What made this all possible, of course, was a conductor who could relate to all the various stakeholders: the musicians, the audience, and most of all Mahler. And Talmi obliged, leading the troops with an apparent lack of ego, coupled with a focus on maintaining the flow, while occasionally punctuating key moments with eloquent physical gestures. He achieved what the best conductors do: after only a few short rehearsals, he convinced the 87 musicians to take pride in what they were doing onstage. They began owning the performance themselves.
With his lean technique, which blends in as if he were one of the players, Talmi is a conductor who makes it possible to follow the music without being familiar with the score. He was so clear about signs and transition points, that even when the orchestra struggled through some of the most massive traffic jams Mahler ever created, they emerged with fresh energy, movement, and enthusiasm. Laurence Vittes - Article
Maestro Yoav Talmi's Clarinet Quintet, commissioned by the Montreal Chamber Music Festival and premiered in Montreal last June 2017, won the Avidom Prize for Composer's Achievement of the year. This important prize was awarded by ACUM, the Israeli nonprofit corporation of authors, composers, lyricists and poets.
The quintet can be heard on YouTube , as well as Maestro Talmi's De Profundis for Choir & Orchestra, which won the Prime Minister Prize in 2013.
Le Devoir 10/04/2017: L’explosif retour de Yoav Talmi
Le retour au Québec de Yoav Talmi aura été un plaisir et un succès. …Les tableaux d’une exposition puissants et éloquents de Yoav Talmi sont du grand art orchestral.
Toutes les qualités en ont été décrites : netteté, précision, découpe, engagement. Christophe Huss - Article
Translation :
….The return to Quebec of Yoav Talmi was a pleasure and a success. …Yoav Talmi's powerful and eloquent performance of Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition" was a demonstration of great orchestral art. All the qualities have been pronounced: clarity, precision, carving, and engagement.
Kansascity.com 21/11/2015:Yoav Talmi joins Kansas City Symphony for concert of classical music masters
Guest conductor Yoav Talmi led the orchestra with assurance, without scores for all three works, with forthright phrasing and adamant closing gestures.
Beethoven’s Overture to “Coriolan,”- … Here, the urgency was forefront, with responsive dynamics, sustained without over-blowing. The supporting voices energized the performance, … A return to the opening material made way for a gorgeous cello moment as they dissolved the melody, settling into pianissimo pizzicato.
Mozart’s Symphony no. 33 in B flat major, but retained the same attentive energy. The looks of stern determination on the players were replaced by delighted engagement, as the melody moved delicately across the ensemble, … The final movement enjoyed a nimble lightness in the strings with the winds taking ownership of the chord movement, bright dynamic contrasts and a dramatic cut off.
Brahms Serenade No. 1 - …The six-movement work incorporated a wealth of tuneful material, whether a jovial, open-air melody, hunting fanfare, or organic, twining theme of dappled shadows. Brahms distributed these melodies to every section, with an especially beautiful telling from the violas. Talmi demanded full voice as the work came to its exciting, succinct conclusion.
Libby Hanssen
Málaga Hoy 27/09/2015: Personal Prokofiev
Orquesta Filarmonica de Málaga conducted by Yoav Talmi
Apenas año y medio después de su ultima visita, el veteran Israeli Maestro Yoav Talmi volvía a ponerse al frente de la Orquesta Filarmónica de Málaga. Como entonces, el programa estaba dedicado integramente a la escuela rusa y Talmi reprodujo idénticos esquemas interpretativos, que denotaban tanto oficio como vitalidad, privilegiando la densidad emocional frente a la minuciocidad. J. M. Cabra Apalategui
Translation
Just over a year a year and a half since his last visit in Malaga, expert Israeli Maestro Yoav Talmi took again the helm of the Malaga Philharmonic Orchestra. As then, the program was entirely devoted to the Russian School and Talmi demonstrated identical interpretative patterns: vitality, emotional density and attention to details. J. M. Cabra Apalategui
www.chileb.cl4/08/2015: Triumphal Presentation
….Yoav Talmi provided a version (Overture " The King Lear " by Berlioz) of superlative musical strength, obtaining a magisterial response from the musicians, with compact, glassy and transparent sound by means of important individual and collective performance. In reaction to the enthusiastic response of the public, Maestro Talmi had to return several times to the stage as a sign of great appreciation.
