When Maestro Daniel Oren chastised principal tuba player Avital Handler for chatting during a lull during a recent dress rehearsal for "Il Trovatore, at the Israeli Opera in Tel Aviv, she just grinned at him from her front row seat in the orchestra pit.
It's not that Handler wasn't paying attention, she just knows how good she is.
"I'm very proud," she said, sipping a plastic cup of vending machine coffee during a break from rehearsal. "I'm proud of my position, I've earned everything I've done."
To be clear, Handler wasn't actually playing the tuba during the rehearsal for "Il Trovatore," Verdi's opera that takes place in a 15th century Spanish town. She was playing the cimbasso, an Italian brass instrument traditionally played during any opera set in a village. It's an instrument that "connects well with trombones," she said.
"We've always played the cimbasso here in Israel for Italian operas, but in America it's been very on and off," said Handler. "Now they're going back to it."
That's relevant information for this tuba player whose family and musical roots were first established in the US, and who continues to work there. It was when Handler was six — her family was living in the US while her mother worked as an aliyah advisor — that a teacher told Handler's parents that their daughter had a musical ear.
She began playing the piano, but her fingers were too short, she said, wagging her two hands.
When they returned to Israel, her family attend ed concerts to help stimulate their daughters' musical education; Handler's favorite performance? "Tubby the Tuba," about a hapless tuba player.
"My family of non-musicians was like, 'You want to play the tuba?'" she recalled. "It was just big," said Handler, spreading her hands to describe the broad, rounded width of the brass instrument. "And there was the whole story of the poor tub that never gets a solo. I always feel bad for the losers."
She started with the baritone, a kind of "baby tuba," said Handler, and took to the "oom-pah-like" sounds of the brass instrument that is still considered fairly new, having only been invented in 1836, making it the "baby of the brass" instruments.
'It's very melodic but very calming and soothing'
The tuba, it seemed, fits Handler's musical persona. It's an instrument that requires stro ng arms, big lungs and tough knuckles, all of which Handler has.
After attending the Israel Arts and Science Academy in Jerusalem for high school, Handler played tuba with the army band for her national service and then headed to the US with a scholarship for her bachelor's degree at Boston University, later earning her master's degree at Manhattan School of Music. Before she had finished her studies, she had already been hired for the principal tuba spot with the Rishon Lezion orchestra.
Handler gives most of the credit for all the early professional success to the tuba, her brass instrument with a "big, beautiful, deep sound."
"It's very melodic but very calming and soothing," she said. "My kids can sleep through my practice."
That's been an important consideration for Handler who now has four young children. "I'm either with my kids or workin g, there's nothing else," said Handler. "I don't want to not create, and I'm up to midnight every night folding laundry, but it's okay, I'm very lucky living the life I want to live."
"I'm a free spirit, but I have my things that are important to me," she said. "I try to do as much as I can to make my life interesting. I can't sit down in front of a TV, and it's hard to make a living as a musician in Israel, and in order to live the way I want, I need to work a lot."
At 40, Handler is the principal tuba player at the Israeli Opera, where the orchestra is the Israel Symphony Orchestra Rishon Lezion. She's also a member of the Israeli Brass Quintet, and has an activ e solo career, representing Kanstul, an American brass instrument company out of California, teaching master classes worldwide and working with different musicians in Israel.
"I try to do a lot of stuff," said Handler, whose English is American-accented and completely fluent. "It's really important to me. So many musicians just stick with the classical, but I don't want to do the same routine every day."
Two of her most recent gigs included playing the tuba on "Before It Ends,"[1] a song on Idan Rai chel's latest solo album[2], and teaching Israeli actor Nitai Gvirtz how to play the tuba for his role in an upcoming film.
"He was supposed to have 20 lessons, but I gave him 40," said Handler. "20 just wasn't enough."
The range and number of projects are all part of the energetic intensity that Handler brings to everything she does, whether in her work as a musician or raising her kids with her husband, an El Al Airlines technician, from their Tel Aviv home. But it's also about the music, as Handler is always seeking new directions for the tuba.
"The tuba is the rising star," she said. "I'm just lucky that I play it."
Handler's to-do list is long. She wants to teach more master classes around the world, and record another disc this year. And she always wants to continue putting the tuba at the front of the stage, and not in back, where it sat for so long.
Her regular schedule includes teaching at Tel Aviv's Levinsky International School and at Jerusalem's Academy of Music. During an upcoming week in February[3], she'll be hosting Beth Mitchell, another prominent female tuba player from the US, teaching master classes and performing recitals in Eilat, Or Akiva and Tel Aviv.
"It's a different vibe playing with Beth," said Handler. "She gets me and I get her because we're doing this in such a male-dominated field."
The lack of female tuba p layers doesn't bother her now, although it once did.
She remembers playing her first festival in Japan while she was still in university, and when she was accepted, the assumption was that she had received the position because she was a woman. After she performed, a bass player told her she'd done a great job, although he'd been sure she would "mess it up."
"At 20 that would annoy me, but now?" said Handler, "I'm very proud, I am the girl tuba player."
References
- ^ "Before It Ends," (youtu.be)
- ^ Idan Raichel's latest solo album (www.timesofisrael.com)
- ^ week in February (www.avitalhandler.com)
