Artist makes ancient instruments

The Kansas City Jewish Museum presents the exhibit “Moshe Frumin — Ancient Instruments” March 14 through May 2 at the Epsten Gallery at Village Shalom.

The show features 21 musical instruments created by Israeli professor Moshe Frumin, who has constructed authentic recreations of ancient biblical instruments based on depictions discovered in archaeological discoveries from Israel.

This exhibition, organized by the Sherwin Miller Museum of Jewish Art in Tulsa, Okla., marks the first time Frumin has exhibited in the United States, and KCJMCA is the second and only additional venue to host this exhibition in the country.

The exhibition opens from 2-4 p.m. Sunday, March 14, at the Epsten Gallery at Village Shalom with a public reception; a gallery conversation with Karen York, curator of the Sherwin Miller Museum of Jewish Art, begins at 3 p.m. Sunday.

The Moshe Frumin exhibition has its roots in a project conceived in the late 1970s by the Haifa Museum in Israel. Frumin was chosen by the museum to participate in a project to reproduce musical instruments from the ancient world. Frumin found his life’s work in that project. He was “lured by the possibilities,” and, over the ensuing 30 years, he has searched for examples of instruments in ancient sculpture, paintings, coinage and biblical texts.

In his workshop in Kiriat Bialik, Israel, Frumin has sculpted numerous instruments; from lyres to harps to drums and shofarot. Frumin’s instruments are playable, hand-created, accurate recreations of instruments from biblical times that — perhaps — when played, sound the way they might have sounded during the time of King David.

Moshe Frumin was born in 1940 in Poland. He immigrated to Israel in 1948, and graduated from the Youth Village “Hadassim” and the Arts & Crafts College of Tel Aviv. He has a degree in education and creative art from Haifa University and a master’s degree in arts.
Frumin is a former member of the education faculty of the University of Haifa, where he founded the technology-in-education department. He also taught at WIZO Arts College in Haifa, qualifying teachers in technical arts, and for the Oranim Seminar at the Art and Design Institute, where he taught art and product design courses as well as headed the studio for wood, metal and plastic. He currently lectures at Western Galilee College and teaches several private sculpture courses.

Frumin’s numerous prizes include the Haifa Cherished Artist Award in 1996, The Spirit of Creation Award in 1997 and the Haifa City Medal in 2000. An active sculptor and photographer, Frumin is a member of the Israeli sculptors and Painters Association. His exhibitions include The Jewish Museum in Melbourne, Australia, The Bible Lands Museum in Tel Aviv, the Bnei-Zion Medical Center in Haifa, ISCAR and many private collections.

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