Israeli-Australian musician
Yitzhak Yedid (, born 29 September 1971) is an Israeli-Australian composer of contemporary classical music. He is also a pianist and an educator. 
The recipient of numerous awards, Yedid is an Azrieli Prize Laureate in Jewish Music, a Laureate of the Landau Prize for Performing Arts, and a Sidney Myer Creative Fellow. His compositional style has been characterised as "eclectic, multicultural, and deeply personal," blending elements of jazz and Jewish cantor music, classical European traditions, and avant-garde experimentation. He has been hailed as one of the most original composers on the international music scene today. 
Interfaith dialogue and Cross-cultural integration are central to Yedid's artistic practice. Yedid's work is a reflection of his deep interest in Middle Eastern culture, ancient rituals, the aesthetics of classical and liturgical Arabic music, and non-Western music performance practices.
Yitzhak Yedid specializes in performing Judaeo-Sephardic and Middle Eastern sacred music in concert piano recitals. 
Biography.
Yitzhak Yedid was born in Jerusalem to a Jewish family of Syrian and Iraqi descent. His initial formative musical experiences included attending liturgical services at his local synagogue where he imbibed the sounds and rhythms of the Syrian-Jewish Baqashot tradition.
While the young Yitzhak immersed himself in music rooted in the Jewish-Arabic tradition and the rendition of traditional Maqamat-based songs, his mother was insistent on exposing him to western classical music and a western instrument. At age seven, he embarked on piano lessons with a private instructor. As his teenage years unfolded, his musical focus shifted to jazz piano, and by his twentieth year, he initiated performances of his original compositions with his own new-music ensemble.
Yitzhak Yedid's musical aesthetics find their roots in the music he immersed himself in during his formative years, particularly in the Aleppo's tradition of chanting Piyyutim and Baqashot. His musical journey is also inspired by piano music and improvisation. In his compositions, Yedid seamlessly integrates various elements, including energies and dynamics, while introducing a distinctive aesthetic that departs from the conventional norms of classical stage traditions. This innovative approach adds a nuanced, and at times even provocative, dimension to his musical creations. 
Yedid studied at the Rubin Academy of Music with Vyacheslav Ganelin and the New England Conservatory in Boston with Ran Blake and Paul Bley in 1997 and 1998. After moving to Australia, he gained a PhD from Monash University in 2012, publishing "Methods of Integrating Elements of Arabic Music and Arabic-Influenced Jewish Music into Contemporary Western Classical Music". 
Career.
In 1999 Yedid released his first album "Full Moon Fantasy"for the Musa label. This led to an invitation to perform in Scandinavia as the guest of the pianist Michael Smith, and to a joint recital in Sweden with the pianist Roland Pontinen. In 2001, Yedid's second recording, "Inner Outcry", was released, also for Musa. Yedid was commissioned to compose the suite Tachanun for a festival in Vienna, Austria, in 2002. Tachanun has been performed many times in Israel including at the Kfar Blum Chamber Music Festival. 
Between 1999-2009, Yedid crafted a collection of seven large-scale works for various instrumentations, always featuring himself on the piano. These compositions combined fully notated music with free improvisation, including maqamat, and composed for a selection of individual players. The works were released on a series of eight solo albums on the record label Challenge Records (Netherlands). However, Yedid refuses to publish the hand-written scores of these works.
"Myth of the Cave" was commissioned by German record label Between the Lines. It was released in 2002. The five-movement piece has been performed at festivals in Germany and Austria, at the Vancouver International Jazz Festival and at the Tel Aviv Jazz Festival. It is based on Plato's allegory of the cave, about cave dwellers imprisoned in near-darkness since birth whose sense of reality is distorted. One of them escapes to the outside world, reports on what he has seen and is put to death for his revelations.
In 2002, he joined Israeli jazz saxophonist Abatte Barihun to form the duo Ras Deshen. They recorded their maiden album in September 2002, which featured a blend of Ethiopian music and Free improvisation jazz.
