Interview with Iddo Bar-Shai, Pianist

Interview with Iddo Bar-Shai

In advance of our concert together this September at the Herbstgold Festival in Eisenstadt, we had a conversation with pianist Iddo Bar-Shai, a great friend of Martha Argerich and who will be performing with the COE for the first time in Saint-Saens’ Carnival of the Animals.

A strong connection with nature
Iddo was born in Israel in 1977 in a house full of animals. His father was a vet and Iddo keeps fond memories of his musical companion, Ludwig, a small monkey who would perch on his shoulder while he was practicing the piano and who was particularly keen on pieces by Beethoven. Iddo was about 4 or 5 years old when he started playing the piano as his big sister used come home after her piano lessons and teach him everything she had learnt. He then started taking lessons himself at the age of 7. Iddo’s sister later became amateur flautist and a renowned bio-artist and Iddo’s brother followed in his father’s footsteps, becoming a notorious vet specialized in reptiles and amphibians. Iddo has always felt a strong connection with nature and currently lives in Berlin in a house where he particularly enjoys looking after his garden.

How this concert project came about
Although Iddo has always admired the COE through its recordings and has also performed with some COE members, including principal clarinet Romain Guyot, this project marks his COE debut. Iddo was the instigator of the idea of performing the Carnival of the Animals with Martha Argerich and the COE, initially in the context of Maria Joao Pires’s Festival in Portugal. Unfortunately the Festival didn’t take this programme and Iddo and Simon Fletcher (General Manager of the COE) suggested the idea to the Herbstgold Festival in Eisenstadt instead, where the COE is resident orchestra.

Iddo and Martha
Iddo’s admiration and friendship for Martha Argerich runs very deep. He first met her when he was 18, in Israel, when his teacher Pnina Salzman took him to a concert where Martha was performing with Mischa Maisky. Pnina was a friend of Martha and had heard her for the first time when 12-year old Martha was playing at a salon where young Daniel Barenboim also often played for musicians performing in Buenos Aires. Pnina spoke with Martha after the concert and Iddo was just ‘a fly on the wall’, listening to every word they said. The second time Iddo met Martha was at the Verbier Festival Academy, which he was taking part in. Martha invited all the students to her apartment for a musical party and Iddo had a chance to interact with her in a more friendly way. Their friendship developed from then.

Iddo first played with Martha in Bonn in the context of the Rolandseck Festival where Martha was performing a special ‘off-festival’ concert in memory of her friend, and artistic director of the Festival, Johannes Wasmuth. Iddo, herself and two other pianists performed Bach’s concerto for four keyboards. A few years later, Iddo performed a piano duo with Martha in honour of another of Martha’s good friends, Ivry Gitlis – also a close friend of Iddo. Ivry was a long-standing friend of Pnina, as they both studied in the 1930s in Paris, and they used to joke together about their ‘pushy mothers’!

Iddo also lived in Berlin but kept a strong connection to France where he still performs regularly and where he created a festival, Les Coups de Coeur à Chantilly, which was supposed to be launched in spring 2020. For reasons we all know, this had to be postponed to spring 2021. For this first edition, and as 2021 marked the 100th anniversary of Saint-Saens’ death, Iddo programmed the Carnival of the Animals which he performed for the first time, with Martha.

Playing in Haydn’s home…
Iddo has a special connection to Austria and Haydn. Indeed, Austrian blood runs in his veins: he has an Austrian passport as his paternal grandparents were from Vienna. His grandfather was a Zionist activist working for the Jewish Agency in Vienna. He was in charge of arranging visas for Jews who needed to flee from Austria to Palestine even before the Anschluss, when Austria had already adopted fascist laws. Iddo’s grandparents were among the last ones to flee the country as Iddo’s grandmother was already expecting Iddo’s father, who was therefore born in Palestine in 1939.

Iddo also has a lot to thank Haydn for! His teacher, Alexis Weissenberg, had told him that, in order to become a true artist, he had to go and live in Paris and experience the unique atmosphere of this city. Iddo’s other teacher, Pnina, was also an advocate of the idea as she had studied there in the 1930s with Alfred Cortot at the Ecole Normale de Musique – in the same class as Dinu Lipatti. Having no particular expectations, Iddo therefore moved to Paris where he was recommended to René Martin, a concert organiser and festival director who invited Iddo to perform at various festivals including La Roque d’Anthéron and La Folle Journée. He was also a producer who owned the recording label Mirare. René Martin understood how versatile Iddo was and proposed him to record either Mozart or Haydn sonatas for his debut album. Iddo chose to record four Haydn sonatas – as well as an Andante and Variations – including two of the six Esterhazy sonatas. This was his first commercial recording and one that opened many doors for him. Performing at the Schloss Esterhazy, in Haydn’s very own concert hall, will therefore be extremely special for him.

If not a pianist…
Music has always been part of Iddo’s life so he imagines he would have been involved in music anyway. However, aside from music, he is also addicted to chocolate and loves nature and animals. Marine biology seems to appeal.

Country Iddo would most like to visit
As a concert pianist, he travels a lot but never has much time to visit places. He actually spent two years of his life (between ages 4 and 6) in the Philippines, in Manila, where his father’s job had taken the family. He therefore feels a strong connection to Asian countries, particularly Japan which he would love to spend one or two months (or more!) exploring.