Audiana Choir: The Craft of the Dream

Conductor: Anat Aharoni
Special guest: Yonatan Kunda

At the heart of the program are two new Israeli works written these days:

The Earth’s Jealousy — by Haim Permont

A work for choir and accordion
Text: Yehiel Hazak
Accordion: Itai Tevel

The poem The Earth’s Jealousy is one of the powerful and moving works by poet Yehiel Hazak (1936–2022), a native of Kibbutz Afikim. His poetry is rooted in the landscapes of Israel and reflects the collective kibbutz experience: the connection to the land, working it, sacrifice, and the commitment to cultivate it.

The poem expresses longing and mourning over the loss of life—the poet’s brother, Be’eri, fell in the Yom Kippur War—alongside social fracture and the loss of our connection with nature.

The work was commissioned by the Oudiana Choir and received a grant from the Ministry of Culture for a new Israeli work. It is written for mixed choir and accordion and incorporates spoken passages, solo singing, and choral singing, as a tribute to the kibbutz pageant tradition.

“Only in the cemetery, in the west, on the banks of the Jordan,
the earth remains with itself,
with its reckoning, with its silence,
with its jealousy, with its lament.”

Duration: Approximately 30 minutes

“Leweyn Rayheen—Where Are We Going?”

The Oudiana Choir is collaborating for the first time with Yonatan Kunda, a multilingual poet and one of the pioneers of spoken word in Israel.

The fruits of the intriguing encounter between Kunda and the Oudiana Choir explore our connection to this land, and to our prayers and dreams. The combination of choral music and spoken poetry, Hebrew and Arabic, and an ancient text with what is always renewing within us, comes together in the craft of dreaming.

Composition: Anat Aharoni