Pioneers / David P. Goldman

 

David, a very close friend of Erez, published this beautifully written article about what makes Israel
a classical-musical superpower.
Click here to read the full artcile.

The last 2 paragraphs in David's article, quoted below, are all about Erez. 


"Erez Rapaport, one of the best-regarded theorists of the Schenker school, taught at the Tel Aviv conservatory and was working with Perahia to enhance music theory programs when he died of a heart attack last November, just before his 50th birthday. Erez and I did our doctoral coursework together a quarter of a century ago, and our wives became good friends. Several times we had tutorials with Carl Schachter—Perahia’s theory teacher, as well as Noam Sivan’s. I did those courses twice, first with Schachter, and again when Erez explained it to me afterwards. 

Erez stood out for what Schachter called “X-ray ears”—an uncanny ability to hear the composer’s intent through a complex structure—but most of all for a kind of fearlessness in looking into the musical future. His rough sense of humor marked the Sabra in him, but otherwise I didn’t see what made him Israeli. When he finished his doctoral exam he returned to Tel Aviv and much humbler professional prospects than he would have encountered in the United States. “Israel is home,” he said, and left. When the call came about Erez’s death, I left for the airport and landed in time for his funeral at a cemetery just north of Tel Aviv the next day. Some 150 people gathered in the rain, most of them his students, kids from every walk of Israeli life, many wearing kippot. My friend from graduate school had become the intellectual father of young musicians who mourned him. Erez was unique; in some ways, he was the smartest musician I knew of his generation. But in retrospect I see how characteristically Israeli he was."