By Haim Handwerker
Appeared on Haaretz.com, 06/08/2004

NEW YORK - Knowledge of the concerts is passed along by word of mouth, but to get an invitation you have to know the right people. This is where Americans, Israelis living in New York and who are connected to the world of music and culture get together, as well as lawyers, doctors and businessmen. An elitist meeting place, and at the same time relaxed, not necessarily snobbish, of the kind that hardly exists any more. Not even in America.

Lovers of classical music come to the spacious apartment of Daniel and Ziva Kohn in Manhattan, near Lincoln Center, to listen to excellent playing, to make connections, and to keep abreast of the gossip. Daniel Kohn is a psychiatrist and an amateur cellist. He grew up in a musical home in Tel Aviv and studied music, however, the professional musicians in his family advised him not to go on to a musical career, claiming that the life of a musician is too difficult. Today he practices neuropsychiatry, but continues to play music with the professionals who come to his home. Ziva Kohn, his wife, established and ran the Beged Or leather clothing company in the United States.

For 20 years, since their marriage, they have been having these get-togethers in their home. He came to America to do his internship in psychiatry in 1972; she arrived in 1971, to study fashion design. They met in 1983.

In the center of the huge salon stands the Steinway Concert Grand piano, which was purchased 20 years ago, in installments, from the Carnegie Hall recital hall. On the walls hang works by Israeli artists, most of them by Avraham Binder, Ziva's father (her aunt is Zila Binder, who was the mistress of Israeli poet Nathan Alterman). Many pictures are of Israeli landscapes, mainly Tel Aviv, but New York is represented as well. There is also Ari Lifschitz, Michal Rovner and Menashe Kadishman.

The get-togethers take place once every few weeks. When someone comes to the city, the couple explain, they get organized and hold a soiree. If a musician informs them of his arrival in time, they can arrange groups of players - it depends who is in town, who is free, who can play with whom. Some of the program is determined in advance; the rest is determined on the spot by the artists. After they have put the program together, they call several friends and acquaintances, and thus, using the method of "a friend brings a friend," they usually invite between 30 and 50 people, and once they even had 110 people. Sometimes, they say, people they don't know come. Ziva Kohn is the administrative force behind the performance, with the help of a phone book containing hundreds of names. She also keeps a record of what goes on in her home, and has cartons of visitors' pictures and notes.

Playing Without Fear

Telma Zakkai-Kenar, a consultant to art collectors, makes sure to come to these get-togethers when she is in New York. Once she arrived on a flight from Japan, left her suitcases at home and rushed to attend a concert. "It's a wonderful place to relax," she says. "One can hear excellent music there from a distance of one meter. There's something special about listening to music from such a distance. It's a different experience from listening to a concert in a regular concert hall. One can see the musicians' great love for the music they are making. It's also a meeting place. New people come all the time, and between performances there's time to chat."

Pianist Daniel Gurtler performed here recently. On one of the evenings he played together with violinist Michael Guttman, and Kohn himself on the cello. The played Mendelssohn's Second Trio, and afterward Gurtler played a Beethoven sonata solo. He says that every time he comes to New York he plays in the couple's home. During the day he rehearses, and in the evening he plays for the guests. "We play here for the fun of it," says Gurtler. "Sometimes we do experimental things. The atmosphere is pleasant, and it's not as demanding as at a formal concert. The audience loves music very much. You're relaxed and let the music flow."

Joan Dornemann, the assistant conductor of the Metropolitan Opera, who runs the opera workshop that takes place in Israel every year, sometimes comes to listen, and occasionally to play as well. "At Carnegie Hall you know you're under a magnifying glass of critics and of the audience," she says. "Usually artists are afraid of the audience response. Here you're separated from all the business surrounding the world of music. The artists play for pleasure. You're allowed to make mistakes."

Charles Michener, the music critic of the The New York Observer, and previously the music editor of The New Yorker magazine, says that in New York itself there aren't many get-togethers of this kind. "For me, this is an opportunity to meet high-caliber Israeli musicians, whom I wouldn't meet otherwise," says Michener. "This is an opportunity for many players to develop connections in New York and to get ahead in the music world."

Violinist Midori rehearsed here. Gil Shaham used the apartment to film a program for public television. Among those who have performed here are cellist Lynn Harrell, pianist Jean Yves Thibaudet, the late pianist George Cziffra, Maxim Vengerov, Itamar Golan, Asher Fisch, Giora Schmidt, opera singer Hadar Halevy, pianist Ron Regev, Uri Kam and Sharon Kam, pianist Shai Wosner and conductor and violinist Yuval Waldman. Among the guests were Deputy Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Supreme Court Justice Edna Arbel, Yehezkel Beinisch, chairman of the board of directors of the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra and Alon Pinkus, the Israeli consul general in New York.

Kohn loves chamber music. He says he wants "to preserve the tradition of playing for its own sake in a chamber context and not only in concert halls. In that way, there is a unique experience that doesn't necessarily take place in concert halls.

Helping the Unknowns

"It's also my way of being deeply involved in musical activity, without making it into a profession. I live through the success and the careers of the young artists. People come here to play, not to receive monetary compensation. I put the players together, make musical matches, bring young people without careers and try to help them and bring them together with veteran musicians.

"Itamar Golan, for example, didn't have a place to live when he came to New York. We opened the house to him, he practiced on the piano, and within a short time he began to play with Midori. The critical period for an artist after he finishes his studies requires support with the most basic things. A place to practice, a piano, meetings with professional musicians. The support itself is important at such a critical moment. My reward is the privilege of participating in this process, seeing their success and enjoying making music together."

Professionally, says Kohn, he helps artists as well as businessmen to increase their ability to function. "Many musicians and singers have hang-ups, sometimes because of traumatic events in their childhood. In addition, playing in a quartet is not at all simple. The players live together for many hours, and in many respects their relations are much more complex than marital relations. There are many power struggles, there are lies and manipulations. All these things have a profound effect on the ability to play," he says.

Between the strains of Schumann, Beethoven and Chopin, the visitors can also learn about more widespread struggles for power and control - in the cultural institutions in the United States as well as in Israel. Who is connected to whom, who detests whom. And one can learn that in order to succeed in the music world, talent is not enough - sometimes there has to be someone to invest money in the musician, or to help him develop connections with conductors and players. Sometimes the Kohn family's salon is the first step.