Yitzhak Yedid’s music, a unique narrative of pictures, textures and colours that is characterized by a spectacular mix of styles, is a direct outcome of his inspiration through philosophical matters and mysticism, religious rituals and religious conflicts.

 

For over a decade Yedid has researched composition and performance that integrates Western classic music traditions with Arabic music traditions. His music, which is both courageous and necessary, looks unflinchingly at cultures (Jewish and Arab, Western-world and Islamic) that are in conflict. He does not shy away from attempting to convey this conflict through music and to find ways of (musical) integration and resolution. His exceptional talent is evident: without subscribing or adhering to any particular system he has composed a body of over 30 works that deal with this integration.

 

Yedid’s awards include the top two prizes in Israel for composers and performers: the Prime Minister’s Prize for Composers (2007) and the Landau Prize for Performing Arts (2009).

 

Yedid writes, “Looking for new compositional approaches and challenging musical conventions through the synthesis of a wide spectrum of contemporary and ancient styles is what motivated my work. Intellectual conflicts such as the confrontation with philosophical matters and religious and political aspects have always been of interest. I have been influenced in particular by Béla Bartók and Arnold Schoenberg to develop a personal vision as a composer.” These words are consonant with critics’ comments about his music: John Shand (Sydney Morning Herald, 2014) wrote “a vividly expansive composition”; Noam Ben-Zeav (Haaretz, 2013) wrote, “Yedid’s music is an authentic expression of new music which incorporates a wide spectrum of contemporary and ancient styles”; and Ake Holmquist (NorraSkåne, Sweden) wrote “Yedid integrates specific stylistic influences into a personal created unity”.

 

Yedid creates a confluence between the Maqamat, heterophonic textures of ancient genres, and compositional approaches of the 20-21 centuries Western classical music. He examines ways of using microtonal pitches that in Arabic music function as ornamentation and improvisational gestures, and extends the use of traditional ornamentation to compose microtonal sounds with microtonal qualities. In his works the microtonal intervals function in the context of diatonic and chromatic intervals and he employs the method of a tension-and-release for intervals of a quarter-tone and three-quarter-tones.