JR Commissions New Music for Mandolin

In the past year, JR has commissioned, inspired, and written a few new works for mandolin.

For Jacob's upcoming album with Duo Mantar, he has commissioned two new pieces to be performed on mandolin and guitar. One of the pieces  is from a legendary Israeli composer Josef Bardanashvili and the other by young Israeli composer, Oren Lok.  Bardanashvili is an Israeli-Georgian composer whose opus already consists of 100 works, while Lok already has written a Concerto for 2 Mandolins last year for Reuven's other duo 16 Strings.

Oren Lok will be involved in writing another new piece: 'Concerto for Mandolin and String orchestra', which has been commissioned Reuven's luthier Arik Kerman. This piece is envisioned as a cooperation between Oren Lok and another upcoming Israeli composer, Neomi Attar. Neomi studied under composer Andre Haydu, is a Jerusalem Academy graduate, and is already well known for her compositions and arrangements for vocal music. She will compose the second movement of the Concerto, while the first and third movement will be composed by Lok. This new commission has been inspired by work of Israeli composer Yehezkel Braun. An Israeli composer and one of the members of the generation that followed Paul Ben-Haim and Marc Lavry, Yehezkel Braun’s main interests were traditional Jewish melodies and Gregorian music. He left a rich composition opus which includes choral, chamber and orchestral works. JR will be the player to premier the piece.

Lastly, while performing in Tallinn in the spring, Jacob was fortunate to meet well-known Estonian composer Tõnu Kõrvits. Tõnu is well known in Estonia for creating many popular film scores and composing for award winning Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir.  Tonu will compose a 'Concerto for Mandolin and String orchestra' that will be premiering in season 2019/2020. 

Lastly, Jacob himself is working on a set of '10 Pedagogical Caprices for Solo Mandolin', which he plans to publish in near future. These caprices are indeterministic, looking into easy ways to practice a variety of technical subjects ( tremolo, arpeggio, etc.).