In 2003 Yedid composed Passions and Prayers – Sextet in homage to Jerusalem for Between the Lines. It is a technically complex and conceptually melancholy composition that premiered at the 2004 Israel Festival. The CD was released in August 2005.
Reflections upon Six Images was commissioned by a festival in Vienna Austria in 2004. The music depicts the union and division of images, colours, textures, styles and cultures inspired by the world of the imagination. The composition was performed at the Vienna festival in September 2004 and at the Etnakhta concert series in 2004 in Israel. The album was released at the end of 2005.
In 2005, Yedid composed the Oud Bass Piano Trio, performed at the Sibiu Festival in Romania, as well as in Australia, Canada, and the US in May and September 2005. 
In 2006, Yedid composed Since My Soul Loved, a four movement composition for improvising players for violin, viola, cello, double bass and piano. 
In 2009, Yedid composed Arabic Violin Bass Piano Trio. The work was premiered at the Jerusalem Theatre's Henry Crown Symphony Hall in March 2010. The composition is a continuation of his endeavour in Oud Bass Piano Trio (2005) integrating classical Arabic music, Arabic-influenced Jewish music and contemporary Western classical music. This trio has been composed for improvising performers.
Since immigrating to Australia in 2007, his large-scale works include: Visions, Fantasies &amp; Dances, music for string quartet, commissioned by Israel's Sapphire String Quartet; Piano Concerto (2016), commissioned by Michael Kieran Harvey and the Tel Aviv Soloists; Kiddushim &amp; Killulim (2017) commissioned by Christian Lindberg &amp; NK Orchestra; Delusions of War (2014) for 22 string soloists or string orchestra, commissioned by Divertimenti Ensemble and the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra; Mandolin Concerto (2016), for mandolin and a large orchestra.
Yedid's chamber and solo works include: Chad Gadya (2017), quartet for clarinet, violin, cello &amp; piano, commissioned by Stradbroke Chamber Music Festival; Sensations (2010) for piano, violin and cello, commissioned by Atar Trio; Angels' Revolt (2017) chaconne for solo piano, commissioned by Lev Vlassenko Piano Competition; Out to Infinity (2009) for Harp solo, commissioned by the 2009 International Harp Contest for their 50th Anniversary; The Crying Souls, Lament for Syrian Victims (2013), a cappella choir, commissioned by the Australian Voices (TAV)
Yedid has put out over ten albums as a solo act (Challenge Records International, Sony, Naxos, -btl-, Muse, MCI, and Kaleidos) and has collaborated Ethiopian-born saxophonist and vocalist Abate Berihun as the Ras-Deshen ensemble.
Yedid's works for strings include Visions, Fantasies and Dances for string quartet (2006–09), and Delusions of War for string orchestra (2014), and his compositions Oud Bass Piano Trio (2006) and 'Arabic Violin Bass Piano Trio' (2008) combine a classical Arabic instrument with Western instruments.
Some of Yedid's works have been described as Third Stream, which combines contemporary classical music with jazz improvisation. Much of Yedid's output includes slots where soloists can improvise. Yedid has often said he is delighted when performers surprise him with their inventiveness.
In his work "Kadosh Kadosh and Cursed", Yedid comments on the religious dimensions of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. 
Musical style and influences.
Yedid says his music is influenced by Arabic music,
 ;templatestyles src="Template:Blockquote/styles.css" / ;When I was a child I went to the Syrian synagogue, where you hear all the melodies in the Arabic scales. I'm using microtonality in my compositions, and also using the Hassidic and Orthodox Jewish scales. This is all with free jazz and classical music, in equal parts.
Yedid's music contains a mix of elements. He says:
 ;templatestyles src="Template:Blockquote/styles.css" / ;I'm dealing with very classical things, also with jazz and folk things—but it's not classical and it's not jazz and it's not folk. I'm using various techniques, like a painter who's trying to use all the materials he knows about. I'm trying to bring all these different elements together. My music is like a story – it's like a film or a play.
