| Biography | Alexander Tamir and Bracha Eden were Israeli pianists who performed as a duo. The duo met while studying at the Rubin Academy with Alexander Schroeder, a pupil of Artur Schnabel. Schroeder encouraged them to play together and they formed their piano duo in 1952. They continued their studies with Vronsky & Babin in the United States.
Alexander Wolkovsky (later Tamir) was born in Lithuania. In 1942, as an eleven-year-old, he composed a Yiddish song called "Shtiler, shtiler" ("Quiet, quiet"; also known as "Ponar" in Hebrew), for a music competition held in the Jewish ghetto. The song was set as a lullaby in order to confuse the Nazi occupiers. Many of the intended singers were killed before they could compete. The story of this episode and Tamir's return to his birthplace is told in the Israeli film Ponar. He changed his name to Tamir after settling in Jerusalem after World War II. |