Press

- Articles/Interviews - Reviews - Press Releases - Photos

Articles / Interviews:

NEW YORK TIMES PROFILE
By Allan Kozinn - read it here...

LA TIMES PROFILE
feature article by David Ng read the article here...
"A rising young composer from the U.S., Europe or even the Far East isn't necessarily a newsmaker. But how about a hot new composer from Israel? That's a rare occurrence sure to raise eyebrows among the classical cognoscenti."

NPR WEEKEND EDITION
Interview with Scott Simon Listen to the interview...

IN STUDIO: GIL SHAHAM AND ORLI SHAHAM
Preview of Niggunim on WNYC

'URIAH' AT THE SAN FRANCISCO SYMPHONY
Conductor David Robertson leads the world premiere of
'Uriah - The Man The King Wanted Dead' more info...

MANDOLIN CONCERTO GRAMMY NOMINATION
read the LA Times Article...

AVNER DORMAN'S COMPOSITIONS: PERCUSSIVE FAIRYTALES
by Ilona Oltuski

CASTING A SHADOW IN MARIN
by MARIANNE LIPANOVICH, San Francisco Classical Voice

KANSAS CITY STAR ARTICLE - 'LOST SOULS'

by Steve Paul Read the article here...
"Dorman seems like one of those immensely talented, broadly influenced creators who can inject new energy into the classical world. His music reflects not only the foundation of Western classicism but also the Middle Eastern cauldron from which he hails and his youthful enthusiasm for rock (Led Zeppelin and Prince among his early favorites). "

KANSAS CITY JEWISH CHRONICLE

by Rick Hellman Read the article here...

WNYC Interview
Interview with Leonard Lopate Listen to the interview...

Concerto for Violin and a Rock Band
Jerusalem Post feature article

ASCAP Audio Portrait
The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers recently featured Avner Dorman and his forthcoming album with the Metropolis Ensemble in the ASCAP Audio Portraits series. Listen to the interview...

Frozen in Time at the Munich Philharmonic (Hebrew) - January 2008
Article by Merav Yudilevich, YNET

'Every piece has to be deep' - The Jewish Week - May 2007
Preview of Mandolin Concerto
"At 32, Israeli composer and onetime physicist Avner Dorman applies the rigors of mathematics to his music."

Classical Domain - September 2007
Interview and preview of On Record

Composition Today - July 2007
Interview

Dorman's Many Shores - May 2007
Interview with Maxim Reider, Jerusalem Post

'My Heart is in the East' - November 2006 - Classic Magazine (Hebrew)
Article and photos by Dan Seltzer

A Mozart for Today - October 08, 2006
Article by Andrew L. Pincus, The Berkshire Eagle

Maariv interview - October 2006 (Hebrew)
Interview by Ora Binur

PercaDu at the Philharmonic - Ma'ariv April 2006 (Hebrew)
Article by Smadar Hirsch

"Amadeus 2" - Al Hasharon November 2003 (Hebrew)
Article by Yaron Frost

Composer of the Year - September 2002 (Translated from Hebrew)
Article by Ora Binur, Ma'ariv

Haaretz Article - May 2002 (Hebrew)
Article by Hagai Hitron

'Life is Beautiful" - 2001 (Hebrew)
Article by Yafa Raziel

Rock-music 'brat' moves on - February 2001
Article by Karen Zehavi, Jerusalem Post

Haaretz Daily article - October 2000 (Hebrew)
Article by Yossi Klein

Bach didn't have a computer (Hebrew) - Ma'ariv Magazine 1994
Article by Ora Binur

Top

Reviews:

LA Times Review of Memory Games

After intermission, Hahn filled the hall with Bach, her tone at its richest all evening. Avner Dorman’s labyrinthine “Memory Games,” based on the memory game Simon, and Gillian Whitehead’s “Torua,” written in the wake of New Zealand’s Christchurch earthquake, offered gorgeous and palatable social and historical commentary. (Erica Zora Wrightson, Los Angeles Times, 02/11/2011)

