I grew up in house that did not have classical music playing.  I did not go to the opera as a child.  I didn¹t go to concerts.  So how did I end up a composer of Art Music?!

I did play instruments. I was given the choice in the Hebrew Academy where I went to elementary school and the begining of junior high to take part in group lessons on an instrument.
There was clarinet, violin, trumpet -- and maybe more -- all taught by the same teacher. I asked to study clarinet.  I remember sitting in a circle with some other kids and the teacher and physically suffering from the sounds.  
I quite.  But I did have a clarinet made from bakelite [if that is the term] and a book.  So I taught myself how to play the clarinet.  
Nobody told me that this was difficult.  I just put up a music stand and tried to do what the book explained.  When I went to a public school in the eighth grade I asked to join the orchestra.  
The conductor said that he had enough clarinet plays but that I had big hands and should play the counter bass.  He gave me one lesson.  This is how you tune it --  mi   la  re  sol.  Here is how you hold the German bow.  
This is the bass clef and here is a book.  I taught myself how to play the bass.  [I know this sounds silly but honest. it is true.]  When I went to high school there was a room full of instruments and you could sign for whatever one you wanted.  
They needed someone to play fourth reed in the musical productions of the school so I played bass clarinet, baritone sax, and flute - which I never really played well at all.  The other instruments I could play rather well.

But what was the connecting to composing?

The connection was through the theater.  I had liked to do the theatrical bits of the youth movement activities.  And had even acted in Twelve Angry Men in tenth grade.  When I came to Israel at nineteen I enrolled  at the Hebrew University and wanted to study urban geography and city planning but those subjects did not exist at the university then.  I should have gone to Haifa to the Technion.  So I spent my time learning Hebrew and doing the usual things that young people did in the sixties.  I was leaving the library one and had opened the door for a teacher who was entering and probably said something like Œafter you please. Madam¹ and before I reached the grass on the Quad she had come running to catch up to me and said that there will be an audition for parts in Shakespeare¹s Measure for Measure to be performed by the drama group of the University in English.  

- Would you like to take part?
- Sure, but maybe I could also write some songs for the production.

Well, I got the part of the Duke and I was terrible.  Joyce Miller who was the lady that I opened the door for was just beginning her work as a director and to be honest she did not know how to get me to act that long and tedious part.  But I did learn all the words quickly enough and I did write some fun songs.  That was the second time that I had written songs.  The first time was for a project in junior high school for English.  I had composed many -  perhaps eight or ten -- lyrics and songs of pseudo folks songs.  The teacher didn¹t realize how exceptional this was and did not suggest learning music then but that is life things happen when they happen.

Anyway.  I had composed some songs and I was in Jerusalem and I didn¹t have anything that I wanted to study at the Hebrew U. so I thought that I would go and study composition at the local academy of music.  I walked in off the street and asked the secretary how I could enroll to study composition.
I was told that you had to be an accomplished musician before you could be accepted into  the theory and composition faculty but that tomorrow [yes this is true] there will be exams for places in the program.
I should up and asked the guy next to me what they would ask in the exam and he said quadratic chords.  I had not a clue as to what he was talking about and went i went into the exam Haim Alexander played C Major on the piano and asked what is that.

Is that a quadratic chord?  -  I answered.

No.  he then played various things and asked me to sing them.  Perhaps he asked me to drum some rhythms - I don¹t remember.  The long and the short of it was that I was obviously musical and that there weren¹t all that many qualified students so I was accepted on a provisory basis and given a tutor that I had to pay of course to teach me what I needed to catch up.  I did will just about everything but the piano playing.  I had started only then to play and found that it was to late for me to develope any serious piano skills.

But then composers don¹t have to play the stuff they compose.  They just have to compose it.

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