Launching Lives in Music

Though Israel’s relationship with the rest of the world has been tested during the past year, Tel Aviv University’s Buchmann-Mehta School of Music (BMSM) is demonstrating how art can bring people together even under challenging circumstances. The School’s world-renowned Symphony Orchestra will soon perform a concert in Germany celebrating over 40 years of partnership with Frankfurt’s Goethe University. The Orchestra and its yearly concert series are part of a rigorous training program which, in close collaboration with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra (IPO), brings in top young Israeli and international musicians who go on to successful careers as concert musicians at the IPO and worldwide. 

The fully-subsidized training program was made possible by TAU Governors and Honorary Doctors Josef and Bareket Buchmann, benefactors of the BMSM and long-time supporters of Tel Aviv University, the IPO, Goethe University, and Israeli-German relations. A Vice-Chairman of the TAU Board of Governors, Dr. h. c. Josef Buchmann previously endowed TAU’s law faculty among other major contributions, and he has been recognized by many leading Israeli figures for his dedication to helping the less fortunate, advancing Israeli culture, and building bridges between Israel and Europe. 

Dedicating Their Lives to Music 

The Buchmann-Mehta School of Music Orchestral Training Program is a vital musical asset for Israel, nurturing the next generation of orchestral musicians and reinforcing Israel’s cultural standing on the global stage. The young musicians in the Program, of whom there are nearly 100 each year, are deeply committed to their craft. Most have little time for jobs to support themselves or social lives outside of music. “In order to really succeed in classical music, you have to be incredibly skilled,” explains 4th-year BMSM violist Inbar, 23. “Reaching that level of skill requires practicing for hours every day.”  

BMSM students Shaked (left) and Inbar with their instruments. (Photos: Noam Cohen Zada, Rami Zernger)

Inbar has been playing since he was eight years old and commuted from a rural area throughout middle and high school to learn at a musical conservatory. He began studying at TAU immediately after high school while doing mandatory army service simultaneously, and notes that many of his fellow students do the same.  

To ensure Buchmann-Mehta students are able to hone their skills at a professional level, Program tuition is entirely subsidized. “Getting the scholarship allows us practice so that we can get to the point that we’re qualified to even begin looking for paid opportunities,” says Inbar, who will be starting a highly prestigious internship playing with the IPO this year. 

If students do find paid, career-advancing jobs while studying, the School is accommodating as long as they continue to excel in their studies. Such is the case with Shaked, 24, a flute and piccolo player who plays with the Be’er Sheva Orchestra. “That’s how I pay for rent to live in Tel Aviv, since my family is in the north,” she says. “It helped that the Training Program taught me how to audition, and now allows for flexibility between my orchestra practice schedule and my job as much as possible.” Shaked is also participating in a practicum playing with the IPO, an option for top students at BMSM. 

Shaked: “This year I lost a lot of friends, but music has helped me a lot. I feel supported by my teachers and very close with my fellow students.”

“It is hard to juggle everything, but I feel supported by my teachers and very close with my fellow students,” Shaked says. When the 2023-2024 academic year was delayed because of the Gaza war, she and other music students went to play and sing at hospitals, nursing homes and more, to help raise spirits. “This year I lost a lot of friends, on October 7th and to war. But music has helped me a lot. As a solo project, the School had me perform Halil by Leonard Bernstein, about a soldier who died in the Yom Kippur War. It was so meaningful; I felt I was playing for my friends whom I lost.” 

Symphonic Journeys Around the World 

Performance is the main focus of the Orchestral Training Program. Theoretical classes are high-level and challenging, but students spend the highest proportion of their time practicing and playing in the Symphony Orchestra. BMSM Head, musicologist Dr. Uri Rom, explains: “Students play four annual programs, one of which is a festive gala in Tel Aviv under the baton of the IPO Music Director Maestro Lahav Shani. These performances make up the School’s premier concert series, Symphonic Journeys.” 

Dr. Rom: “Students play four annual programs as part of the School’s premier concert series.”

Among the highest-ranking young professional orchestras internationally, the BMSM Symphony Orchestra has been invited to play at major venues such as the United Nations General Assembly, Carnegie Hall in New York, Tonhalle in Zurich, Alte Oper in Frankfurt, Auditorio Nacional di Musica in Madrid, Konzerthaus in Berlin, and Salle São Paulo. The School also sends some students abroad for master classes and projects. “I’ve traveled alone with the help of the School,” says Shaked. “It is important to see how other teachers play and to hear their unique insights.” To the same end, the School regularly invites internationally acclaimed artists from all over the world to work with music students in all study tracks. 

Shaked and Inbar are excited to play in Frankfurt; it will be both students’ first time performing with the BMSM Symphony Orchestra abroad. 

A Faithful Bond 

The partnership between Goethe and Tel Aviv Universities continues a decades-long relationship established in 1983 by Buchmann through the Josef Buchmann Doctoral Fellowship Fund. The first and largest of its kind at TAU, the Fund has so far allocated 387 scholarships at Tel Aviv University and dozens more at Goethe University to outstanding doctoral students in all fields. A more recent shared project of the two universities is the joint Center for the Study of Religious and Interreligious Dynamics, established in 2022. 

Josef Buchmann (left) with Maestro Zubin Mehta and the TAU Symphony Orchestra. (Photo: Tavor Nakash)

The Buchmanns are further nurturing this tradition of cooperation by generously sponsoring the upcoming concert, following a similar event in 2014 celebrating Goethe University’s 100th anniversary. As in 2014, former IPO Music Director Maestro Zubin Mehta, BMSM’s Honorary President, will direct the Orchestra. 

Goethe University has stood by TAU during the 2024 war. Goethe University President, Prof. Enrico Schleiff, said at a fundraising event for TAU’s new National Center for Post Trauma and Resilience: “I am impressed by the courage and strength with which both Israeli civil society and the University continue to manage their daily business, and happy to be a partner and a friend at their side, ready to help where help is needed.”