When Bronisław Huberman formed what was originally known as the Palestine Orchestra in 1936, the nation of Israel as we know it today was just an idea, while the vulnerable position of Jews in most of Europe was already a grim reality. Through an unimaginably challenging campaign that took several years and included highs and lows that ranged from receiving the help and endorsement of Albert Einstein to having his precious Stradivarius violin stolen from the green room at Carnegie Hall, Huberman succeeded in not only founding what has become one of the world’s preeminent symphony orchestras but also saving the lives of dozens of great musicians who otherwise would have ended up perhaps playing — and then dying — in concentration camps.
Whereas the exciting story of the formation of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra (IPO) can be heard and seen in the 2012 documentary Orchestra of Exiles, UCSB Arts & Lectures will give Santa Barbara music fans an opportunity to witness this musical legacy in person, as maestro Zubin Mehta leads the orchestra in concert at the Arlington on Wednesday, November 1. Mehta, who has been at the helm of the group since 1977, and was appointed its music director for life in 1981, announced earlier this year that 2019 would be his last active year with the IPO, so don’t miss this chance to witness one of the most important figures in the history of music while he’s still at the top of his form.
The program reflects both sides of the band and of the maestro. On the side of the IPO as national orchestra and of maestro Mehta as a champion of new music, there’s the opener, “Footnote,” a suite for orchestra by the Israeli composer Amit Poznansky. The piece originated as a soundtrack for the 2011 film of the same name, a drama about Talmudic scholars that imagines a scenario in which a devoted son makes a secret sacrifice in order to protect his difficult father. When Uzi Shalev, assistant principal bassoonist of the IPO, saw the film, he recognized the potential in Poznansky’s music to become a full-fledged orchestral suite.