Marc Lavry

Marc Lavry (1903–1967) was an Israeli composer and conductor. He was born in Riga, Latvia. As a child, he studied piano at the Riga Conservatory of Music, where he also began composing. After graduating high school, he moved to Germany, where he earned a degree in architecture, and continued his music studies at the Leipzig Conservatory. He studied piano with Professor Robert Teichmüller, and composition with Paul Graener, and later with Alexander Glazunov. After discovering there already was an older, then more established composer and conductor named Mark Levin, he decided to change his own name to Marc Lavry. He began his conducting career as music director of the opera house in Saarbrücken, and later, of the Tanzbühne Laban, the dance theater directed by modern dance pioneer Rudolf von Laban. In 1929, he became conductor of the Berlin Symphony Orchestra (not the more famous Berlin Philharmonic). In 1933, the Nazis, who had assumed power in Germany, disbanded the orchestra. Lavry returned to Riga, where he became resident conductor of the Riga Opera. However, as antisemitism intensified in Latvia as well, Lavry and his wife decided to emigrate to Palestine in 1935. Lavry felt a strong connection with the emerging Jewish state. He became resident composer of the Ohel Theater in Tel Aviv in 1941, and also served as conductor of the Palestine Folk Opera. There he composed the first Hebrew-language opera Dan the Guard. In 1948 he moved to Jerusalem to undertake the creation of the Kol Zion Lagola radio station. There, he founded the first professional choir in Israel, and was instrumental in the development of Israeli music. In 1963, at the invitation of Haifa mayor Abba Hushi, Lavry moved to Haifa to conduct the Haifa symphony. He remained there until his death in 1967. While still in Berlin, Lavry showed an interest in Jewish music. In Palestine, he joined a group of leading composers, many of whom had, like him, escaped from Nazi persecution. They were actively seeking to create a new, national form of music for the emerging Jewish state. This new style, dubbed "the Mediterranean School", incorporated elements of Middle-eastern music, including melisma, homophony, and use of unconventional musical modes. Lavry’s oeuvre reflects a merger of traditional folk and classical styles.