OCTOBER 1 • 2020 | 33
Arts&Life
music
A Jewish
Jazz Guy
See Israeli pianist
Guy Mintus as part of
the Jewish Film Festival.
SUZANNE CHESSLER CONTRIBUTING WRITER
I
sraeli pianist Guy Mintus knows the Motor
City jazz scene. He has performed at local
clubs, including Cliff Bell’
s, and his trio
has appeared with Lady Champagne, a Detroit
blues singer.
Mintus had been planning a return trip to
the metro area last May, when he would be
performing solo to enhance the showing of
the film Fiddler: A Miracle of Miracles, one fea-
ture scheduled for this year’
s Lenore Marwil
Detroit Jewish Film Festival. Original Mintus
music enhances the narrative of the documen-
tary about the development of Fiddler on the
Roof productions.
When the festival had to change into a dig-
ital platform because of COVID-19, Mintus
accommodated the change by agreeing to
perform live from Israel. He will be the finale
of the event, running Oct. 4-30, and perform
selections from the film and apart from it in
“Miracle of Miracles: Guy Mintus Live” on
Oct. 29.
“I want to bring people into my musical
world,” said Mintus, also a recording artist
who is 29 and single. “I like to take music that
I love and is meaningful to me and reimagine
it — give it a new spin and a new life. It can be
Chopin; it can be Gershwin; it can be a classic
Israeli song.
“Whatever it is, I Mintusize it.”
Mintus was drawn to the piano from the
time he was 10. He heard a song he liked and
asked his mother to help him sound it out on
their keyboard.
“It left me wanting to find more, and I
started studying but not seriously,” he said.
“I played some pop melodies, not practicing
much. Then I discovered ‘
’
Round Midnight’
details
“Miracle of Miracles: Guy
Mintus Live” goes on at 7 p.m.
Thursday, Oct. 29. culturalarts.
jcc.org/filmfest/.
Guy Mintus
COURTESY OF GUY MINTUS
continued on page 34