Ella Milch-Sheriff, winner of the Lifetime achievement Award 2022 by Israel’s composers and authors institute, is one of that country’s most performed composers. Born in Haifa, she is a graduate of the Academy of Music at Tel Aviv University. Her musical style blends contemporary western music with Jewish, Israeli, and Middle Eastern motifs. Her fifth opera Alma, about Alma Mahler-Werfel, commissioned by the Voksoper Wien, premiered in Vienna in October 2024.
Ella composes operas, chamber, orchestral and vocal music, as well as popular music and solo works. Her music is performed by all Israel’s major orchestras and musical ensembles, as well as across Europe and the US.
In 2005, Milch-Sheriff was awarded the Israel prime minister prize. Her first opera, And the Rat Laughed received the Tel Aviv Rosenblum prize for outstanding achievement, receiving productions throughout Europe and in Toronto, Canada. The Banality of Love (about Hannah Arendt and Martin Heidegger’s relationship) was commissioned and premiered in Staatstheater Regensburg, Germany in 2018. Baruchs schweigen (Baruch’s silence), based on the true story of her family, was commissioned and premiered in Braunschweig, Germany in 2010, with further productions in Tel Aviv, Fuerth, and Vienna (2016). As a film composer, she wrote the original score to the film Past Life (2016), directed by Avi Nesher, also based on her life story.
Milch-Sheriff won Lys d’Or 2017 in Montreal Israeli film festival for her music.
October 2 @ 7:30 pm – 9:30 pm
Village Voices