An interview with composer and new ROIer Matti Kovler, by Matt Kitzen-Abelson

As someone with an extensive background in music, I was pleased to have the opportunity to sit down with one of this year’s participants who uses music as a conduit through which to express distinctive aspects of Jewish culture and tradition, Matti Kovler. A classically trained composer with a deep affection for musical theater, Matti has come to ROI with the objective of rekindling the Jewish Community’s awareness of Art as a legitimate outlet for relaying the Jewish narrative.  He believes that Jewish musical theater traditions have become stagnant over the last 60 years, with Fiddler on the Roof serving as the immediate association to Jewish musical theater.  Despite acknowledging that the time-honored mantra, “Tradition!” has maintained a certain degree of unity within the Jewish world, Matti seeks to overcome what he views as a cultural preoccupation with preservation by shifting the focus to creation.  Through propelling original, innovative content in the genres of musical theater, opera, and instrumental music, Matti has made it his mission to usher in a new era of Jewish art as the Founder and Artistic Director of the Jewish Music Theater, currently based in Boston. 

At the height of the Jerusalem skyline stands the Crowne Plaza Hotel, a prominent tower in a city respected for modesty, yet remarkably fitting in its interim role as host to the beacon of creativity and collaboration that is the ROI Summit.  Today marks the commencement of ROI Community’s 8th annual gathering – a prestigious five-day conference in which 120 of the Jewish world’s future curators and leaders are inaugurated into a vast community of visionaries from Israel and the Diaspora.  Composed of artists, entrepreneurs, educators, and social change makers, this exclusive, talented cadre has gathered for the purpose of planning for the future of Jewish life through participating in a series of networking opportunities and master classes offered by leading Jewish thinkers.