philharmonic competition.[2]

After returning to Israel in 1962, Sheriff conducted Israel Radio's light-music orchestra and composed film music.[2] He also arranged many Israeli songs and edited and presented radio and television programs, including the Israeli television series All the Melodies.[4] In 1970 he initiated a joint appearance by the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra and the Churchills, and one of his best-known song arrangements, "Hinach Yafa Rayati," based on words from the Song of Songs, became associated with singer Esther Ofarim.[1]

As a conductor, Sheriff led the Kibbutz Chamber Orchestra from 1972 to 1982 and the Israel Symphony Orchestra Rishon le-Zion from 1989 to 1995. He became music director of the Israel Chamber Orchestra in 2002 and of the Haifa Symphony Orchestra in 2004.[3][5] He also served as music advisor to the Israel Festival from 1985 to 1988.[3] In 1972, he founded the 11:11 concert series at Tel Aviv's Tzavta Club, and he founded and directed other music festivals in Israel and abroad.[2]

As a teacher, Sheriff taught at the Cologne Musikhochschule from 1983 to 1986, at the Rubin Academy of Music in Jerusalem from 1986 to 1989, and at the Rubin Academy of Music in Tel Aviv from 1990 to 2000, directing the Tel Aviv academy from 1998 to 2000.[3] He later became a professor of conducting and composition at the Buchmann-Mehta School of Music at Tel Aviv University and president of Hed College of Music.[2] He also conducted international courses and taught at institutions including the Musikhochschule in Cologne and the Mozarteum in Salzburg.[4] Sheriff described his approach to teaching as treating young students as future colleagues.[1]

Sheriff's compositional language is characterized as a fusion of Eastern and Western elements, blending new, old, and sometimes ancient musical materials with Jewish cultural heritage and fundamental models of Western composition.[3] His works frequently refer to specific national subjects and historical events, drawing on Jewish cultural sources and musical traditions.[3] He described himself first as a Jewish musician and then as an Israeli one, arguing that the continuity linking Jewish and Israeli musical traditions lies principally in language rather than in any single melody, and that synagogue cantillation and the musical traditions of the Hebrew Bible helped unite Jewish communities and Israeli singers across generations.[1]

Among his earlier works is the orchestral suite Omrim Yeshna Eretz ("They Say There Is a Land"), created around 1962, a six-part work incorporating themes based on songs by Yoel Engel alongside motifs drawn from Sephardic and Ashkenazi folklore.[6] His output grew to encompass a wide range of forms and forces: the Israel Suite for orchestra (1967); Song of Songs for flute and orchestra (1981); Nocturnes, six songs for voice and piano (1982); Prayers for String Orchestra; La Folia Variations for orchestra; Dodecalogue (Trei Assar) for twelve celli; A Vision of David (1986); the Violin Concerto (Dibrot) (1986); the Cello Concerto (1987/1996); Scarlattiana, a piano concerto (1994); String Quartet No. 2 (Rosendorf) (1996); Akedah (The Sacrifice of Isaac) for orchestra (1997); and Bereshit (Genesis) for soloists, children's choir, and orchestra (1998).[3][3]

At the center of Sheriff's compositional legacy stands a trilogy of large-scale works exploring Jewish historical experience. The first, Meḥayyei ha-Metim (Revival of the Dead), is a symphony for tenor, baritone, boys' choir, men's choir, and orchestra that incorporates Yiddish, cantorial music, and klezmer and moves toward the renewal of Jewish life in Israel.[3][2] The second, A Sephardic Passion (1992), is scored for alto, tenor, mixed choir, and orchestra and combines Ladino, Spanish, Latin, and Hebrew to commemorate the five-hundredth anniversary of the expulsion of Jews from Spain.[3][2] The third, Psalms of Jerusalem (1995), was written for tenor, bass, four mixed choirs, and orchestra to mark celebrations of Jerusalem's three-thousandth anniversary.[3][2] Sheriff described the trilogy as possibly the most summative work he had written.[1]

Two later works carried particular ceremonial weight. Akedah was premiered by the Genoa Opera Orchestra in 1997 as a memorial to Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.[2] Genesis was commissioned and premiered by the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra in 1998 to mark Israel's fiftieth Independence Day and was subsequently featured at the Salzburg Festival.[2] His catalog also includes a Viola Concerto (2006) and the opera Golem 13 (2009).[2]

Sheriff accumulated major honors across his career. He won first prize in the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra Conducting Competition in 1959.[3] In 1995, he became one of five composers worldwide whose complete works were selected for exclusive publication by the music publisher C.F. Peters.[4] He also received the ACUM Prize for lifetime achievement.[3][4]

In 2003 he was awarded the EMET Prize for Music, sponsored by the AMN Foundation for the Advancement of Science, Art and Culture in Israel and given under the auspices of the Israeli prime minister.[3] In 2011, Sheriff received the Israel Prize in music.[7][2] The National Library of Israel preserves his personal archive, including manuscripts of compositions, letters, and press clippings, among its notable collections of Israeli composers.[8]

Sheriff died in 2018 at age 83.[4] The National Library of Israel records that he died in the Hebrew month of Elul and was survived by his wife, the composer Ella Milch-Sheriff, their children, and a grandchild.[1] His death occurred, by coincidence, on Leonard Bernstein's birthday—a detail noted in the Library's tribute because of Bernstein's formative role in Sheriff's life.[1] Sheriff credited Bernstein with teaching him "what it means to be a musician" and carried that lesson into decades of pedagogy.[1]

Through his trilogy on Jewish historical memory, his work in Israeli orchestral life, his popular-song arrangements, and his contributions to music education and broadcasting, Sheriff helped shape Israeli music across the second half of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first. His roles extended across composition, conducting, arranging, education, festival direction, and television presentation. He also used explanatory concerts and media programs to broaden public access to music.[2][4]