Eli Korman - Everything is Bland

Ensemble Zone Expérimentale, Directed by Yaron Deutsch
21.1.24, Neuer Saal, Musik Akademie Basel

Cellos - Clara Dietze & James Morley
Flutes - Ignat Khlobystin & Isabelle Meraner
Saxophones - Alex Prill  & Marc Baltrons Fàbregas 
Percussion - Mikołaj Rytowski 

Recording - Jonas Prina & Caspar Johannes Walter

Mix & Mastering - Omri Abram

Link to the video of the piece: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjEoljK-DfE

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When the October 2023 war broke out, I was left without words.

Alongside feelings of fear and terror, tears and a lump in my throat, numerous feelings of blandness emerged. Everything was bland all around. The food was bland, the streets were bland, the skies were bland, my exhaustion was bland, the money I earned was bland, the everyday life was bland.

 Amidst all this, even the music was bland for me during those initial weeks of the war. What wasn’t bland at all were the tough emotions and helplessness, mine, and that of all my friends and family.

In the piece everything is bland, I try to give an auditory and performative expression to this feeling of blandness, alongside the difficult emotions and tragedy of the war. Writing this piece during the first two months of the war was an anchor for me, a breath of air.

Everything is Bland for Ensemble

https://www.elikorman.com/

Eli Korman is an Israeli composer and saxophone player, based in Kibbutz Netiv HaLamed Hey, Israel.

 

He completed his degrees in composition at the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance and the Musik Akademie Basel FHNW, studying under Professors Ari Ben Shabetai, Yinam Leef, Caspar Johannes Walter and Yair Klartag.


Eli participated in several master courses for composition such as CEME master course of Meitar Ensemble, the International Young Composers Academy in Ticino, the Workshop for Young Composers of Divertimento Ensemble, the Bludenzer Tage zeitgemäßer Musik and the Uuden Musiikin Lokakuu 2023 festival in Finland with professors such as Franck Bedrossian, Phillippe Leoux, Helmut Lachenman, Mauro Lanza, Samir Odeh-Tamimi, Unsuk Chin, Du Yun, Oscar Bianchi, Eva Reiter, Clara Iannotta, Mark Andre, Lucia Ronchetti,  Nadir Vassena and Carola Bauckholt.


Eli received the Jerusalem Institute of Contemporary Music scholarship (Siday Fellowship for Musical Creativity), the scholarship for musicians in Switzerland from the Stiftung Melinda Esterházy de Galantha, excellence scholarship from the ''America-Israel Cultural Foundation'', as well as an excellence scholarship from the Jerusalem Academy for Music and Dance.


Eli won the Eduard Brunner Kompositionpreis 2023 from the Musik Akademie Basel, the second prize in the Abraham and felicia Klon competition for young composers in Israel (2023), the second prize in the ''Israel Composers' League'' competition for young composers (2018), the Call for piano works by RMN (2020) the Call for Scores of Blank Ensemble (2021) and a Diploma for nonstandard thinking and originality of idea from the 3rd National Composer Competition from the Kazakh National University for Arts (2021).


His pieces are performed by Les Percussions de Strasbourg, Divertimento Ensemble, Quartetto Maurice, Meitar ensemble, Hai Kvartetti, Duo Alto, Tedarim ensemble and various players in Israel, Hungary, the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Chile, North Macedonia, South Korea, Italy, Austria and Finland.