The Kansas City Jewish Museum is pleased to present MOSHE FRUMIN – ANCIENT INSTRUMENTS. This exhibition features 21 musical instruments created by Israeli Professor Moshe Frumin, who has constructed authentic recreations of ancient biblical instruments based on depictions discovered in archeological discoveries from Israel. This exhibition, organized by The Sherwin Miller Museum of Jewish Art in Tulsa, OK, 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.

This exhibition opens Sunday, March 14, 2010, at the Epsten Gallery at Village Shalom with a public reception from 2-4 p.m. and a gallery conversation at 3 p.m. with Karen York, Curator of The Sherwin Miller Museum of Jewish Art in Tulsa, OK. MOSHE FRUMIN – ANCIENT INSTRUMENTS will remain on view through Sunday, May 2, 2010.

MOSHE FRUMIN – ANCIENT INSTRUMENTS

This exhibition has its roots in a project conceived by the Haifa Museum in Israel in the late 1970s. Moshe 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 thirty years 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 shofar. 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 Poland, 1940, immigrated to Israel in 1948, and graduated Youth Village "Hadassim" and The Arts & Crafts College of Tel Aviv. He has a degree of Education and Creative Art from Haifa University and a Master's Degree of Arts. Chosen to participate in a project of The Haifa Museum of Music and Ethnology, Frumin learned to research and reconstruct musical instruments of the ancient world according to archeological findings. 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.