Review of Frozen in Time in Kansas City

Dorman says "Frozen in Time refers to imaginary snapshots of the Earth's geological development from prehistoric times to the present day."
Dorman, a rising young Israeli composer, scored this three-movement work for full orchestra and 23 different percussion instruments, principally marimba and vibraphone. All 23 of which Grubinger played with breathtaking mastery.
The audience got so wound up it applauded after every movement, and kept doing it in the second half. (Stop that, please!)...This provocative, exciting music should be heard again and again. (John Heuertz, Kansas City Star)

Review of Niggunim at the 92 Street Y

Review of Ellef Symphony from Alabama

"Beautifully scored and viscerally performed by ASO, it should be placed in the class of 20th century anti-war classics by the likes of Schoenberg, Britten and Penderecki." Read the full review by Michael Huebner here...

New York Times review of Azerbaijani Dance

read Steve Smith's review here...

New York Times Review of Chamber Orchestra Concertos CD

by Allan Kozinn More info...

MUSICWEB INTERNATIONAL Recordings Of The Year 2010

Is it hyperbole to call this my favorite disc of music by a living composer? No... read more here

Spices, Perfumes, Toxins! at the Bavarian State Orchestra
by Klaus Kalchschmid, Sueddeutsche Zeitung, 28 January 2010

"The applause after Avner Dorman’s „Spices, Perfumes, Toxins!” raged at the National Theatre as if the classic audience had only waited for a percussion duo like Adi Morag and Tomer Yariv. Accompanied by the State Orchestra under Zubin Mehta, PercaDu roughed up the holy halls and created from marimbaphones, drums and various other percussion instruments tingly fireworks with melodies and harmonies of the Middle East, sometimes in the form of an aria or à la Klezmer, motor-driven or jazzy, but always precisely rhythmically framed and perfectly rounded up with the full symphonic orchestra. The title constituting spices, perfumes and toxins were in almost every phrase conceivable, lively perceptible, watching both musicians was a pleasure."

KBAQ CD of the week
(Phoenix, AZ) KBAQ Music Director Sterling Beeaff reviews New Naxos Recording.

kcmetropolis.org review of Lost Souls
by Christopher Guerin

"This piece left no question in my mind that Avner Dorman is, by any measure, a world-class composer destined for much more greatness."

Piano concerto premiere a sure bet
by Timothy McDonald

"the music was marvelous, featuring sprinkles of dissonance among ever present tonal riffs and passages."

Kansas City Symphony: Avner Dorman Premiere
by Don Clark

"This is a major new work"

Cabrillo Music Festival, Santa Cruz, California
Santa Cruz Sentinel Review of "Spices, Perfumes, Toxins!" by Phyllis Rosenblum

"Two major concertos highlighted the weekend. Saturday night, a pair of world-class percussionists from the Festival Orchestra, Galen Lemmon and Steve Hearn, soloed in "Spices, Perfumes, Toxins!" -- Avner Dorman's beautiful and exhilarating 2006 concerto. With astonishing agility and precision, the soloists dramatically delineated Dorman's rhythmic and lyrical music.
Dorman's work, following the traditional concerto's fast-slow-fast form, sings with seductive grace between the two infectiously rapid-pulsed segments. This composer made full use of the two soloists -- ingeniously intertwining and overlapping their parts to augment the capabilities of their array of pitched and non-pitched instruments."

Cabrillo Music Festival, Santa Cruz, California
London Financial Times Review of "Spices, Perfumes, Toxins!" by Allan Ulrich
"The finale of Avner Dorman’s Spices, Perfumes, Toxins! emerged as the festival’s great applause machine... The best part of this multicultural mash-up is the evocative middle movement, where a jazz-influenced bass line complements a sinuous flute trio, while the percussionists burble along in imitation of Bachian counterpoint. "

Cabrillo Music Festival, Santa Cruz, California
Santa Cruz Weekly Review of "Spices, Perfumes, Toxins!" by Scott MacClelland
"On that program, the standout work was Avner Dorman’s double-percussion concerto, Spices, Perfumes, Toxins, a staggering tour de force for (mostly) marimbas and drums that orchestra members Steve Hearn and Galen Lemmon nailed. "

Concerto for Percussion, With a Global Outlook
New York Times Review of "Spices, Perfumes, Toxins!" by Vivien Schweizer
"There was a sense of living on the edge in the outer movements of the concerto, played with impressive energy by the virtuosic PercaDu musicians.

