Yoav Talmi

Yoav Talmi was born in 1943 in Merhavia

Yoav Talmi was born on April 28, 1943, in Kibbutz Merhavia. He is married to Er'ella, a flutist and author, and they have two children.

He studied composition and conducting at the Rubin Academy of Music in Tel Aviv and then at the Juilliard School in New York. In 1966 he won the Koussevitzky Conducting Prize at Tanglewood, and in 1973 he won the Rupert Foundation Conducting Competition in London.

As a soldier, he composed a march that won Israel's first march competition in 1963. It became Tsahal Tso'ed, the official march of the IDF.

He was music director of the Arnhem Philharmonic, the Israel Chamber Orchestra, the Israeli Opera and the San Diego Symphony, with which he recorded for Naxos. He led the Quebec Symphony Orchestra from 1998 to 2011 and the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra from 2000 to 2004.

He is conductor emeritus of the Quebec orchestra and heads the conducting department at the Buchmann-Mehta School of Music at Tel Aviv University. His works include Dachau Reflections, De Profundis and a Clarinet Quintet, and he won the Prime Minister's Prize for Composers in 2013.