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CARMEL RAZ composes, performs and researches music.
As a VIOLINIST, Carmel has been featured as a chamber musician at Carnegie Hall, the Concertgebouw, and the Kennedy Center. She has performed and toured with the Israel Contemporary String Quartet, the Ensemble Modern Academy, the Tel-Aviv Soloists Ensemble, Ensemble Noamnesia and the Millennium Chamber Players at festivals including March Music Days (Bulgaria), Klangspuren (Austria), Transart (Italy), and Jusqu’aux Oreilles (Canada). Carmel was concertmaster of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra (2001—2002) and of the Young Israel Philharmonic (1998—1999), and was a member of the Lucerne Festival Academy Orchestra (2004—2005) and the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester (2003—2004), appearing across Europe and Asia under the batons of Boulez, Barenboim and Abbado.
Born in 1982, Carmel grew up in the United States and Israel. She holds a Diplom in violin performance from the Hochschule fuer Musik "Hanns Eisler" in Berlin, Germany, and a Masters in composition from the University of Chicago. She is currently a PhD student in
MUSIC THEORY at Yale University, where her interests include contemporary music, historical music cognition, and nineteenth-century aesthetics. She has presented at conferences at the Institute of Music Research at the University of London and at the Center for Content, Creation and Technology at the University of Amsterdam, and published articles in the Journal of Neo-Victorian Studies and the Israeli Music Institute's IMI Presents.
As a COMPOSER, Carmel's music has been performed by the Arditti, Molinari, Carmel and Pacifica Quartets, the Kammerakademie Potsdam, the Orkest de Ereprijs, and Musica Nova Israel throughout Europe, Israel and North America. She has been commissioned by the Meitar Ensemble, the Omaha Area Youth Philharmonic, the Millennium Chamber Players and Israel Chamber Music Institute, and her music has been broadcast on Israeli, US, Polish and Latvian radio. She has received grants from Meet the Composer, the Mellon Foundation, the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, ASCAP, the Rabinovitch Foundation, the America-Israel Cultural Foundation and the Tel-Aviv Academy of Music, as well as top awards in the Musica Donum Dei and the Sokolof Javitch Composition Competitions.
In addition to her activities as a classical performer, Carmel is active as an IMPROVISER, performing on violin and viola in a variety of genres ranging from Jazz to World Music and Electronica. Described as "Impressive" by Cadence Magazine and "Very Strong" by Improviser Magazine, she has collaborated with artists including Jason Lindner, Omer Avital, David Krakauer, Eran Zur, Yoyo Ma's Silk Road Project, Greg Ward and Misha Piatigorsky and performed in venues such as the Blue Note, Zinc, the Green Mill, Iridium, the Velvet Lounge and the Jazz Gallery. She also tours with the Jewish music band Tafillalt, with whom she has performed in London and at the Lviv Klezfest in Ukraine, and can be heard on recordings on Apprise, Imaginary Chicago and Interval labels.
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