Israeli Composer Appointed Cleveland Music Director

By Renee Ghert-Zand June 3, 2013

Israeli-born composer Avner Dorman has been appointed Music Director of CityMusic Cleveland Chamber Orchestra, which is set to celebrate its 10th anniversary season.

CityMusic Cleveland is a professional chamber orchestra that seeks to develop audiences by presenting free concerts in neighborhood venues. It presents four or five concerts per year and devotes most of its time and resources to building relationships with the leadership of the communities in which it plays, and on developing and delivering music education programs for the residents of those neighborhoods.

Dorman, a praised and prolific 38-year-old composer, who was recently profiled on The Arty Semite, has also worked as a conductor, interpreting classical and contemporary repertoire, including his own works.

Dorman conducted the Brussels Philharmonic at Galaxy Studios for the recording of his original musical score for the film, “The Wonders,” a film noir set in modern day Jerusalem to be released in Israel this month. He has also conducted premieres of a number of living composers at the Tanglewood Music Festival, and other venues. His first public conducting appearance came with little notice and featured a performance of Hector Villa Lobos’ Bachianas Brasileiras no. 5 at the Mann Auditorium in Tel Aviv to an audience of dignitaries, including Shimon Peres, who was Israel’s prime minister at the time.

“I am very excited to be selected as Music Director of CityMusic Cleveland. I really admire the mission of this chamber orchestra, through the offering of free concert opportunities for listeners of all ages and also how they have provided opportunities for living composers like myself to be heard and involved in programming,” Dorman said of his appointment.

“My goals are to create beautiful performances for the Cleveland community to enjoy, to expose more Cleveland school children to orchestral music, and possibly record some of my own works with this orchestra in the future.”

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO