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A conductor, composer, and an artist who integrates music with the performing arts, Roni Porat composes music for chamber ensembles and full orchestra, as well as for dance, theater, and children’s programs. He is currently conducting for “HAUTA” in Tel Aviv—a show combining music he composed and theater based on a piece written by Israeli playwright Hanoch Levin.
“I’m all love and thankfulness, and this is how I live,” Porat said credited his wide-ranging talents to a humble and grateful attitude toward life.
“I am thankful for opportunities that I have been given to be who I am today. For me, being a grateful person is a privilege, and my gratitude allows me to be present and aware.
Porat works with the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra and three other major orchestras in Israel. He performs in other countries as well. Every summer he is invited to conduct and to teach conducting in Hungary, through an international course with excellent conductors from all over the world.
He began his musical studies at a relatively late age. During his studies in the Jerusalem Music Academy, he spent his summer vacations doing street shows in Europe and the United States. These experiences helped him acquire both theatrical and practical skills.
After graduating from the academy, he embarked on a musical career as a composer and conductor—one that put special emphasis on imparting the love of music to children and youth. By initiating special concerts for the young, he introduced these audiences to classical music with the help of theater: through humor and miming.
“I owe my sense of freedom on stage to the street shows I have done abroad. It is there that I acquired the skill of communicating with an audience, which helps me to this day.”
A Unique Understanding of Music
Roni Porat has a unique understanding and approach to music. “Music is shapeless. Our attachment to form distances us from its essence. Musically, it has structure and form, but the sound—who can grasp what it is? Music is a place of being.”
When discussing the role of a conductor, he said the conductor is the only one in the concert who does not produce a sound, yet generates it all. “He is the living expression of the composer in the physical world. He stands between the composer’s ideas and the orchestra, and in this in-between [spot] he creates magic.”
Porat considers it the conductor’s responsibility to understand all the parties involved: the composer, the players, and the audience. “If you wish to be a good leader, then you should be able to see forward and be two moves ahead. While the composition is being played, I, of course, hear it with my ears, but simultaneously I already hear the next move.”
Porat believes the most important about conducting is personal charisma.
In fact, Porat radiates vitality and kindness. Meeting with him is pleasant and inspires optimism. He reveals great sensitivity, and one can identify the happy child in him, elated by the wonders of life revealed to him.
Nevertheless, something in his face gives the impression of pain. When asked about the type of music he composes, he smiles and says: “My wife says I use my music to express my pain. Composition exists in another dimension; I am not aware that it’s happening.”
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