Tag #127703 - Interview #89861 (Dan Mizrahy)

In the dining room there was a very tired and out of tune upright piano. I remember that on one of the first evenings after I got there, I tried to play Chopin’s Polonaise in A major. There was silence all around me and many children came to the room, attracted by the sounds. When I had finished, a gray-haired lady of about 50 years came up to me and addressed me in German, asking me what my name was. She introduced herself and invited me to visit her the following day, after classes, in the house next to the gate. The lady was the headmaster’s wife. Her profession: pianist and piano teacher!

It was with excitement and shyness that I went to her place the following day. She had a beautiful concert piano that she let me play. With an austere voice, without any display of exuberance or enthusiasm, she asked me whether I was interested in continuing my musical studies. I showed her my certificates, as well as the splendid recommendation written – in German, fortunately – by my teacher from the academy, Aurelia Cionca. It seems that those papers impressed her. She offered to work with me and, depending on my results, to put in a word for me in Jerusalem, at Alyat Hanoar, so that I may be able to continue my studies at the Jerusalem Conservatoire. You can imagine the excitement that seized me. What I realized in that moment was that I was being given the chance to hope; that, after I had abandoned ‘ogni speranza’ [Italian for ‘any hope’], my fate might change!