FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE -- 9/29/98 | Contact: Diana Smith, 719-389-6138  

COLORADO SPRINGS -- Tzvi Avni, one of the foremost Israeli composers today, will have his works performed at 7:30 p.m., Tuesday, Oct. 27, in Colorado College's Packard Hall.

Avni is the college's 1998 distinguished composer-in-residence. The concert will feature his woodwind quintet from 1959 performed by both faculty members and guest musicians from the community, and a vocal and small chamber ensemble from Avni's 1992 Love Under a Different Sun, led by CC soprano Martile Rowland. Susan Grace, piano, Daryll Stevens, clarinet, and Paul Nagem, flute, will play solo compositions.

Avni's compositions include orchestral pieces, chamber music for various combinations, vocal and choral music, several electronic pieces, as well as works for ballet, theater, art films, and radio plays. His music has been performed worldwide by the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, the Israel Chamber Orchestra, the Berlin Radio Orchestra and the Stuttgart Radio Orchestra.

Avni is the recipient of the ACUM Prize in 1986 and the Kustermeyer Prize awarded by the Germany-Israel Friendship Association in 1990. While in Colorado Springs, he will be honored with the prestigious Ahad Ha'am Award by the Center for Jewish Culture and Creativity for his overall contribution to universal values through Jewish creativity.

After studying music theory and composition at the Israel Music Academy in Tel Aviv, Avni furthered his studies in the United States at the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center. Since 1971, he has been a professor of theory and composition at the Jerusalem Rubin Academy of Music and Dance, where he was head of that department and the electronic music studio.

Chairman of the Israel Composers League and leader of the World Music Days which took place in Israel in 1980, Avni also served as chairman of the music committee of the National Council for Culture and Art and jury chairman of the Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Master Competition.

Former student, Colorado Springs Symphony conductor Yaacov Bergman, has invited Avni as a guest composer to world premier If This is a Man from Friday, Oct. 23, through Sunday, Oct. 25. The piece consists of five orchestral songs based on poems by Primo Levi, whose novels and short stories give a personal and unique view of the various aspects of the horrors of the Holocaust.

Then, on Oct. 26, Avni will host a workshop for musicians and a concert of his compositions at the University of Denver as the scholar-in-residence. He will continue a U.S. tour in New York City, Los Angeles and Miami.

The concert is free and open to the public, and is sponsored by the Distinguished Composers Series and the Lanner Chamber Concerts Series. For more information, please call Ofer Ben-Amots at (719) 389-6555.

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