By Avigayil Kadesh
Israeli concert pianist Victor Goldberg is more accustomed to gleaming grand pianos in venues such as Carnegie Hall than the electronic keyboard scrounged up for him to play at a Buddhist orphanage for 6,000 children in Mandalay, the second-largest city in the Republic of Myanmar (Burma).
But this was not the first challenge he had to contend with as an international cultural ambassador for Israel and he didn’t let it faze him. "I couldn’t play most of my pieces on such a small keyboard, so I played two works by Mozart and Tchaikovsky," he relates. "Most of the teachers and kids had never heard of these composers, and their reaction was very touching."
A local newspaper reported that the children "were awe-struck and demanded more" and that the headmaster declared that his school would "never forget this day."
The children's refuge was just a brief stop in a months-long Far East tour that started in China and continued, by popular request, with the help of Israel’s embassies in the Philippines, Myanmar and Thailand. However, it was a particularly poignant moment in Goldberg’s musical ambassadorship.
"I was not [previously] aware that the Israeli embassies and the Foreign Ministry have a mandate to promote Israeli culture and cultural cooperation," says Goldberg in a long-distance interview from Hong Kong.
"These countries have many millions of people, so you reach masses who don’t have any preconceptions about Israel," he continues, "The ambassadors and deputy ambassadors all told me it’s important to show the world that Israel is not only about conflict. Through culture, you can expose the other side of Israel, building bridges and strengthening relationships."
Such a weighty responsibility is safe in the talented hands of Goldberg, who just turned 33. Hailed by music critics as "the new Horowitz," a reference to legendary pianist Vladimir Horowitz to whom he is distantly related, Goldberg in fact won the Vladimir Horowitz International Piano Competition as an Israeli representative in his native Ukraine four years after emigrating to Israel in 1991.
Owes his musical foundation to Tel Aviv
"I don’t come from a musical family," he confides. "Music was just part of my general education. But my parents realized I had a special connection to music, and when I won my first competition at the age of 13, that reinforced that I should continue."
Though he has studied at the United States’ premiere Juilliard School, Manhattan School of Music, and Peabody Conservatory, he feels he owes his musical foundation to Mark Shaviner and the late Alexander Volkov of the Rubin Academy of Music at Tel Aviv University, where he earned a bachelor of music degree in 2000. He recently completed coursework for a doctorate at the Peabody, located at Johns Hopkins University in Maryland.
Goldberg resides in the New York City borough of Queens, but identifies himself as Israeli. "All my family is in Israel and I have strong connections there. On the other hand, New York is a wonderful place for performing artists, with musicians coming from all over the world. At least twice a year I spend time in Israel, sometimes for extended periods. Actually, I had planned to be in Israel now, but this Asian tour turned into a long trip."
The current tour began with an invitation from a professor in Beijing who had heard Goldberg perform in New York. Following his appearances at Tianjin Concert Hall and Wuhan Qintai Concert Hall there in July, other invitations started rolling in from Israeli ambassadors in southeast Asian countries.
He has since brought the sounds of Brahms, Chopin, Handel, Mozart, Rachmaninoff, Scriabin, Scarlatti, Schumann, and Tchaikovsky to the Philamlife Auditorium in Manila, Philippines; the ballrooms of Inya Lake and Mandalay Hill Resorts in Yangon and Mandalay, Myanmar; and the Embassy of Israel in Yangon, Myanmar. At the Goethe Institut Auditorium in Bangkok, Thailand, held August 9, the German and Israeli ambassadors served wines from their countries to the guests during intermission. He also performed at Chiang Mai Music Festival in Chiang Mai, the second-largest city in Thailand.
Goldberg had never before visited the Far East, but now he’s hoping to return to many of these countries regularly. In Hong Kong, he did not present a concert but sat for interviews on Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK) and was asked to make a recording for its classical music station next January.
"I have been to four provinces in China and each is different in its cuisine and culture," he reports. "In China there are amazing, huge concert halls. In some places, the people are not yet prepared to perceive complex musical pieces, but it was the only country I came to where I saw a poster with a classical pianist advertising consumer products."
