University of Haifa – Arik Shapira (Dept of Music) Composing “Music” for the Jihad : By Lee Kaplan…..see note please
http://isracampus.org.il/third%20level%20pages/Editorial%20-%20Lee%20Kaplan%20-%20HaifaU%20-%20Arik%20Shapira%20-%20Music%20for%20the%20Jihad.htm
William Congreve- “Music hath charms to soothe the savage breast”…Not these savages and barbarians…only death of “infidels” soothes them….Is it to be “Fugue for a Beheading” next?…rsk
“Justice is sweet and musical; but injustice is harsh and discordant.”—Henry David Thoreau
Recently promoted to a full professorship in Music at the University of Haifa, Professor Arik Shapira is striking a discordant tone with the rest of the Israeli public who through their taxes pay his salary. Shapira isn’t just sympathetic to the Palestinians, he is sympathetic to Hamas and rubs elbows with the Free Gaza Movement to boot.
For the small minority who are even aware of Shapira’s work in Israel, he is best known for his malicious “Upon thy ruins, Ophra”, celebrating the destruction of the West Bank Jewish settlement of Ophra. You can hear it here.
Israeli media commented about “Ophra”: “For those of you who thought that the self-hating Israeli literati could not sink any lower, there is bad news. Last month, on Israel’s ‘Kol Musica’ radio show, Arik Shapira, winner of the Israel Prize, played his new composition, ‘On Thy Ruins, Ofra,’ a twisted takeoff on Isaiah’s beautiful poem, ‘Upon thy walls, O Jerusalem’ (62:6). The song is dedicated, in the words of Shapira, ‘toward the destruction of Ofra, with the evacuation of all the settlements.'”
In a conversation with the Israeli daily Ha’aretz, the composer said, “This is a public that I despise. They didn’t contribute anything in the years before the rise of the State…When someone plays the flutes I break up and rework the notes to sound like shots. This is what they do, these scoundrels, these settlers. I abhor them.”
Shapira bemoans the fact that – even after he received the 1994 Israel Prize laurel for his “music” – his work is seldom performed in Israel or by the Israel Philharmonic, only abroad. Part of the reason, no doubt, is his “music” is more often than not mere accompaniment of his anti-Israel fanaticism.
Quoting Shapira in Ha’aretz:
“Sometimes there are complaints that instrumentalists don’t play together, and I say: ‘That’s good.’ And someone has played too low? So let’s work on false notes: A false octave, a false pure fourth – this interests me. And going from disorder to order in music interests me. And some element that forces disquiet on the instrumentalist is important to me. It is necessary to invent new parameters of listening, of experience: I am curious, and I want to be a partner to an adventure, not a historical experience. I want to feel that I am alive, and alive today – intellectually and sensually, that I’m hearing a new sound. Hearing the Israeliness of today, with all its frantic provincialism.”
So Shapira’s objection to Israeli “provincialism” or narrow-mindedness, even extends to Israelis defending themselves from Arab irredentists and anti-Semites. How boring, he feels. Here is Shapira: “The audience is intellectual, escapist and refuses to make an effort, even if it is capable. For five years now, since the beginning of the current intifada, the audience is lost, in a cultural crisis and is establishing a dictatorship of tiredness, despair and the demand for Italian espresso. They aren’t interested in hearing the truth and only want to be caressed. So please: Be caressed. But not by me.”
You can listen to Shapira’s music here on the Internet. It is a cacophony of screeches and discordant sounds. In fact, each piece sounds like an orchestra tuning its instruments, with no rhythm or beat. Shapria’s politics probably did more to earn him the Israel Prize in 1994 at the start of Oslo than any talent for music. He composes a lot of “political music,” or “music” that has an anti-Israel far leftist political message.
Shapira’s former boss at the Samuel Rubin Musical Academy in Israel, Ami Maayani, described Shapira’s Israel Prize as awarded thusly:
“The fact that Mr. Shapira won the Israel Prize causes a great amount of mystification and many objections among a large number of musicians and the people responsible for music education and composers in Israel. The award to Mr. Shapira is a political act in the fullest sense of the word. His compositions (that are of marginal value from the point of their creative and technical achievements) do more than hint at this fact. Therefore, it is of no wonder that serious musicians are not of the opinion that Mr. Shapira is worthy of a prize which is the most prestigious awarded to a musician in Israel.”
A major piece of work by Shapira, 9 years in the making, is a paean to Nazi soldiers; their letters home from the Russian front during the Battle of Stalingrad.
And he ponders why his works are not played very often in Israel?
Naturally, Shapira claims he doesn’t care if people don’t like his music:
“I have never written music to please anyone. I never wished for my works to be liked. I asked to be understood.”
In 1989 during the First Intifada and before Oslo, Shapira wrote, “I have never been so frustrated in my life. I can’t bear the political situation here. The country is moving toward quasi-fascism—ultra-nationalistic, immoral and repulsive place to live in. Electronic piece of mine was performed in Bourges, France. I didn’t attend the occasion. Another electronic work is due to be performed in September in Stockholm. I will not attend it either. I can’t stand the idea of being introduced as an ‘Israeli composer.’ Writing music nowadays seems so ugly when ten miles east, Palestinian boys are shot. If I were younger and bolder I would have left the pencil and bought a pistol. There are plenty of mad dogs barking here.”
He calls Israel fascist yet then wishes he took up arms against Israel with a pistol to fight for the Arabs.
Shapira refers to his critics as “hottentots” when they don’t approve of his anti-Israelism. Curious that no one called him to task for such racist language. This appeared in the book, Twenty Israeli Composers, Voices of A Culture” by Robert Fleishcer (1989). Curiously enough, the term “hottentot” refers to primitive blacks and was coined by the Dutch in apartheid South Africa.
Naturally, Shapira has signed on to a “manifesto” showing his support of boycotting Israel and even his own university by Israeli musical academics. He also loves to petition against Israel, especially against Israeli “occupation” of Gaza. Of course, Gaza has not been “occupied” since 2005, but that did not stop Shapira from signing a petition protesting the “occupation” that calls on the EU and UN to end Israeli occupation there. Of interest is that the first signed name on that petition is Avital Aboody of the ISM who was on the Mavi Marmara. His fellow co-signers are a Who’s Who of Israelis who Hate Israel, from Haneen Zoabi to Roy Wagner, from Jeff Halper to Michael Warshawski.
Clearly, Arik Shapira is one musician who travels to the beat of a different noisy electronic Purim grogger. Instead of the University of Haifa, he belongs in Bir Zeit University, or maybe the ISIS School of Musical Liberation.
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