An Exclusive Interview with Composer and Piano Sensation, Rami Bar-Niv
Rami Bar-Niv is a humble man who plays piano and composes beautiful music. He’s the first person to perform in Egypt after the Israeli-Egypt Peace Treaty. He has composed a lot of beautiful music, including Holocaust and memorial music. Most of all, he is an amazing person.
He was nice enough to do this interview.
RHT: Who encouraged you to become a composer? Play piano?
RBN: There was music at home; my mother played the piano and my father played the violin. My mother was my first piano teacher. She started me at age 5 after my brother who was 4 years older than me quit the piano saying it was for girls...
Already then I played songs by ear, improvised and composed, though nothing significant.
Actually, I started composing seriously much later in life. At first, I was occupied with my piano performing career.
RHT: Who are your top three music role models?
RBN: I am reluctant to limit to three but here are some. For piano playing:
Rubinstein, Horowitz, Richter. As composers: Bach, Mozart, Beethoven (Brahms, Chopin,
Schumann, Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Gershwin, and the list is long).
RHT: What do you feel is your greatest accomplishment from being a composer and playing piano?
RBN: Don't know about "greatest,” I consider my ability to play and perform the way I do a great accomplishment. I suppose being able to perform all over the world is another accomplishment. I'm very pleased with my compositions being performed and recorded worldwide.
RHT: Do you enjoy performing in front of big crowds?
RBN: This is an easy question, yes, I love performing for big crowds, but I also enjoy any size of audience.
RHT: What do you feel made you a famous composer?
RBN: I don't know whether I am famous or not, or to what extent. I just do my work, compose, perform my compositions, let other people know about them and hope they like them and perform them.
RHT: Do you feel that your first piano was special? Why?
RBN: My first piano was a PSO (piano shaped object)... an old black upright and not very good.
RHT: How did you learn piano?
RBN: I received piano lessons and practiced between lessons. The older I got the more I practiced. There were times that I practiced the piano 8 and 10 hours a day.
RHT: What is your greatest inspiration for composing music? Playing piano?
RBN: I get inspired by the audience and by getting invited to perform. As for compositions, I had various inspirations: Israeli composer Paul Ben-Haim, American composers Scott Joplin and George Gershwin. Of course I was inspired by the old masters
(the great classical composers). Poems inspired me to compose songs.
RHT: What is your favorite part about performing Mozart’s Piano Concerto #23 with the
Israeli Philharmonic?
RBN: I love performing concertos with orchestras.
RHT: Do you like teaching piano?
RBN: Yes, I very much like teaching piano. I do it while traveling all over the world.
RHT: What is your favorite thing about Israel?
RBN: Israel is my country and my home. I was born here, my family is here. It's the most advanced country in the world.
RHT: What is your favorite piece that you have played?
Composed?
RBN: Too many favorites to list... actually my usual answer for this is: my favorite piece is the current one that I am playing/composing at that time.
RHT: What’s your favorite thing about being a composer?
RBN: Once I finished composing a piece, it's there, alive forever.
RHT: What inspired you to write Holocaust memorial music?
RBN: I met the poet who wrote the poems about the Holocaust and his poems inspired me to write the music.
RHT: Do you feel that music can be Jewish or non-Jewish? What do you think would make it Jewish or non-Jewish?
RBN: Of course music can be Jewish. There are various Jewish characteristics and parameters in scales, modes, style, language of text, etc.
RHT: Who is the most exciting person you have performed for or composed for?
RBN: My grandchildren.
RHT: What advice do you have for a student who wants to be a composer or a pianist or for students in general?
RBN: The best advice I can give is "don't do it with professional aspirations," but if you can't help it, just know that it is very hard work constantly.
Work hard and never give up.
Rami's website: Ybarniv.com/Rami