Gary Bertini

Gary Bertini was born in 1927 in Briceva

Bertini was born Shloyme Golergant in 1927 in Bricheva, Bessarabia, then part of Romania. His father was the Hebrew poet and translator K. A. Bertini, and his mother Berta was a physician. During the Holocaust he was deported to the camps of Transnistria and separated from his parents, and in 1946 the family immigrated to the Land of Israel.

He studied violin and piano and began music studies in Tel Aviv in 1947. He continued at the Milan Conservatory and from 1951 to 1954 studied in Paris. His teachers included Nadia Boulanger, Arthur Honegger and Olivier Messiaen.

In 1955 he founded the Rinat choir, and in 1965 he founded the ensemble that became the Israel Chamber Orchestra, which he led until 1975. He later led the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra and worked at the Israeli Opera from 1988 to 2005. He composed music for dozens of plays and conducted many premieres, including operas by Josef Tal.

Abroad, he advised the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, led the Cologne Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Frankfurt Opera, and was chief conductor of the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra from 1998 to 2005. He recorded the complete Mahler symphonies.

Shortly before his death he became director of the Teatro di San Carlo in Naples. He died on March 17, 2005, and was buried in Kfar Vitkin. He left his wife Rosette, 2 daughters and grandchildren.