They don’t know what Israel is
Fluent in Russian, Hebrew and English, Goldberg hasn’t always had an easy time communicating on his travels. In parts of China, English is not a common tongue. But since Myanmar was once a British colony, most of its residents know English. In this gemstone-rich military republic, the pianist was surprised to discover a well-developed musical culture and eager audiences. Some of those who came to hear him later sent him effusive letters of thanks.
"The Israeli ambassador brought me a piece of classical Myanmar music to play at my performance, and the audience couldn’t believe someone from abroad could play it. Some of them had never heard classical Western music before," he adds.
Goldberg, who is accompanied on this Asian tour by his manager, also agreed to teach master classes in five regional universities, including the oldest university in Asia, University of Santo Tomas in the Philippines. "It was established long before Harvard," he notes.
He says he was pleasantly surprised to find that anti-Semitism is rare in the Far East. "I don’t feel they have any prejudice against Jews or Israel at all - sometimes they don’t even know what Israel is," he adds. "If I say 'Holy Land', then they know what I am talking about."
People in places like the Philippines and Shanghai are proud of how they helped Jews during the Holocaust, he recounts. "In Hong Kong, there is a Jewish community center that had an exhibition dedicated to the rich history of Jewish life in Shanghai and Hong Kong during and immediately after World War II."
Still to come are performances and master classes in Thailand and the Philippines. Afterward, Goldberg is booked to do concerts in Washington, DC, at the National Gallery of Art, and in Virginia and Maryland. All of this comes on the heels of a particularly busy season that included major performances in New York and Chicago. "I perform in many cities and I feel I represent Israel everywhere I go," he says.
During his extensive travels, Goldberg regularly lends his star-power to charity events. He has performed at benefit concerts for Israeli children at Norwalk Symphony Hall in Connecticut; for Tel Aviv University in Vienna; Hebrew day schools in Michigan and Maryland; and for the America-Israel Cultural Foundation, Jewish Community Relations Council, Jewish Federation of Greater Washington, and Hadassah-The Women’s Zionist Organization of America.
Accolades galore
Goldberg has played at Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall; Lincoln Center and Bargemusic in New York; Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concerts in Chicago; ProMusicis International Concert Series in Boston; the Banff Centre for the Arts in Canada; Congress Hall in Kiev; and Spiegelsaal Schloss in Rheinsberg, Germany. He has given recitals and concertos in Michigan, Georgia, Connecticut, Maine, Florida, Colorado, New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia, and Pennsylvania, and his appearances at major international music festivals have taken him to the Canary Islands and Thailand.
An active chamber musician, Goldberg was in the spotlight at the 2005 Norfolk Chamber Music Festival of Yale University, performing with various chamber ensembles in five different concert events. His solo and chamber performances can often be heard on the classical music station of The New York Times, WQXR, as well as Boston’s WBGH and Chicago’s WFMT.
An official member of the Speakers Bureau of Jewish National Fund, Goldberg was appointed in October as an executive professor at the online Academy for Classical Music of Lions Club Vienna MozART. For a donation of 76 euros to this philanthropic organization, anyone can book a video session with him.
"This is something very unique and new, allowing anybody to get exposed to music and have a lesson with a famous performing artist," enthuses Goldberg. "This will allow me to teach while traveling."
His own considerable talents were honed by such renowned pianists as Jerome Lowenthal, Alexander Shtarkman, and Constance Keene. Goldberg was the first instrumentalist in the history of the Manhattan School of Music to be awarded the prestigious Artist Diploma in Performance.
Among his other achievements have been accolades, such as the Pro Musicis International Award, the Artist Recognition Award at the International Keyboard Festival in New York, the World Congress of Russian Jewry award, and first prize at the Arianne Katcz Piano Competition.
He does not keep to a strict rehearsal schedule, but spends time at the keys every day that he’s not in transit. In addition to music, Goldberg is passionate about cinema and literature as well as Jewish history and religion.