david israel

born november 27, 1967 in philadelphia on my mother, linda's, 27th birthday. (interesting family fact: curiously, both linda and i have the same gorbachev-like red birthmark on our right hands.)

1967-1969 spent my formative years in a small suburban town in new jersey, just over the bridge from philly. begin to develop thick philly accent. (wuter for water, warsh for wash, etc.)

1970 made first sound recording on a primitive tape recorder the size of a hippopotamus. listen to excerpts here. also: brother marc born. (interesting family fact: marc lived on and off between 1995 and 1997 in nyc with the poet, allen ginsberg.)

1971-1979 had a relatively normal childhood in a boring suburban new jersey town. public school, pal sports, trumpet lessons, summer camp, swim team, frequent trips to maternal grandparents in south florida (interesting family fact: grandfather, mervin widerman was an inventor. invented, among other things, hairclips in the 1930s. images: here, and another here.)

1980 big year! linda starts driving me to equally boring neighboring suburb where i begin private guitar lessons. more importantly, on october 21st the philadelphia phillies win the world series for the first time in history. my father milton and i are there at vet stadium along with 65,836 other fans to bear witness.

1981 form first band with friend carl johnson. i play guitar, carl plays keyboard with his right hand and bass with his left. at my bar mitzvah we force the band my parents hired off the stage and do our version of the stone's "brown sugar." guests cringe and head for the bathroom. windows implode, but we're thrilled to be playing in front of a crowd of 300+.

1982 i write my first song: "fly through the wind jimi" an homage to jimi hendrix (curious fact: hendrix was also born on nov 27th). more importantly: at the end of the summer, i win camper of the year.

1983 i purchase my first tascam multitrack recorder and start writing and recording original material. 5 other tascams will follow over the next 20 years, upgrading as technology improves.

1985 i begin studying with jazz guitarist pat martino in philadelphia. the relationship quickly progresses from teacher/student to one of friendship.

1986 i graduate high school, turn down college (u of miami for jazz studies) and move to glen cove, long island to work on a duets album with pat were we're offered free studio time from midnight to 8 a.m. every weekday. we record on the same 16 track that jimi hendrix recorded his are you experienced album on. i take that as a good sign. here's a photo of me and pat in the studio. don't laugh.

1987 pat pulls the plug on our album (for reasons still unknown to me) and i enroll in a consortium program at the university of hartford/trinity college/hartt college of music.

1988 after sitting through an uninspired student performance of a fittingly banal play called ajax written in 440 b.c.e. by some dimwit named sophocles, i naively decide i can create something better and spend the next several month writing my first piece of fiction: a play called peter the great based loosely on impresario serge diaghilev's ballet russe.

1989 i become a music critic and arts reporter for the campus paper. unfortunately, they won't let me review performances of my own compositions.

1990 october 14th, one of my idols, leonard bernstein, dies in his dakota apartment, nyc. i conduct a memorial concert for him at school. also: i meet lyricist tom toce and begin writing songs with him. tom lives in the big city. a yale grad. he's older. has kids. i'm intimidated by him at first, but he teaches me a lot about songwriting. is patient with me. soon we become good friends.

1991 march 13th, five months after bernstein's death, i meet charlie harmon, one of bernstein's former assistants, then in charge of editing and publishing bernstein's music. when he asks me what i'm going to do upon graduating college (a mere two months away), i cavalierly reply, "i'm going to work for you."

1991 june 1st, i move from hartford to manhattan and take a small apartment on the upper west side. everything i own fits in the trunk and back seat of a car.

1991 june 10th, i start working on bernstein's west side story in his dakota apartment. and so begins a wonderful five year voyage. i walk the streets of new york feeling on top of the world. i can't imagine life getting any better.

1992-1995 but it does get better as i continue editing/publishing definitive editions of bernstein's work. in addition to west side story (which took over a year to complete), i work on mass, on the town, wonderful town, clarinet sonata, and orchestral suite from a quiet place. i also help mount new productions of bernstein's works both here and overseas. these are my first trips to europe-very exciting. made even more exciting by working with such people as lauren bacall, kate light, comden & green, hal prince and michael tilson-thomas. also during this period, my own songs written with tom toce start to be performed and recorded by such artists as mandy patinkin, patti lupone, tovah feldshuh and andrea marcovicci.

1996-1998 my own career begins to gather momentum. at the same time, the bernstein clan decides i've done all i can do for them. these are lean, difficult years, never knowing where the next paycheck is coming from. my health begins to suffer, but work is tremendously rewarding. i write dance scores for paul taylor and twyla tharp and through these collaborations, my music tours the world. from new dehli to paris, from russia to hawaii, it's finally getting out there. but along with success comes more stress than i can handle. and i begin to break down, both emotionally and physically. in this gala photo, all appears normal. yet, to this day i have no memory of the evening whatsoever.

1999 october 18th. after a year where i'm so dizzy i can't stand up, and incorrect diagnosis from half a dozen doctors, i decide the only way to recuperate is to make a radical change. leaving my career and nyc behind, i move to the negev desert in israel and begin a new life. the idea is to do as little as possible. it's exactly what the doctors should have ordered. i spend new year's eve, the millennium, on the beach in sinai, egypt. there's no electricity at the beach, only candlelight. around 2 a.m., someone comes up to me and says, "hey, it's the new millennium! happy new year!" this is how secluded my life becomes. the rest of the world ceases to exist. i finally begin to find inner peace. in another year, the second palestinian intifada will erupt, putting a damper on my new life, but for now, things are turtle-quiet.

2000 after 4 months of doing very little besides watching my leg hairs grow, i begin to get back to my rock-n-roll roots by getting out the old guitar again. i also start a memoir.

2000 december 14th, over a year after moving to the middle east, i come back to nyc to do two concerts. a symphony which i had written years earlier is premiered at lincoln center by the american symphony orchestra. the concert, a fundraiser for the jcc is sold out. over 1,500 people show up. the following day i try my new songs at a solo gig down in cbgb's gallery. a whopping 7 people show up. i go back to the middle east for another year. this time, tel aviv.

2001 summer: i finish the memoir and share it with an agent back in nyc. she says it can't be published. that i'll be sued by at least one of my former collaborators, maybe more. she suggests turning it into a work of fiction. after some vacillation, i take her advice and start my first novel. post 9/11, i begin to find the ex-pat life quite difficult. i get homesick. i begin to miss my friends and family.

2001-2002 i finish the novel and start showing it around. no one wants to represent it. discouraged, i try to focus on my songwriting. long time friend carl johnson joins me in tel aviv and we form a new band together. first time since our high school daze. once again, i play guitar and he plays keyboards with his right hand/bass with his left. some things never change.

2002 march 1st, missing nyc, i travel home to see one of my paul taylor dance pieces performed at city center. i never wind up using the return ticket back to tel aviv. i'm officially an american once again.

2002 october: randomly, i meet a young random house editor named danielle durkin on the 4 train to brooklyn. she takes an interest in my fiction.

2003 january: it's a new year. i'm inspired and start a new novel about a young man who becomes a paraplegic after a near fatal car accident. sometime in may the novel is finished. sometime in june i decide that it's crap and throw it away.

2003 july: i go to penn station to catch a train to philly for milt's birthday (my parents have moved back to the city where i was born). i stop in hudson news to buy a book for the trip. i notice that all the books are geared toward women. too much chick-lit. there doesn't seem to be a good 'guy' book. a funny, quick read for the train. two weeks later, i start to fill that void. i show a sample chapter to danielle at random house. she loves it and encourages me to finish the book. a month and 45,000 words later, the novel is finished. i call it: behind everyman.

-to present: see my journal archives.