Issak Tavior

Issak Tavior was born in 1943 in Haifa

Tavior was born in Haifa on 18 September 1943 to Rosa and Avraham Vichodetz. He started learning music at age 7 and had support from the America-Israel Cultural Foundation during his studies.

He studied with Rachel Katz at the Dunya-Weizmann Conservatory in Haifa and played on Kol Israel radio at 14. At 16 he entered the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance on a full scholarship. He later studied in Tel Aviv, Geneva and London, and learned conducting and composition with Noam Sheriff and teachers in Austria and Italy.

Tavior gave recitals on European radio and played as a soloist with orchestras in Israel and abroad. He led the Hebrew University of Jerusalem Orchestra from 1971 to 1974 and co-founded a music conservatory in Karmiel in 1975. He lectured on music at Haifa University from 1989 to 1997.

He conducted orchestras in Israel and Germany, often in his own works marking national events. In 2010 he performed at the United Nations in New York on International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

In 1967 he met his wife Liora, and they founded the hamlet Hemdat Yamim near Mount Meron, where they raised 3 children. From 1981 he gave recitals at the music center they set up there. He died on 7 February 2025.