Yedid writes
 ;templatestyles src="Template:Blockquote/styles.css" / ;In Israel, I grew up acutely aware of the tensions caused by the animosity between Palestinians and Israelis. Of profound significance were the sensory images of the shocking terror attack that occurred in a mall in central Jerusalem on December 3, 2001. The destruction and suffering caused by the two suicide bombers was devastating and continues to haunt me to this day. This attack killed eleven innocent boys including my relative 19-year-old Moshe Yedid-Levy. However, in my music, my intention is not to refer directly to experiences such as this but rather to look at Arabic and Jewish matters from a human perspective and in conjunction with philosophical and religious concerns. I am a strong believer in the power of music to bring about understanding, change and reform in societies, and perhaps also between nations. It is my wish to convey the idea of cultural pluralism.
Yedid's style of composition has been described as
 ;templatestyles src="Template:Blockquote/styles.css" / ;eclectic, multicultural and very personal- a style that combines jazz and Jewish cantor music, classic European and avant-garde, randomness and a blend of techniques.
Barry Davis wrote in The Jerusalem Post,
 ;templatestyles src="Template:Blockquote/styles.css" / ;Over the past couple of decades or so, Yedid has put out an almost bewilderingly eclectic range of works and recordings. His disciplinary backdrop takes in Western classical music, jazz, free improvisation, Arabic music and liturgical material. His compositions are generally viscerally and cerebrally engaging, and often visually striking, with the piano- playing role requiring a certain amount of calisthenic activity and a significant dosage of emotional and technical investment.
Yedid writes
 ;templatestyles src="Template:Blockquote/styles.css" / ;Looking for new compositional approaches and challenging musical conventions through the synthesis of a wide spectrum of contemporary and ancient styles is what motivated my work. Intellectual conflicts such as the confrontation with philosophical matters and religious and political aspects have always been of interest, and also underlie and motivated my work. I have been influenced in particular by Béla Bartók and Arnold Schoenberg to develop a personal vision as a composer.
This correlates with what the critics write about his music: John Shand from the "Sydney Morning Herald" wrote in 2014 about Yedid's Myth of the Cave "a vividly expansive composition"; Noam Ben-Zeav (Haaretz) wrote in 2013 that "Yedid music is an authentic expression of new music which incorporates a wide spectrum of contemporary and ancient styles"; and Ake Holmquist (NorraSkåne, Sweden) wrote in 2004 that
 ;templatestyles src="Template:Blockquote/styles.css" / ;Yedid integrates specific stylistic influences into a personal created unity. The manner in which he describes folkloristic influences and melancholic specific themes can remind of Béla Bartók; improvisatory float of hovering à la Keith Jarrett [...].
Musically, Yedid creates a confluence between the Maqamat (Arabic music modal system), heterophonic textures of ancient genres, and compositional approaches of contemporary Western classical music, to produce an original sound. Yedid introduces microtonality in his works in a range of different ways. He examined ways of using microtonal pitches that in Arabic music function as ornamentation and as part of improvisational gestures. He has extended the use of traditional ornamentation to compose microtonal sounds with microtonal qualities that unfold at different tempi without a definite pitch. This can be seen in many of his works. In his string quartet Visions, Fantasies and Dances, the microtonal intervals function in the context of diatonic and chromatic intervals and the method of a tension-and-release for intervals of a quarter-tone and three-quarter-tones have been employed.
Yedid have shown a new direction in his later works and courage to make a commentary on international currant political/religious problems that continue to find no resolution. The Crying Souls (commissioned by the Australian Voices) and Delusions of War (commissioned by the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra) are both anti-war works. The Crying Souls was written as a response to the chemical weapons attacks that happened in August 2013 in Damascus when more than 1,300 innocent civilian including children were massacred. Yedid writes "This work expresses my endless sadness to the death of innocent people". In the notes on Delusions of War he writes
 ;templatestyles src="Template:Blockquote/styles.css" / ;The music aims to make the listeners 'feel' the human suffering that the war causes, and, without assuming to have answers, to encourage them to pause for a moment and to envisage better ways than force to resolve crises. The music captures emotions of anger and fear, and feelings of sorrow, tragedy and righteousness.
Awards and Prizes.
Yedid is