Shanan Estreicher & Itamar Borochov
Biography Shanan Estreicher & Itamar Borochov
Itamar Borochov
Raised in the cosmopolitan port city of Jaffa, now resident in New York and a significant presence on the international jazz scene, Borochov is creating a new musical hybrid - bringing the sacred sounds of his upbringing to a jazz quartet setting.
His third release Blue Nights (Laborie Jazz 2019) is a nine-track multi-cultural joyride of enchanting lyricism, exotic motifs, anthemic builds and virtuosic expression.
Borochov first heard Sephardic music in his local synagogue and absorbed these ‘maqams’ (modes) of the greater Middle East and North Africa alongside a range of other musical influences, including the Mizrahi and Ashkenazi musical flavors that are his birthright. He began playing trumpet at the age of eleven and immersed himself in the discovery of jazz, inspired by the jazz trumpet lineage of Louis Armstrong, Clark Terry, Miles Davis, Kenny Dorham, Lee Morgan, and Booker Little through to Wynton Marsalis, and citing the influence of Ben Webster for his assured yet wistful warm airy tone. In 2007 Borochov relocated to New York to study at the New School and attend Barry Harris’s weekly workshops.
His deep knowledge of these various musical disciplines is expressed organically in his original jazz writing, building a bridge between the near-East and the modal styles of Miles Davis, John Coltrane and others.
“This synergetic quest is accomplished with great integrity, demonstrating in-depth knowledge only possible from one who has experienced these traditions firsthand.” – Jazz Magazine
Borochov performs on a custom-made Monette 4-valve quarter-tone trumpet which he uses to incorporate Maqams into his playing (the middle-eastern microtonal modes that are the musical language of his traditional upbringing).
In addition to recording three albums as a leader, Borochov also appears on three albums with Yemen Blues, of which he was a founding member, arranger and co-producer. He has toured across four continents and performed at prestigious venues such as Lincoln Center, The Kennedy Center, SummerStage at Central Park, Blue Note NY, Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club, Bimhuis, Flagey and international festivals including Roskilde, Vitoria, Lviv, Montreal & Ottawa Jazz Festivals, London Jazz Festival, Moscow Jazz Festival, Tel Aviv & Red Sea Jazz Festivals, Jazz à Liège & Shanghai World Music Festival. The Itamar Borochov Quartet was chosen to showcase at WOMEX 2019 in Tampere, Finland.
In 2021 Borochov was commissioned by Brazos Valley Symphony, Texas to compose a suite for jazz quartet and string orchestra - 'Emergence', which he first performed with the orchestra in June 2021. He also recorded a new work composed especially for him by Shanan Estreicher - ‘All You Shining Stars’ for improvised trumpet and string septet, which premiered online in February and will be released in May 2023.
Borochov won the prestigious 2020 LetterOne 'Rising Stars' Jazz Award European edition, which was presented to him in February 2021 by vocalist Dee Dee Bridgewater.
He returned to the studio in New York in 2022 with his quartet and Grammy award-winning producer Matt Pierson to record his fourth album, due for release in September 2023.
Shanan Estreicher
is a composer, songwriter, and educator living in New York City. He studied music at the Manhattan School of Music and Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College.
He has composed orchestral, choral, and chamber music, art songs, and music for theater, TV, and film. His compositions have been performed at Carnegie Hall, featured on NBC, Lifetime, and Fox, and can be heard on Composer Concordance Records (Naxos). As a songwriter, he released five albums as a solo artist and with the alt-country group The Brown Trousers. Shanan has collaborated extensively with Grammy Award-winning producer Brian Forbes and received grants from New Music USA and Queens Council on the Arts.
Recent seasons included premieres of All You Shining Stars by the Brazos Valley Symphony Orchestra featuring multi-genre trumpeter Itamar Borochov, Songs of Emily Dickinson by Sarah Shafer (Metropolitan Opera, San Francisco Opera) and the Chamber Orchestra of New York at Carnegie Hall, and various commissions for Composers Concordance and Access Contemporary Music.
This season will include premiere performances of A Concordance of Leaves, a new cantata for choir and baritone soloist with poetry by Philip Metres (Copper Canyon Publishing) by choral director James John, the Queens College Vocal Ensemble, and baritone soloist Andrew Wannigman. Shanan’s string quartet I Laughed So Hard I Cried will be premiered by the Overlook Quartet at Symphony Space in NYC as part of the Relevant Tones podcast series.
As a founding board member of the Chamber Orchestra of New York, Shanan has helped lead the ensemble to international success and acclaim. He served as Co-Artistic Producer for the orchestra’s Naxos recordings of Respighi’s The Birds, Ralph Vaughan Williams’s The Lark Ascending, Respighi’s Ancient Airs and Dances, and Salvatore Di Vittorio’s Symphonies 3 and 4. Shanan has also designed and launched an educational outreach program called Maestro Juniors for the orchestra which brings live classical music performances to title-one schools in New York City.
One of Shanan’s greatest joys is sharing his passion for music with children. For seventeen years he has taught music at a public school in Queens, NY. The documentary Rise Up and Sing—The Movie chronicles his work with the P.S./I.S. 127 Chorus. He is also the founder and director of the Queens County Choral Festival for elementary and middle school students.
