Program Notes:

There are musical compositions written according to a specific visual image or structural form, or inspired by a poem or song; there are cases where drama draws the music into realms the composer might not have discovered on their own; and then there are instances, like in Blue, Yellow, Smoke, where a general, universal, and thus personal spirit permeates the music.

The piece was composed during the early days of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Again, images of war, again pain, again stories of tragedy mixed with tales of heroism. And all of this – through a screen – distant.
 

The music is very slow, static, as if looking down sorrowfully from above at all the horrors humanity has failed to learn to prevent, despite thousands of years of lessons from history.

"Blue, Yellow, Smoke" was commissioned and written for Avner Biron and the Jerusalem Camerata, with generous support from the Ministry of Culture and Sports.