ComiCollection: music & comics

Comic concert with Itay Dvori

Itay Dvori, the Berlin-based Israeli composer and pianist, has invented a new format: the comic concert. For a number of years now, it has been attracting lots of attention at international festivals and on stages throughout Europe. This musical adventure began in 2016 with the very first comic concert, performed together with Itay Dvori’s yam yabasha ensemble, and has since created music for over 40 graphic novels by renowned artists from all over the world. Whether performed with the ensemble or as solo piano soirées, the concerts have been very well received by both press and public.

With increasing quality and quantity, graphic novels are reflecting developments in our rapidly changing world, and comic reportage is expanding the boundaries of traditional journalism. Both are topical, socially critical, and increasingly popular. Their thematic spectrum includes the challenges and crises of our times – such as climate change, migration, the pandemic, digitalisation and the changing perception of gender roles.

With his programme ComiCollection, Itay Dvori presents a compilation of musical settings for comics – the best of various individual projects and creative commissions from recent years. This diverse selection, interpreted live on piano, ranges from works with subtle, sometimes also caustic humour, through to lyric poetry. It offers musical equivalents to the visual worlds of international illustrators such as Edmond Baudoin, Manuele Fior, Asaf Hanuka, Cyril Pedrosa and Barbara Yelin. Among the comic strips in this project, there are also works by the beloved Romanian illustrator, Ileana Surducan. Itay Dvori has created here a panorama of contemporary graphic literature in its impressive maturity, declaring, with each piece, his deep love for and fascination with the genre he describes as “the art of the 21st century”.

Born in Israel, Itay Dvori acquired his piano, composition and conducting skills at the Buchmann-Mehta School of Music in Tel Aviv and the Hanns Eisler Academy of Music in Berlin. He completed both studies with distinction. During this time he was a scholarship holder of the America-Israel Cultural Foundation and the German Music Council. He has conducted orchestras and choirs in Europe, Asia and North America. In addition to his compositions, which are being performed by international instrumental and vocal ensembles, Itay Dvori composes for theatre, dance and film. He performs regularly as a pianist, both solo and with chamber music formations, and teaches at the Berlin University of the Arts. With his Comic Concerts, which he has been performing since 2016 as a solo pianist and with his yam yabasha ensemble and in which his own compositions and improvisations to graphic literature are presented, he created a "new genre" (Deutschlandfunk Kultur).