d today at the age of 98.
Goodbye to Ivry.
So Ivry Gitlis is gone, at the age of 98. To say that he was a ‘character’, who will be greatly missed, would be a ridiculous under-statement…
Born in Haifa – originally named Itzaak – to Russian-Jewish parents in 1922, he must have been an amazing child prodigy. At the age of eight, he was taken to see the great Bronislaw Hubermann; Ivry always remembered that Hubermann was sitting by a lake, dangling his feet in the water. This meeting, wet feet notwithstanding, led to Ivry making his way to Paris, accompanied by his (I’m sure – one could always feel it in Ivry’s personality) adoring mother, where he met and played for Thibaud and Enesco, and was accepted into the class of Jules Boucherit at the Paris Conservatoire at age 11. It feels strange, though, to use the words ‘Ivry’ and ‘Conservatoire’ in the same sentence. There was no way that Ivry would ever have fitted into any institution. His talent, his character, his charm, even his career – they were all wildly unique, impossible to tame, to pigeonhole….