Piris Eliyahu was born in Daghestan. He spent his childhood and early adult years there, during which he conducted ethnographic research on the musical traditions of the Mountain Jews situated in the Eastern Caucasus. In 1989 he emigrated to Israel. After some years he became head of the Theory course in the Ethnic School, formerly part of the Bar-Ilan university, and taught in the Centre for Middle Eastern Classical Music in Musrara neighborhood, Jerusalem. In 2007 he established the department for Middle Eastern Classical Music in Head college, and a year later he created the Ethnic Music Orchestra, under the department of World Music.
In addition to teaching, Eliyahu is a composer and a musician playing on the tar, a long-necked string instrument originating in Iran, but can also be found in Afghanistan, Georgia, Azerbaijan and other countries. He wrote original music for tar solo and for small music ensembles, as well as music for ballet, theatre and cinema. Classical music orchestras in Daghestan and in Israel played his compositions, which are based on the classical music that has developed over the course of hundreds of years in Persia, Azerbaijan, Turkey and Central Asia. Eliyahu also wrote a musical piece proclaimed by various journalists as the “first Mizrachi opera” (Wasserman, 448). In 2009 Eliyahu received the Prime Minister’s Award for composers in art music.
Source:
וסרמן, סימונה. “חדשנות מוזיקלית ומיסוד בשדה המוזיקה המזרחית האמנותית בישראל.” מוזיקה בישראל (קובץ בעריכת מיכאל וולפה, גדעון כ"ץ, טוביה פרילינג): מכון בן גוריון לחקר ישראל והציונות, אוניברסיטת בן גוריון בנגב, 432-471, 2014.