The first movement, “Spices,” is based on Middle Eastern and Indian scales that are played on two marimbas, interwoven with excerpts of boisterous rock drumming and jazzy interludes. “Perfumes,” the sensual second movement, opened with an evocative theme on the marimba, first accompanied by three flutes and reminiscent of the slow movement of Rodrigo’s “Concierto de Aranjuez.” In the rhythmically exuberant finale, “Toxins,” PercaDu’s drumming alternated with colorful orchestral outbursts. An enigmatic interlude with piano and marimba both played in the upper register preceded the jazz-hued conclusion. At times the entire orchestra played second fiddle, overshadowed by the fiery percussion.

The performance was rewarded with a boisterous ovation. "

Donaukurier 1 March 2009-03-02 (German)
Review of Mandolin Concerto by Jesko Schulze-Reimpell

"The charm of Vivaldi’s mandolin concerto is even surpassed by Dorman’s concerto. The
young composer has adapted himself to the specific characteristics of the extravagant
instrument. It is evident: He has not only dedicated the concerto to Avital but also composed
it in collaboration with the performer. The strengths of the instrument are without doubt the
tremolo and the arpeggio. They characterize the work. But the work gets its impact from the
interesting compositional language. Dorman evokes strongest emotions with slightest
allusions of melodies in an ocean of atonal dissonances. These melancholic diatonic steps
stand out in the meditative introduction and touch us emotionally. In the middle section it’s
the exciting rhythms reminiscent of works by Astor Piazolla that thrill the listener. But
Dorman does even more: since the thematic material is structured so effectively it remains in
the listener’s mind; and therefore, we are surprised when we hear it again in the last section of
the concerto – this time even more muted and melancholic, accompanied by clock-like bass
pizzicati. The circle is closed. We suddenly understand: what is told here is the story of an
organism that breathes its last breath. Such brilliantly composed contemporary music
hasn’t been heard for a long time in the concert hall."

New York Times / January 2009
Review of Piano Sonata No. 2 by Allan Kozinn
"The movement oscillates between these extremes several times. That volatility is its attraction, but Mr. Dorman has it both ways: he closed the work with a single-mindedly direct, propulsive Presto with an almost Rachmaninoff-like muscularity and showiness. Mr. Goldstein reveled in its sharp-edged rhythms, dense chords and arching themes, and gave it an irresistible, powerhouse performance."

Nuvo - Indy's Alternative Voice/ June 2008
Review of Ellef Symphony
"And the best news of all: The contemporary Ellef Symphony was the highlight of the evening, with 33-year-old Dorman present to accept the audience’s thundering ovation. "

Ionarts - February 2008
Review of Frozen in Time
"The real firecracker – and one that went off in all directions – was the Dorman Percussion Concerto. "

Hamburger Abendblatt / Die Welt - December 2007 (translated from German)
Review of Frozen in Time
"Frozen in Time is a piece that exceeds expectations to the extreme."

Nashville Scene / April 2007
Review of Variation Without A Theme
"Anyone who thinks classical music is in a creative slump has clearly never heard the work of Avner Dorman."

The Tennessean - march 2007
Review of Variations Without A Theme
"Along with Gabriela Lena Frank’s piece from January, it’s one of the most compelling new works I’ve heard this year."

Gramophone - September 2006
Review of Piano Works
"Dorman is not just a fresh, young voice worth following. He's also a composer whose music... fits well on the instrument and resonates strongly with the musical tradition at large."

Musical Pointers (UK) - August 2006
Review of Piano Works
"Avner Dorman (b.1975) has a distinctively post-modern answer to the problem of how to write meaningful contemporary classical music, in the sense that he combines a variety of styles and types of music in what theorists called bricolage; it forms a very twentieth-century philosophical background to this release in
Naxos' 21 st century classics series."

