Christoph Israel

Christoph Israel (* 1964 in Lünen ) is a German pianist , composer , arranger and producer with a wide range of repertoire .

Life

Christoph Israel is the son of the organist and choir director Hermann-Josef Israel, who works in Lünen. He studied piano at the Berlin University of the Arts with Klaus Hellwig and attended master classes for song accompaniment with Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau , Aribert Reimann and Axel Bauni . He finished his studies in 1993 and was then - until 2009 - a lecturer at the University of the Arts. In addition, tours with contemporary music took him through Germany , Sweden and the USA . At a concert he gave at the Juilliard School in New York , he had a formative encounter with the composer Milton Babbitt , whose Aria da Capo was on the program.

Christoph Israel became widely known when he took over the musical accompaniment of the entertainer Max Raabe - his childhood friend from Lünen. He also arranges and produces his CDs . Together with Raabe and the Palast Orchester , he toured all German-speaking countries as well as Scandinavia , Poland and the USA.

He also developed other musical projects with well-known actors, including Meret Becker , Dominique Horwitz , Udo Samel , Otto Sander and Angela Winkler , most of which also appeared on CD.

Together with Dorian Cheah he wrote the music for the film Am Limit by Oscar winner Pepe Danquart in 2007 . In 2011, in collaboration with cabaret artist Thomas Pigor (text), a new version of Jacques Offenbach's operetta Orpheus in the Underworld was created at the Berlin State Opera , which Philipp Stölzl (director) directed. In 2014 he composed the incidental music for Amphitryon in the version by Katharina Thalbach for the Berliner Ensemble .

Stylistically, Israel's compositions and arrangements move "between ambient and film music , neoclassic , jazz and freestyle", as the music critic Manuel Brug found.

During the COVID-19 pandemic played Israel from March 25 to May 3, 2020, together with the violinist Daniel Hope concert series Hope @ Home live for the station Arte on Arte Concert in the Berlin living room of Daniel Hope. They often invited guests such as actors and musicians.

Discography (selection)

1998 - lamenting suffering, gruesome pleasure. Ballads and melodramas of German Romanticism , with Otto Sander ; Patmos
2011 - You can't kiss alone , with Max Raabe and Annette Humpe ; Universal
2012 - Latino , with Miloš Karadaglić ( guitar ) and the studio orchestra of the European Film Philharmonic ; Deutsche Grammophon

2013 - This is no problem for women , with Max Raabe and Annette Humpe; Universal

2013 - finds. Saxophone compositions 1929–1950 , with Johannes Ernst (saxophone); E flat major (noble)

2016 - A winter fairy tale - Christmas carols from Germany , with Max Raabe, Gregor Meyle , Katharina Thalbach , Cassandra Steen , Thomas Quasthoff , Albrecht Mayer and the Babelsberg film orchestra ; Deutsche Grammophon

Filmography (selection)

2019: I've never been to New York

Web links

Individual evidence

personal data
SURNAME	Israel, Christoph
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German pianist, composer, arranger and producer
DATE OF BIRTH	1964
PLACE OF BIRTH	Luenen

[1] A winter fairy tale. Christoph Israel in the KlassikAkzente Interview , November 30, 2016

[2] Brug's best: No. 2 Christoph Israels "Ein Wintermärchen" , in: Die Welt (2016)