Valley balshark
Tal Balshai (* 1969 in Israel ) is an Israeli pianist, composer and arranger specializing in jazz and classical music.
Life
Balshai studied classical and jazz piano in Jerusalem, Tel-Aviv, Berlin and New York. He has lived in Berlin since 1992 , where he began studying sound engineering. While still a student he appeared in the Berlin club scene and founded his trio in 1995, with whom he has performed and recorded his compositions to this day (initially with Jan Roder double bass, Michael Griener drums.) In the following years he worked as a musician and sound engineer . His work as a sound engineer took him back to his native Israel, where he produced several CDs by contemporary Israeli composers. Gradually, the work as a musician took up more and more space, so that he has not worked as a sound engineer since 1998.
In order to make contemporary Israeli music accessible to a wide audience, he produced several CDs with the Israeli chamber music ensemble Kaprizma . With the acrobatic show "Vivace", for which he created the music, he made guest appearances as a conductor and pianist at home and abroad, for example in 2004 on Off-Broadway in New York's New Victory Theater .
His compositions are valued by classical and jazz musicians alike and are performed by Sandy Evans , David Milne , Angela Denoke and Anne-Theresa Albrecht . He sat at the piano with Nigel Kennedy , a member of the Berliner Philharmoniker, and regularly performs with his projects in numerous jazz clubs in Germany and Europe. The band Jazz and the Philharmonics , an ensemble of members of the Berliner Philharmoniker and jazz musicians, of which he is a permanent member, interprets his compositions, among other things.
Current projects (selection)
With the pianist Hitomi Takeo , Tal Balshai founded the piano duo 'PianoPrism' in 2008, which dissolves the boundaries between epochs and genres. As a tribute to the expressiveness of the piano duo, Balshai wrote the minimal music cycle “The Book of Ellipses” in 2011 .
Endless fields - Music for jazz trio & string quartet. In this project, Tal Balshai brings together the compositional experiences he made in jazz and classical music: lyrical melodies underlaid with string textures, a journey through different cultures of the Middle East, Europe and Latin America. The trio is reinforced by musicians from the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra.
From Babelsberg to Beverly Hills - Angela Denoke & Tal-Balshai-Trio. This project deals with the music of German, especially Berlin, composers from the 1930s. Some of them had to flee Germany during the Nazi dictatorship and found a new home in America's film industry. Others could stay in Germany and work here during the war.
The Child and the Storage Room - Tal Balshai Quintet. This band stands in the tradition of the classical jazz quintet with trumpet, saxophone, piano, bass and drums.
Piano solo - Tal Balshai. A mixture of freely improvised and composed pieces for piano and prepared piano.
The Art of Duo Christof Griese and Tal Balshai present improvisations and their own compositions from the field of jazz with classical and Arabic influences.
CD publications
- Camel - Tal Balshai Trio (1999, Darp-Records)
- Christof Griese Affinities (2000, BIT Musikverlag)
- David Milne Berlin Connection (2001, BIT Music Publishing)
- Vivace - Original music from the show (2003, BIT Musikverlag)
- Christof Griese & Tal Balshai The Art of Duo (2007, BIT Musikverlag)
- Endless fields - Music for jazz trio & string quartet, featuring string players of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra (2007, Honigtee music)
- Angela Denoke sings Kurt Weill (2012, honey tea music)
Web links
- Web presence
- Slapstick on keys: Werner Richard Heymann reworked
- Tal Balshai at Discogs (English)
- Works by and about Tal Balshai in the catalog of the German National Library
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Balshark, valley |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Israeli pianist, composer and arranger in the fields of jazz and classical music |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1969 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Israel |