Jeff Siegfried performs Betty Olivero's saxophone concerto, Kri'ot, with students from the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance, conducted by Daniel Brottman.
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Betty Olivero is a contemporary Israeli composer, who has lived during most of her career in Florence, Italy. In Olivero’s works, traditional and ethnic music materials are processed using western contemporary compositional techniques; traditional melodies and texts undergo processes of development, adaptation, transformation, assimilation, resetting and re-composition, to the point of assuming new forms in different contexts. These processes touch on wide and complex areas of contrast, such as east and west, holy and secular, traditional and new.
Olivero was awarded the Fromm Award by the Fromm Music Foundation (USA, 1986), the Prime Minister's Prize (Israel, 2001), the Rosenblum Award for the Performing Arts (Israel, 2003), the Landau Award for the Performing Arts (Israel, 2004), the ACUM prize for Life Achievements (Israel, 2004), the Prime Minister’s Prize (Israel, 2009) and the ACUM Award for Achievement of the Year (Israel, 2010). While still studying in Israel, Betty Olivero was granted scholarships from the America-Israel-Cultural-Foundation.
In 2000 Olivero was awarded the prestigious Koussevitzky Award by the Koussevitzky Music Foundation and the Library of Congress, Washington USA, one of the most important international awards, given annually only to six composers.
-Biography from the composer’s website
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The composer writes:
Kri’ot derives its inspiration from the characteristic melismatic singing, while praying and reading biblical texts as well as from folk and traditional songs, sung by the Jews from eastern European, Balkan, North African and Middle-Eastern countries.
In this piece I present a panoramic view of cross over musical material of different geographic and ethnic origins, trying to bring about from its apparently different nature and spirit, an homogeneous and natural musical co-existence.
Traditional and ethnic music materials are processed using western contemporary compositional techniques. They undergo in this work, processes of development, adaptation, transformation, assimilation, resetting and re-composition, to the point of assuming new forms and being placed in different contexts. These processes touch on widespread and complex areas of contrast, such as east and west, holy and secular, traditional and new.
This musical heritage, which reached us after wondering through places and history, contains musical and literary materials from all over the world. The popular/folk and liturgical music of the Sephardic and East-European Diaspora is, in its essence, hundred years old classical-Arabic music, which was kept through prayers and songs throughout generations. The prayers and songs of the Ashkenazi Jews hold elements and Gipsy music influences on one hand, and Gregorian singing on the other. The wanderings of the Jews all over and throughout history took this music on a long journey in their songs and prayers, which turned to be the travel of the universal folk music through history. There is a synthesis between western symphonic writing style and vocal and instrumental materials in this piece, which are derived from the popular Eastern-European, Middle-Eastern and Arabic music. This is a musical metaphor of longing for peace and brotherhood between countries in the Middle-East and the whole world.
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Jeff Siegfried combines a “rich, vibrant tone” (South Florida Classical Review) with “beautiful and delicate playing” (Michael Tilson Thomas) to deliver “showstopper performances” (Peninsula Reviews). Hailed for “very entertaining” (American Record Guide) and “quicksilver” interpretations (I Care if You Listen), Siegfried is becoming an important voice in his generation of concert saxophonists.