Muso Magazine - August 2006
Review of Piano Works
"When the opening movement of his First Piano Sonata scuttles off like Poulenc accompanying Buster Keaton feature, you know you're in the hands of a sharp and strongly distinctive musical imagination."

Haaretz Daily Newspaper - August 2006 (Hebrew)
Review of Piano Works CD
"Dorman's piano works on this new CD are an exciting and enjoyable journey"

New York Times - July 2006
Review of Piano Works
"These works draw on the energy and spikiness of Prokofiev and Bartok in textures interwoven with moves borrowed from rock, jazz and Middle Eastern folk music."

Ionarts - June 2006
Review of Piano Works CD
"this is 'damn good.'"

New York Times - May 2006
Review of String Quartet No. 2
"The score's most arresting moments are in its finale, in which hard-driven counterpoint and rapid bowing, offset by calmer moments, describe the changeable desert winds."

Living Music - Spring 2006
Review of Piano Works CD
"It’s hard to find a new disc of contemporary piano music that is really exciting or freshly invigorating, but this disc of Dorman’s most certainly is."

Musical Pointers - Spring 2006
Review of Piano Works CD
"Avner Dorman (b.1975) has a distinctively post-modern answer to the problem of how to write meaningful contemporary classical music, in the sense that he combines a variety of styles and types of music in what theorists called bricolage; it forms a very twentieth-century philosophical background to this release in
Naxos' 21 st century classics series."

New York TImes - April 2006
Concert Review by Allan Kozinn

Innovations classic rock - July 2001
Concert Review by Karen Zehavi

Dorman expresses joie de vivre - April 2001
concert review by Ury Eppstein, The Jerusalem Post

Ellef Symphony Review - August 2000 - Berliner Zeitung

Avner Dorman's Ellef (Millennium) Symphony, in which he puts three Jewish poems of different eras into music, shows to be a piece of surprisingly competent craftsmanship, not lacking in musical power either.
Stefan Melle, Berliner Zeitung, 15/08/2000

Top

Press Releases:

Alabama Symphony premieres Saxophone Concerto with Jazz great Joshua Redman

Maestro Justin Brown leads the world premiere of Saxophone Concerto

Symphony Commissions and Premieres Piano Concerto

US Premiere of Jerusalem Mix
Featuring the Chicago Chamber Musicians and Eliran Avni

Concerts at Mahidol, Thailand - July 2008
Article published by Bangkok Post

Concerts around the world - June 2008
Avner Dorman's works are featured in festivals in Santa Cruz, California; Lubek, Germany; Sabor, Croatia; and in a dozen venues around the world.

Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra - April 2008
Ellef Symphony by Avner Dorman to be given its U.S. Premiere by Asher Fisch and the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra.

Munich Philharmonic - January 2008
Avner Dorman Percussion Concerto "Frozen in Time"

Hamburg Philharmonic - November 2007
Avner Dorman Percussion Concerto "Frozen in Time" (world premiere)

LifePR - November 2007
Avner Dorman Percussion Concerto "Frozen in Time" (world premiere)

Metropolis Ensemble - August 2007
On Record: The Complete Chamber Orchestra Concerti of Avner Dorman
"Dorman has an exceptional ability to combine both the traditional and contemporary with more mainstream forms of music. His work is a perfect fit for our modern orchestra."

Top

Photos:


credit: rrjones	credit: rrjones	credit: rrjones	credit: Dan Seltzer	credit: Dan Seltzer
Download Photo	Download Photo	Download Photo	Download Photo	Download Photo

credit: Dan Seltzer	credit: rrjones	credit: rrjones	credit: rrjones	credit: rrjones
Download Photo	Download Photo	Download Photo	Download Photo	Download Photo

credit: Dan Seltzer	credit: rrjones	credit: rrjones	credit: Carol Rossegg
Download Photo	Download Photo	Download Photo	Download Photo