….With a triumphant version of the Symphony in d minor by César Franck, culminated Maestro Talmi his début appearance in Chile. Undoubtedly, this Cathedral-like act of greatness represents clarity of forms and construction that in turn re-dresses a purified exhibition. Yoav Talmi's vision displays deep conceptual assimilation and sincere expressiveness, through a gallery of phrasing, dynamics, balanced tempos - that served the romantic spirit to perfection.
…The ovation of the public was fully deserved.
It is a must to continue inviting conductors on the level of Yoav Talmi to our National Symphony Orchestra, for his exceptional eloquence. Jaime Torres Gómez
www.democratandchronicle.com 25/05/2015:'Severe beauty' marks RPO concert
Thursday's Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra concert featured two late Romantic-era composers whose music is not heard often enough in the RPO Philharmonics series: Antonín Dvořák and Jean Sibelius.
In a lean and lively interpretation led by guest conductor Yoav Talmi, Sibelius's Lemminkäinen's Return had a pent-up energy masked by folk music brimming with gravitas. And yet there was an obvious buoyancy in the melodic phrasing and dynamics. - Daniel J. Kushner
Malaga, Spain 18/05/2014: Yoav Talmi, Artistry without sensationalism
…Yoav Talmi masterfully succeeded to convey the emotional density that is the strength of Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony, from the tragic tension throughout the first movement to the stunning meditative lyricism of the strings in the 3rd movement Largo. - J. M. Cabra Apaletegue
Bulletin of the America-Israel Cultural Foundation 29/03/
2013: The Israel Chamber Orchestra's 47th Season
The very recent concert of the Orchestra was unforgettable for many reasons and in many ways. …The program was all about Mendelssohn - Concerti nr nr 2 and Symphony nr 1, performed to rave reviews and great delight. But there was another treat in store. As the program came to an end, the entire Israel Defense Forces Orchestra marched in the auditorium to celebrate a very special occasion: exactly 50 years ago, the 19-year-old soldier, Yoav Talmi, won a composition competition sponsored by the Army to create the IDF's official March.
Talmi's March is still the official musical composition of Israel's Defense Forces. At the concert, the March was performed on stage by both orchestras, under Talmi's baton. A rare and touching moment to be cherished for many seasons to come.
El País Digital 25/09/2012 : An Unforgettable Israeli Orchestra
…Mendelssohn's Italian Symphony concluded the program. Talmi knew to set the purity of the style required by this composer, demonstrating a perfect balance between the classical and the romantic. The four movements were carried with elegant dynamism, highlighting the essential beauty of the work. The public applauded with much enthusiasm and the conductor expressed his gratitude with three encores: “Hoedown” from “Rodeo” by Copland, Four Rumanian Dances by Bartok, and “Fuga y Misterio” by Piazzolla. It remains to thank the Centro Cultural de la Musica for having provided us with this fantastic spectacle. - Julio César Huertas
La Nacion 15/09/2012 :Yoav Talmi, a star of an excellent concert
The most obvious message of the “Elegy for Strings, Timpani and Accordion” - the work that began on Monday the concert of the Israel Chamber Orchestra for the Mozarteum at Tetaro Colon, is serenity,a mood not easy to communicate musically. As its secondary title ("Reflections on Dachau") refers to one of the most shocking contemporary horrors that man was capable of committing, it seems understandable that when trying to express such tremendous facts, artists may get off calibration and loose the emotional balance. This did not happen throughout the seventeen minutes of Yoav Talmi’s work, who developed his reflections without incurring a single sensationalism or cheap measures, with the only dramatic effect of a varied and almost constant pounding timpani, while the musical substance dissolved in search of silence with which the story ends as it began. The image achieved reveals thus a shock. …The work is impressive for its transparent structure, deep emotional load and transcendent expressive honesty. - Jorge Aráoz Badí
El Universo Ecuador 9/09/2012: Israel Chamber Orchestra. Does perfection exist?
… The ”Elegy for Strings, Timpani and Accordion” composed by Yoav Talmi is overwhelming: the strings tremble in atonality, trying to catch the horizon where they join the rails, sorrowful wagons; extreme anguish of the violins, dissonant chords of accordion rescuing murdered children, which also hurt Gustav Mahler, timpani pounding, boots, shooting, execution, shaking screams as the “Scream” of the painter Munch. Suspended crescendo scratches the walls in the gas chambers… The end envisioned by Talmi could evoke resignation or enduring tremor.
…I think of all I heard this year, on this night we were given the best concert. Perfection is very close when it can make us forget the tremendous work it takes to achieve it. - Felix Fleming