Family Blecherovitch — Association of Jews of Vilna and vicinity in Israel

Misha (Moshe) Blecherovitch (born May 6, 1945) is an Israeli composer and arranger, a music director, conductor and pianist, working on various levels in the field of musicals. He musically composed and directed dozens of plays at the Cameri Theater and other theaters. He has worked for many years in educational television as a composer and musical accompanist, and served for many years as the musical director of the folklore band "We Are Here." From 2008-2016, he served as the musical director of the Yiddishpiel Theater.

Blecherovitch was born, immediately after the end of World War II, to a Lithuanian family in the city of Kiev. In 1947, when he was two years old, his family returned to Soviet Lithuania, to its capital Vilna. Moshe Blecherovitch (named Misha in Israel), the son of Sonia and Shaul, is a member of a Lithuanian-Jewish family of musicians: his paternal uncle, Avraham Blecherovitch, was a well-known cantor in Argentina, and his father, Shaul Blecherovitch, was a music teacher (at the Hebrew Real Gymnasium in Kovno, among others), where he directed and conducted choirs. During the war, the family migrated to the Soviet Union, where his father was employed by Red Army bands, and after the war returned to Vilna, Lithuania.

At the same time, during his high school years, he studied piano at a music school in the afternoon. After graduating from both institutions, he was accepted to the Vilna Academy of Music. There he continued to study the piano. At the age of 19, he was forced to enlist in the Red Army. He served his first year in the infantry, and later was admitted to a military orchestra in Vilna. The conductor, a Jew, allowed him to continue his studies at the Academy while doing his military service. He studied musical instruments and various musical arrangements. On release from the army and after graduating, he returned to the Academy to study composition. In addition, he was interested in conducting musicals, and arranged music for the play "Twelve Chairs." He did not complete his composition studies, because in 1972, at the age of 27, he made aliyah with his wife followed by the rest of the family.

In Israel, he first worked in a studio in Ashkelon. Shortly afterwards, his career in Israel took off, after attending an exam conducted by the Cameri Theater in “Tzavta”, where he met the composer Sasha Argov, a native of Russia, who recruited him as a pianist for the play "Summer Celebration." Since then, he has worked intermittently with the Cameri Theater, where he has played, composed and musically performed dozens of performances. He served as composer, arranger and pianist for most of Hanoch Levin's plays (some with Alex Kagan). He also composed plays for the Yiddishpiel Theater and the Haifa Theater, the Arik Smith Puppet Theater, the Lilac Theatre, and more. He serves as the musical director of the Yiddishpiel Theater.

Among the shows and musicals, he has composed: "Coriolanus" by Shakespeare; "The Lady from Maxime’s" and "A Hunting We Will Go" by Georges Feydeau; "Wild Honey" by Chekhov, "Abandoned Property" by Shulamit Lapid; "Yosha Egel" by Israel Joshua Singer; "Hershele of Ostropol," and "Laughter Fair" by Yosef Tonkel; "Dzigan and Schumacher Forever" by Kobi Luria, and "Solomon Grip" by Hanoch Levin. In addition, he composed music for children's shows, including "Karius and Bactus", and several plays by Ezra and Irit Dagan, for whom he has also been the musical director and piano accompanist for 25 years (based on poems by Hillel Omer [A. Hillel]; "A House Addicted to Legends" by Michael Dek and "My Beautiful Hebrew" by Yoram Taharlev). He served as musical director and conducted many plays, including "The King and I," "Les Miserables," "Sweeney Todd," and "Songs of the Cameri."

For years he worked in educational television as a composer and musical piano accompanist for children's programs. He composed the theme tune for the program "Ma Pitom? (Kishkashta)”. As a pianist, he accompanied the singers Shoshana Damari, Ofira Gloska, Israel Gurion, Shlomo Nitzan and more. In 1976, he arranged the liturgical song "Adon Olam," with which Uzi Hitman and Oded Ben-Hur competed at that year's Hassidic Song Festival (and won second place), and went with the festival band to tour the world as the orchestra's director.

For many years, he has served as the musical director of the folklore band "Anachnou Kan [“We Are Here"] (whose father was one of its founders in 1956), and has accompanied it at many festivals worldwide. In recent years, he has also served as the musical director of the Mevasseret Zion and Har Adar choirs. He also serves as the musical director and piano accompanist of the Testimony Theater.

Blecherovitch lives with his wife Mira in Tel Aviv. He is the father of three: Shahar Blecherovitch (saxophone player), Tal Blecherovitch (singer-songwriter) and Maya.

His sister, Aliza Blecherovitch-Goldberg, is a choir conductor and singer, who conducted the "We Are Here" choir.

Tal Blecherovitch is a third-generation Lithuanian. A graduate of the Tel Aviv Academy of Music (with a Bachelor's Degree with Honors in composition), he studied at the Manhattan School of Music (New York), and is a graduate of the Rimon School.

Among his works for the theater: Musical direction and conducting: "Oliver Twist," "Avenue Q," "The Chronicles of Narnia," (Keren Or Productions), and "Songs of the Cameri" (The Cameri Theater).

He composed music for Festival performances such as the: "The Old Blonde Jew," and "My Dear Loneliness," as well as "You will not Bear," for the Short Theater Festival and for the acting studios of Nissan Nativ and Yoram Levinstein.

He served as musical conductor for plays such as: "Joseph and the Amazing Striped Coat," "The Band," "The Sixteenth Sheep," and "King Solomon and Shlomo the Shoemaker" (Habima Theater), "The Fight for the House," and "A Word of Love," (Khan Theater). He collaborated as an instrumentalist and arranger for the albums of many artists, including Ehud Hitman and Aya Korem, and is currently working on a CD of his songs and directing the "I Have No Aspirations” show.

 Winner of the America-Israel Cultural Foundation Scholarship as composer and arranger.