Arts & Entertainment

A Musician's Musician

Arie Lipsky, a maestro of classical music in Ann Arbor, soon may be sharing
his singular talents with audiences in the Detroit Jewish community.

Bill Carroll

Special to the Jewish News

Ann Arbor

W

hile growing up in his native
Haifa, Israeli-born Arie
(pronounced Ar-yay) Lipsky
showed a strong inclination toward music,
learning how to play the flute at the age
of 6, the cello at 12 and performing with
his hometown orchestra. But his mother
wanted him to be an engineer, not a musi-
cian — to "have a decent profession',' she
told him.
After his graduation from Israel's
Technion university in 1973 with a degree
in aerospace engineering, as a member of
the noted Israel Defense Forces Academic
Reserve, and serving his country in the
field for a short while — "a little detour','
he calls it — Lipsky handed his diploma
to his mother and told her: "This is really
for you. Now I'm going to do something
I always wanted to do: have a career in
music."
Lipsky then followed a path in which he
performed in concerts in both Israel and
Europe; earned a master's degree in music,
training as a conductor; immigrated to
America at age 25 to further his musical
education (he undertook advanced cello
study with the famed Pablo Casals and
Leonard Rose and studied conducting
with Semyon Bychkov, Yoel Levi and Kurt
Mazur); gained experience conducting
orchestras in Cleveland and Buffalo —
and then, in 2000, landed in Michigan as
music director and conductor of the Ann
Arbor Symphony Orchestra (A2S0).
The 71-member orchestra – one third
of its membership is Jewish — reaches
an audience of about 75,000 people annu-
ally, including about 45,000 children. It is
the largest arts employer in Washtenaw
County and has developed, according to
critics, what is referred to as the unique
"A2S0 sound."
Lipsky, 55, likes to attribute that sound
to the orchestra's "fine, high-quality musi-
cians," including professors and graduate
students from the University of Michigan
and Eastern Michigan University as well
as Detroit-area musicians, who play with
the organization.
That "sound" soon may travel from its
home in Ann Arbor to the Detroit-area

On Jan. 23, Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra members Linda Etter and Vladimir
Babin present Arie Lipsky with a signed portrait of the orchestra, honoring his 10th

season as music director and conductor of the A2S0.

Jewish community: There is the pos-
sibility of bringing the symphony to
the new Mandell and Madeline Berman
Performing Arts Center when it is
completed next spring on the Jewish
Community Center campus in West
Bloomfield.
Detroit Jewish News Publisher Arthur
Horwitz is leading an initiative to link Ann
Arbor to the Detroit-area Jewish commu-
nity by bringing the A2S0 to the Berman
center, also with the goal of helping to
keep the performance space in use as
much as possible once it opens.
After a meeting of community leaders,
Lipsky and JCC Executive Director Mark
A. Lit "agreed it would be a good idea:'
said Horwitz, and "they are discussing the
details"
"We would love to play there; we would
become part of the culture of a regional
Jewish community',' Lipsky says. "I hope
we can work it out:'

A Life In Music
The A2S0 began as a five-piece "mom-
and pop" organization in 1928, playing
for parties, dances and church groups
in the Ann Arbor area. Starting in 1986,
new members were required to audition,
and the orchestra's ranks swelled (today,
70+ musicians comprise the orches-
tra, depending on the repertoire). The

A2S0 plays most of its concerts at either
Ann Arbor's Michigan Theater or Hill
Auditorium.
"We couldn't be luckier than to have
Arie as our conductor',' says Mary Steffek
Blaske, who has been the symphony's
executive director since 1994, oversee-
ing a five-person staff. "He's a musician's
musician. He's very cooperative and civic-
minded, spending a lot of time in the
community and schools around concert
time. He's an astute conductor, who always
sees things from everyone's point of view."
Arie Lipsky's background undoubtedly
has a lot to do with the "musician's musi-
cian" tag.
His father survived the slave labor of
Auschwitz by playing the violin for his
Nazi captors at night in exchange for
bread. He later escaped the infamous
prisoners' death march out of the camp by
hiding in a Christian woman's barn and
met Lipsky's mother, also a Holocaust sur-
vivor, at a displaced persons camp.
Lipsky's sister, now a Paris resident,
plays the violin, and her daughter is a
harpist.
"Music always has been our life',' Lipsky
says of his family, "and, in fact, it meant
life for us. My father's violin playing in
those bleak days [is what] kept him alive.
It is the reason we're all here today. In a
way, music triumphed over evil." (The

conductor's father, Chaim Lipsky, now 88,
became an engineer "to help build Israel"
and still plays in an orchestra there.)
Lipsky helped protect Israel by serv-
ing as a decorated tank commander in
the Israel Defense Forces during the 1973
Yom Kippur War before embarking on his
music career. "But I took my piccolo to war
with me and sort of entertained the troops
in between battles',' he laughs.
In the U.S., Lipsky served as assistant
conductor of the Cleveland Institute of
Music and Ohio Opera, then moved to
Amherst, N.Y., a Buffalo suburb, to join the
Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra as princi-
pal cellist and later, as resident conductor.
A vegetarian, he and his wife, Rachel,
keep a kosher household, support a local
Chabad and have two children: son Gilad,
35, a recording engineer in Nashville,
Tenn., and daughter, Inbal, 18, who will
graduate from high school in May. "She
and I are looking forward to entertaining
at the commencement ceremonies with a
cello duet',' says Lipsky.
He also finds time to be conductor of
the Ashland (Ohio) Symphony Orchestra,
near Cleveland, spending four days a
month there; guest-conducting for sym-
phony orchestras around the world; and
playing cello in a group called the New
Arts Trio, which performs cello, violin and
piano concerts in worldwide venues.

Civic Devotion
Lipsky's Ann Arbor associates are pleased
he made the decision to bring his con-
ducting skills to the city.
"Most maestros feel they're in a class
above everyone, that they can't be both-
ered to mix with the common folks; Arie
is the exact opposite. He's a very humble,
down-to-earth person, spends a lot of

Musician on page 48

Arie Lipsky conducts the final con-
cert of the A2S0 season, "Musical
Portraits," featuring Berlioz's Roman
Carnival Overture, Mussorgsky's
Pictures at an Exhibition and violin-
ist/concertmaster Aaron Berofsky
playing Brahms' Concerto for Violin
in D Major, 8 p.m. Saturday, April
24, at the Michigan Theater in Ann
Arbor. $6-$49. (734) 994-4801;
www.a2so.com .

April 22• 2010

45