Friends have notified us of the death last night of Ami Maayani, former head of the Israeli Composers’ League, founder of the national youth orchestra and a vastly influential teacher.
His work is based on a fusion of many Middle Eastern musical streams.
photo: Boosey&Hawkes
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He was an extremely influential composer for harp music, his solos are constantly performed, and often required in competitions. His music incorporates certain Middle Eastern characteristics with intricate design, powerful rhythms and melodic themes, colorful textures and supreme technical challenges. He was also an architect. He was remarkably successful for a contemporary composer, and part of that comes from his not using twelve-tone systems, and allowing his music to have sensual, seductive qualities. He wrote numerous chamber pieces with harp, concertos, and solos: Toccata, Maqamat (the most well known), Passacallia dans le style Oriental, Five Solos for the Young Harpist, Sonatas One (for Grace Wong) and Two. I wonder how many more might have yet to be published. I am saddened by this, and had just been thinking about him recently. I will certainly be dedicating my Fifteen Sephardic Folksong Settings to his memory. He also composed guitar music for Sharon Isbin.
He wrote also a great book about Wagner and was also a very good architect.
Ami Maayani was also among the composers I interviewed in Israel in 1986 and who are profiled in my 1997 book, Twenty Israeli Composers (Wayne State University Press). His harpist sister Ruth Maayani, who has also since passed away, frequently performed and recorded Ami’s works. In 1987, Ruth participated in a concert of New Music from Israel, which I presented at Northern Illinois University–performing her brother’s Arabesque No. 2 with then NIU graduate student flutist Betsy Brightbill. That performance (and most others from the program) can now be heard on the new CD, COMPOSING ISRAEL (Neuma Records, St. Paul MN, U.S.A.)–comprising 10 works by 9 Israeli composers of 3 generations, spanning 6 decades–and including the first commercially released recording of Betty Olivero’s Koussevitzky Foundation- commissioned chamber ensemble piece, BASHRAV–performed by members of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by its new music director (and future Munich Philharmonic music director), Lahav Shani.–
Robert Fleisher, Professor Emeritus, School of Music, Northern Illinois University