Dror Feiler’s biography describes him as an “eye-bleeding composer of intifada and eruptive lung-bursts, music-trasher, saxophone screamer and computer terrorist.” The first time I met him, at his studio in Stockholm in 2009, all I knew about him was that he wrote loud music with gunshots. A few months earlier, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra had refused to play the premiere of a piece of his that they had commissioned, just moments before the performance—the reason being that it was too loud for the musicians.I know more about him now. Feiler has had a life more comparable to that of a war-zone journalist than of a typical composer. A paratrooper in the Israeli Defense Forces, he later renounced his Israeli passport, as required by law, to become a Swedish citizen. He has played in prestigious concert halls and for FARC rebel fighters in the forests of Colombia. And he was aboard the Freedom Flotilla, in 2010, when it was raided by Israeli forces and nine activists were killed. (A 10th entered a coma and later died.) An avid activist and long time left-wing party member, he ran for parliament in Sweden and only lost by few hundred votes. He is no stranger to controversy, not just in art or music, but in the bitterest feuds of partisan politics as well. Feiler’s music is strong, coarse, and deeply personal. We spoke in advance of his concert in Berlin on October 20.
I Am The Noise
An interview with Dror Feiler
