Lebanon Lion, One of the greatest composers and arranger in Hebrew song, is expected to be at a tribute event to be held in his honor tomorrow (Friday) together, five weeks before his 90th birthday, surprising. If there are those whose fame has been in the past and they tend to pour lamentations over what comes after them, composing hit-hits such as “Singer of the Three Answers”, “Evening Comes” and “Lipa the Carter”, is actually embracing and flattering.
“Today we hear a lot of songs with an oriental tone, which reveal treasures of beauty that we did not know like it,” he notes. “Among their performers are quite a few excellent singers, whose Israeliness is expressed in Hebrew singing. On the other hand, it upsets me that many of the participants in the TV shows following ‘A Star Is Born’ prefer to sing in English, in fact.”
Another surprise will await the participants of the event together, when Revital Raviv, a singer who deserves attention, will perform two songs by poets, which Lebanon recently composed and she recorded them. “I have never stopped composing,” says Lebanon, “but what happens to me happens to many artists, when they prefer their old and familiar material.”
Lebanon was born in Romania to Leon Weissman. When he was 11 years old, the teacher at the Jewish school where he studied a Hebrew class if they were in Eretz Israel asked how they would pass on their names. “Lion of Lebanon,” replied the boy who wonderfully translated his name. When he immigrated to Israel at the age of 19, he officially adopted the flashback.
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Earlier, at the end of first grade, upon receiving the first certificate, his parents gave him a harmonica and “the next day I started playing.” At the age of ten he started playing the violin and within two years he was blown away by his first melodies to the sound of his violin. As a teenager he played in a symphony orchestra in his hometown and conducted a choir, the singers of which were older than him.
When he came to Israel, he studied at the Academy of Music and did his deferred military service as the musical director of the star-studded Central Command band, including Eili Gurlitzky, Oded Kotler and Oded Teomi. However, his first hit came elsewhere. When he served as the musical director of the “Cat in a Bag” program of the “Green Onion” band, he was presented with the words of Yechiel Mohar for the song “Lipa the Carter” and told “Talchin!”, Lebanon accepted the challenge – and the song swept the audience.
Lebanon “inaugurated” the band member, Arik Einstein, when he served as the musical director of his first floppy disk. “The recordings were made in Beit Zvi, in Ramat Gan, on stage, with screens pasted on the walls so that no noise from outside would enter,” he recalls. “I remember Eric as a nice guy who liked to joke. Even when his voice changed later, he kept the warmth in his singing.”
On the evening of Independence Day of that year, 1960, came Lebanon’s great hour, then 28. He sent to the first song and choral festival two songs with the poet Oded Avishar – “Evening Comes” and “Shepherd’s Dance”. The songs were performed by Shimon Bar and Aliza Kashi. According to Lebanon, his expectations of the festival did not skyrocket. As he sat in the Hall of Culture with his wife, Ada, and the names of the winners of the third and second prizes were read, she managed to whisper to him – ‘Nothing, Arie, try next year’, when her whisper was interrupted by the presenter, Yitzhak Shimoni, announcing The firstborn.
“For me, the win was a complete surprise,” says Lebanon, who found it hard to believe that his song overtook a song by Mordechai Zeira, one of the greatest composers at the time. He was soon found to have principles, when he kept his word not to compete again at festivals as a composer. This did not stop him from starring as a arranger at subsequent festivals. “You have to make a living,” he says.
When he is remarked that as a arranger he remains in the shadows, Lebanon responds that with Shimon Cohen and Gil Aldama he is considered one of the greatest arranger in Hebrew song: “Indeed so. I do not forget for a moment that the focus should be on the song, To enrich the songs and not to steal the show from them in my arrangements. “
Among the ensembles that Lebanon served as their musical director was the Ofarim duo. “I heard a girl sing Sarah exceptionally with her husband,” Naomi Shemer, with whom he was friends from their work in military bands, told him. Lebanon, who composed the hit “A Tall and Thin Mute Man” in the words of Aharon Shabtai, reflects to this day how Esther Ofarim has moved so far away from the nest. “I remember her as an individual type and quite strange,” he testifies. “But for her musical ability one can only remove the hat on her face.”
Lebanon also served as the musical director of “The Pale Tracker” in its first two programs directed by Shaike Ofir. “Their first show was based on songs, even lyrical ones, with light transitions between them,” he says. “I have one minus – I take things too seriously and to a light song I treat like Beethoven’s symphony. And the truth? – so it was impossible to guess where this ensemble would develop.”
Lebanon was at the Cameri the musical director of the musical “King Solomon and Shlomo the Shoemaker”, where he enjoyed processing Sasha Argov’s melodies into Alterman’s hymns. “At first they thought there would be an abnormal flop and there was panic around the production,” Bell will not forget. “But back in general, when the crowd went crazy, a hit was born while I won a friendship with Sasha, who was much older than me.”
Following the success of the musical, Lebanon was also entrusted with the musical direction of the shows “Reality Market” and “Pop and Pop”, with Alterman’s hymns, a show in which he composed the song “Singer of the Three Answers” to the thrilling performance of Rebecca Zohar.
Sometime in the early 1970s, after also being the musical director of the show “The Devil and the Peasant Wife”, with the hit “Lyushinka”, Lebanon gradually moved into the field of serious music as a way of escaping the rock’n’roll style in which he did not fit.
Along with teaching at Lewinsky College and his extensive work in choral arrangements, Lebanon has fulfilled his dream of engaging in opera, which he has nurtured since he was a student in Italy in his youth of the giant conductor Sergio Chilibidka. This, when he served as the conductor of the old opera for the last ten years, under the direction of Addis de Philippe. Today, when asked if he regrets anything, Lebanon replies: “Maybe I could have gone further in conducting.”
Lebanon Committee His partner, who ran the Consumer Council, lives in north Tel Aviv. They have three daughters – Odelia in high-tech, Gitit, a lawyer, and Lilach is a violinist, married to pianist Tomer Lev, who, among other things, performs with his composition “Multifiano” from his father-in-law’s works.
When he, the first singer-songwriter discoverer, was finally asked if there is still a place for this musical institution, Lebanon replies: “If the festival had been used as a stage for the display of new songs, it has a place now as well, but not as an awards contest. I do not support competitions. ”