Mendi Rodan

Mendi Rodan was born in 1929 in Iași

Mendi Rodan was born Mendi Rosenblum in Iași, Romania, on 17 April 1929, one of 3 children of Solomon and Miriam Rosenblum. He started playing the violin at age 5. In 1941 his father and other relatives were murdered in a pogrom against the city's Jews, and the family that survived lived in severe poverty.

After the war he began engineering studies but left them. He studied conducting with Constantin Silvestri at the music academy in Bucharest, and in 1957 took advanced studies at the Franz Liszt Academy in Budapest. In 1953 he married Judith, with whom he had 2 children, and around then changed his surname to Rodan.

At 16 he became a lead violinist of Romania's national radio orchestra, and at 24 he became its conductor. After he applied to immigrate to Israel in 1958, he was dismissed from his posts and moved to Bacău.

In 1960 he immigrated to Israel and settled in Jerusalem. He led the Jerusalem radio orchestra from 1963 to 1972, the Israel Sinfonietta Beersheba from 1977 to 1991, the National Orchestra of Belgium from 1985 to 1989, and the Israel Symphony Orchestra Rishon LeZion from 1997 to 2005. He headed the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance and from 2004 taught conducting at Tel Aviv University.

He received the Israel Prize for music in 2006. He died of cancer on 9 May 2009 and was buried at Har HaMenuchot.