As a world-class pianist, Ilana Vered played in the most esteemed concert halls in the world with the top musicians of her time. Today she uses music as a tool for change. Vered speaks about the process of evolving from an internationally respected soloist to a teacher and painter, and about the accident that precipitated that change.
Today, along with her husband, Peter Hermes, she directs the “Music Fest Perugia” in Italy and participates in numerous other projects that help young musicians and that promote classical music.
In the Bubble
“I remember that in my childhood, the greatest artists came to perform in Tel Aviv and so I saw Arthur Rubinstein. I looked at the people during the concert, and they were sitting quietly—while tears ran from their eyes. In that moment I realized what it was all about. I thought it will be wonderful if I could do the same thing,” Vered said.
Vered started to play piano at the age of 3 and was deemed a “wunderkind” at a very young age. Her parents were musicians as well.
“My mother was a piano teacher; my father was a violin teacher, and I wanted to have their attention so I started to play. Ever since, playing became my life,” she said with smile.
Later her parents moved to Paris where she studied in the Conservatoire de Paris. After two years there, she won the first prize. Then her family moved to Brazil and then to the prestigious school for music, dance, and drama in the United States—Juilliard.
When Vered finished her studies, she performed with the greatest orchestras in the world: the NY Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, the NHK Symphonic Orchestra in Japan, the Munich Philharmonic, the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra and many more. She recorded many albums and performed with conductors Stokowski, Mehta, Solti, and Kondrashin, among others.
“As a wunderkind, I mainly concentrated on working, on piano. I was in some kind of a soloist’s bubble. There were tours and concerts and then everything stopped when my first child was born. But then I came back.”
But coming back was not easy for her. “The piano demands all your attention, all your time. It is not only the playing itself—with the fingers, it is also the thinking. You think about it all the time. It is like an artist that thinks about his painting even when he is not painting. And there is also the enormous competition that you have to face when you play in the biggest concerts in the world,” she explained.
“When you play all the time, sometimes you don’t know exactly where you are, and there are no limits to it. You achieve a certain level and then you see a higher one, and there is no end to it. There is no limit to how much you can be more perfect and beautiful,” she said.
At a certain moment in her career, Vered decided that living in this bubble was not enough. “I always wanted to go out and do more things,” she said, and that is how she came to join a project called Artists to End Hunger.”
“It was something wonderful to do because it was doing art but also changing something through it. I had already been organizing festivals for years, and projects in the United States and around the world. This was a project that changed lives and brought good to other people.”
A New Life
“When you stop, it’s like something that is stewing in you,” she said. But then, “the hand remembers.”
“It’s as if I’d received an opportunity to see everything from outside. Now I see myself playing. There are things that became less important or more important because of what happened. It is a time when you stop and then, you ask questions. I feel that today I play better.”
Vered stopped performing as a soloist and discovered the art of painting. “What I like about painting is that at the end of the day, I can see what I did and it is a little more satisfying,” she says and explains: “While playing you can work hours and hours and not feel progress. With painting it is so clear for me. There is something very concrete about it. Without painting, I couldn’t live today.”
Through her new love, Vered discovered where she and her husband could realize a dream: establishing a music festival for professional music students.
“I traveled to Italy for a workshop by the Israeli painter Israel Hershberg, and I fell in love with the place. There was a tiny theater there and with the help of the people around me, I began to play again. From here came the idea of the music festival in Perugia,” she explained.
Today the Music Fest Perugia draws hundreds of students, teachers, and musicians from all over the world.
“What is wonderful about the festival is that you study but also demonstrate with the piano. There is a connection with the student through the thought and through the demonstration. Something happens when someone comes and see the playing from outside.
It helps young artists a lot. It is important that they think of the technique but also express [music] in a way that speaks to people.
We tell stories. Music is actually an allegorical story about life. Beethoven, Schumann, Chopin, everybody expressed all the human things. These are not notes; these are words, and we touch each other through them,” she explained.
For co-director, Peter Hermes, the festival is a great love: “It is something that preoccupies me and enriches me very much. It is a return to the artistic values of the West in a period in which we are sinking, in a culture that denies the good values of tradition—in Israel, in the Western world, and especially in the United States.
It is an opportunity for musicians to work and cooperate with other musicians that come from different countries. They are enthusiastic to join the festival in Italy and open up to the treasures of the Italian culture,” he said.
The Music Fest Perugia will be held this year from the Aug. 3-16. For more information, see www.musicfestperugia.net.
