Israel Yinon

Israeli conductor Israel Yinon was born on 11 January 1956 at Kfar Saba. He studied conducting, composition and music theory at the Tel Aviv Rubin Academy of Music and at the Jerusalem Academy of Music. His teachers included Mendi Rodan and Noam Sheriff.

He conducted the opening concert broadcast by the German radio station DS Kultur in 1991. The following year he played his first concert with the Brno Philharmonic, going on to tour Germany with the orchestra, and he made the first recording of the symphonic works of Viktor Ullmann, which won the German Record Critics' Award. He conducted much forgotten and unknown music, including that of Hans Krasa, Pavel Haas, Erwin Schulhoff, Heinz Tiessen and Eduard Erdmann. His recordings are on various labels, including Decca, Deutsche Grammophon, Koch and CPO.

Israel Yinon had a heart attack whilst conducting Strauss' Alpine Symphony in Lucerne, collapsing and falling off the stage. Despite attempts to revive him by a doctor in the audience, he died a short time later in hospital, on 29 January 2015, aged fifty-nine.