Young Israeli violinist an heir to the ‘bagel club’

NEW YORK — An aura of Tel Aviv surrounds Itamar Zorman — and not just because of the black and red Aroma Café sign above his head on the wall. Straight from the airport after a Chicago concert, the 29-year-old violinist sat with The Times of Israel in a Manhattan branch of the Israeli coffee bar franchise on a brisk New York City afternoon.

Like the strong coffee served here, Zorman is worth taking note of. Dressed in a navy sweater over a crumpled button down shirt and black slacks, Zorman reflects on his meteorical musical journey.

Zorman received a top education at the Kronberg Academy in Berlin and Juilliard in New York and he’s studied under esteemed Israeli violinist Itzhak Perlman, a founding member of the “bagel club” of Israeli musicians including Pinchas Zukerman, and honorary member Zubin Mehta.

His popularity on the concert circuit, coupled with his nomination for the Warner Music Prize, a new $100,000 music award and recording contract, makes Zorman kind of a big deal in the classical music world.

Born into a musical family, Zorman began playing violin at six years old. His father is a composer, his mother a pianist.

“I remember I liked the sound of the violin since the very beginning,” he says. “I chose something where my parents couldn’t tell me what to do!” he jokes with a faint Israeli accent, “because they’re musicians too.”

With his parents as role models, Zorman believed he could make a life for himself as a musician if he saw fit.

“Their support was crucial,” he says. “The fact that I saw that they managed to have a career, make money, and have a family while being musicians made me know it’s possible.”

Though he only sees them and his two younger sisters a couple of times a year because they live in Israel, he knows it’s their support that got him here.

“I dreamed of playing large halls when I was young, but I wanted to be a basketball star too,” he laughs.

“I stopped because I was the shortest in my class,” he remembers, though his current six foot frame would never betray that secret. “I figured if not basketball then violin!”

Now Zorman plays a Pietro Guarneri violin made in Venice in 1745 on lease from Yehuda Zisapel, a high tech entrepreneur based in Tel Aviv and a patron of Israeli musicians.

Zorman says he is “extremely grateful” to Zisapel for the loan because acquiring an old master’s instrument is not an easy feat.

“It’s extremely painful for young musicians,” Zorman says, because top quality instruments are so expensive — to the tune of millions of dollars. To compensate, some young musicians buy new, modern violins, but Zorman says you can’t replicate the real thing.

‘Good old violins have a quality of sound that modern ones don’t’

“Good old violins have a quality of sound that modern ones don’t,” he says. “Old violins are complex, they have many layers. I think that every player leaves their mark on a violin. The violin imbues their music.”

For his compulsory Israeli Defense Forces service, Zorman was granted Outstanding Musician Status and earned a spot in the Army String Quartet. After undergoing a month of basic training — “it was so different than anything I had ever done in my life,” Zorman recalls — and spending a year working in an army office, he spent two years playing in the IDF’s official string quartet.

“We performed for soldiers and kids,” Zorman says, “and we went to all the different schools in our uniforms.”

While in the army, Zorman applied to Juilliard and auditioned in New York in March 2006.

‘When something is important to you, you make time’

Zorman started dating his wife, Liza Stepanova while they were both pursuing higher degrees at Juilliard. A master’s student dating a PhD. student sounds like a recipe for disaster, but through busy schedules, compositions, and dissertation research, Zorman and Stepanova’s relationship flourished.

“One of the most important things I learned,” Zorman said about his time dating his wife, “is that when something is important to you, you make time.”

Today Zorman is based in NYC, while Stepanova is a music professor at Smith College in Massachusetts.

“She commutes twice a week and I also go as much as I can.”

Both Zorman and his wife live and breathe music, though their styles sometimes differ.
Zorman’s favorite thing to play is late century romantic music.

“You can really let yourself go when you’re playing this,” he says, suddenly looking as though the coffee has kicked in. In contrast to Classical music, which he says requires strict adherence to structure and proportions, Zorman says there’s more freedom in romantic music. For the musician, he says, “the emotional wave can take over. You don’t have to control anything.”

And, just as in all emotionally and well-performed pieces of music, both the musician and the audience “can let themselves be taken away with the moment.”