BAR ZEMACH: ‘There was this old horn on the wall, and my dad would take it down and let me blow into it.’
While the ram’s horn has popped up in quite a few jazz gigs over the years, there has been precious little seen of the instrument in classical climes.
Jews have been blowing the shofar for millennia. That has predominantly taken place within the context of religious ritual, mostly in the synagogue on Rosh Hashanah, and as the finale to Yom Kippur. And, while the ram’s horn has popped up in quite a few jazz gigs over the years, there has been precious little seen of the instrument in classical climes.
Bar Zemach is looking to address that current low profile presence in his musical neck of the woods. The twentysomething Berlin-based Israeli French horn player has added the shofar to his performance kit and is going about turning it into a bona fide classical orchestral instrument.
Zemach is clearly intent on making his mark on the global classical stage, and is willing to put in the requisite elbow grease to make that happen. Already an established orchestral player and soloist on French horn, a few years ago he added the shofar to his music-making arsenal and is determined to ease its way into the mainstream classical fold.
He paid his dues on his first choice instrument, one of the most difficult to master, before he freed up some of his daytime hours for his new wind instrument. “I really became serious about the French horn around the age of 19-20, when I played in the Berlin Staatsoper (Berlin State Opera) orchestra,” Zemach explain
That allowed him to get up close to one of the greatest names in the entire classical music domain. “Daniel Barenboim was the conductor. I was there for a year and a half. That’s how I got to know Barenboim.” That also led to another professional port-of-call for the youngster. He joined the West–Eastern Divan
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