Daniel AkivaDaniel Akiva is a composer, performer, and educator whose performances on guitar and lute have won great acclaim. A native of Haifa whose family has lived in Israel for over five hundred years, he was steeped in the Sephardic tradition from his youth. Much of his compositional output has been devoted to works that grow out of the music of the Sephardic Jews.
Mr. Akiva has appeared in concert as a guitarist and lutenist in Israel, Spain, Switzerland, France, Germany, Portugal, the United States, Mexico, and in most of the countries of Central and South America. In 1984 he accompanied the soprano Victoria de los Angeles in a series of concerts at the prestigious Israel festival. His repertoire includes works from the Renaissance through the 20th century.
Mr. Akiva's compositions include works for solo instruments, chamber ensembles, choir, voice and guitar, piano, and chamber orchestra. In 1990 his work Mizmorim [Psalms] for guitar solo was awarded the ACUM prize for composition. He has also written music for films including the eight-part television series Jerusalem Which Was in Spain, which was broadcast in five languages throughout the world. His work Siniza i fumo [Dust and Ashes], for mezzo soprano, recorder, flute, narrator, children's choir, guitar, and orchestra, composed in memory of the Jews of Salonika who perished in the Holocaust, was premiered in 1997 in Jerusalem, and was performed several times in the United States in May, 2000.
Mr. Akiva is a graduate of the Rubin Academy of Music in Jerusalem, and completed his studies at the Geneva Conservatorium in Switzerland. He currently heads the Music Department at the WIZO High School for the Arts in Haifa, which he founded in 1986, and the music education program at the Kerem Institute in Jerusalem.
Recordings by Daniel Akiva: Sephardic Diwan with the soprano Eti Kahn; Meeting with Avraham Perera [CD]; Ciclos, guitar and lute solo [CD, cassette]; Siniza i fumo, for mezzo-soprano, recorder, flute, narrator, children's choir, guitar, and orchestra [CD].
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