iCINEMA
celebrates Its 10th Anniversary
Since the 1920s, film concerts have been organized at the Grand Rex in Paris. This is the first time a producer in Israel has embarked on such an endeavor. To celebrate the tenth anniversary of his company, CENTURY MAX STUDIO, on October 31, 2022, Raphaël Elbaz lit up the screens of one of Tel Aviv’s most prestigious cinema complexes. Raphaël is an event producer and film distributor for Warner Bros, Walt Disney, Universal Studios, and more.
What a night! We were spoiled for choice between nostalgia, wonder, discovery, and admiration.
Orchestrating fifty musicians playing in perfect harmony with the film clips that unfolded behind them was a tour de force. Raphaël made a wise choice when he called upon one of the orchestras of Gabriel Chouraki’s company, JERUSALEM MUSIC PRODUCTIONS. Gabriel is a renowned solo violinist, and we had the privilege of hearing him play “Schindler’s List,” but as the event’s musical director, he expertly curated a program featuring several medleys of great classics by John Williams, Hans Zimmer, Nino Rota, and more. With an uncommon sense of responsibility, he also took charge of the stage management. He turned to his father, Ilan Chouraki, a composer-arranger, and the son of a composer-arranger himself, to write fifty scores. In record time, Ilan had barely seven weeks to write this hour-and-a-half-long show. The magic lay in finding the sonic element that would bridge the gap between “Star Wars” and “Frozen,” “Indiana Jones” and “Pinocchio,” and “Batman” and “The Wizard of Oz.”
Gabriel Chouraki
Zvi Carmeli
For this event, they had a formidable ally: conductor Zvi Carmeli.
Zvi is also an internationally renowned violist and viola professor at the Jerusalem Academy of Music.
This collective was the perfect metaphor for Israeli society. Everyone knew their place, everyone was in their place, and everyone was king in their place. And they were all united around a vision, an image in music.
The very slogan of Ilan Chouraki’s company foreshadows this approach: “IC Music as I see you.”
The story doesn’t end there.
A winning team doesn’t change, so a new film concert is on the horizon, enriched with other medleys, including one featuring the works of Ennio Morricone.
