Alexander Tamir

Alexander Tamir was born in 1931 in Vilnius

Alexander Tamir was born Alexander Wolkovsky in Vilnius in 1931. He was the only son of Fenia Kobarsky and Dr. Noah Wolkovsky, a throat doctor. He played and composed music as a child.

During the Nazi occupation his family was held in the Vilna ghetto, where he wrote the melody of the song Ponar for a music competition. He and his father were later sent to a labor camp in Estonia, where his father was murdered, and he was moved to Stutthof and then Dautmergen. French forces freed him in April 1945.

In 1945 he moved to the Land of Israel and studied at the Rubin Academy of Music in Jerusalem. There he met pianist Bracha Eden, and their teacher encouraged them to play together. The duo studied further in the United States with Vronsky and Babin.

The duo won the Vercelli Competition and toured widely, recording works by Brahms, Schubert, Debussy, Ravel and others. With Stravinsky's approval they performed his Rite of Spring in a version for piano. Tamir taught at the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance, served as its dean, and hosted a weekly radio program on classical piano music.

In 1968 he and Eden founded a music center in Ein Kerem, and he also founded the Israel Chopin Society. The duo performed together until Eden died in 2006. Tamir died on August 15, 2019.