april 2005

While the truck inches from house to house in Carmiel, Krasnovsky rushes to bring the full cans to the truck, empties them and returns them back to their places. The city's residents generate a lot of garbage, he says.

Krasnovsky has been working in Carmiel's sanitation department for 14 years now. He is happy to have a steady job and a regular salary. His work day usually finishes at 9 A.M. Then he goes back to sleep, and when he wakes up again in the afternoon, he delves into his main vocation - composing and playing the organ. Krasnovsky is one of the few organists in Israel, and the only Israeli composer of organ music.

Two weeks vacation

Krasnovsky, 50, immigrated to Israel 15 years ago and has been living since then in Carmiel. He obtained a broad musical education in the Ukraine, where he also learned to play the organ even though there was not that much focus on this instrument in the former Soviet Union.

He says that he formed his real connection with the organ in Israel, although he finds it difficult to explain his attraction to the instrument.

"The organ is like a drug," he says. "You become addicted to it and can't quit."

Once a year Krasnovsky gets time off from the sanitation department and goes abroad to play concerts. He is often invited to play at huge churches in Europe. His concert schedule for his vacations for the next two years is already fully booked. He tries to fit all his invitations into his two weeks "off." Sometimes the city gives him an extra week of vacation, without pay.

"Krasnovsky is a strange bird," says Gerard Levi, founder of the Israeli organ lovers society. "He is imbalanced and strange. In Israel he is unknown and works as a garbage collector, but in Germany they wait for him and treat him with great respect. Very few musicians get to play in the prestigious places where he performs."

Levi says that Krasnovsky's talent as a composer surpasses his playing. "He is a very impressive composer," says Levi, "even though he has no working conditions. He does not even have an organ at home, only an electric keyboard that has a sound that annoys anyone who loves the organ, but he has tremendous willpower."

Krasnovsky explains how he writes his compositions. He sits down with paper and pencil beside the electric keyboard in his apartment and writes. When he's at work, he continues to polish each piece. Collecting garbage is a real source of inspiration, he says with a bitter smile. He also composes while he works. He writes hundreds of short, amusing songs, most of which reflect how difficult it is to be a Jew and the problems of life in Israel.

Krasnovsky does not share his thoughts on his travels and performances with his coworkers as they empty the garbage cans. He is afraid they will think him arrogant.

"I am just like them," he says, "no different at all. My high musical professionalism is not required there and does not interest anyone. If I am such a great musician, then why do I need that job? And if I need it, it means that I am just like them. At work I am like a nobody, shouting and cursing and smoking a lot of cigarettes with the rest of the workers, all of whom are counting how many streets are left until the end of their route."

Still, he admits that his situation troubles him.

"From the outside I may look successful, traveling abroad to perform, but I actually cannot make a living from music. I have to keep my job with the city."

Krasnovsky has already written three symphonies for the organ. One of them is "The Jewish Symphony." Krasnovsky says that this symphony is based on Jewish sounds with tragic tones, but it is not a composition from Jewish folklore.

"It is Jewish music from an intuitive perspective," explains Krasnovsky, "but in the structure of a classical romantic symphony."

Krasnovsky and European musicians play his works. He recently recorded them on a compact disc.

On rare occasions Krasnovsky performs here in Israel - in churches in Jerusalem or Jaffa. He sometimes even gives concerts in his home in Carmiel, on his electric keyboard. At one such concert, six years ago, a young woman in the audience caught his eye. A few months later they married.

Although it is difficult for Krasnovsky to get used to speaking Hebrew, and therefore to understand the local mentality, he is very involved in the Israeli experience. After the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, Krasnovsky composed "Mourning Yitzhak Rabin." Twice, the Foreign Ministry has sent Krasnovsky abroad to represent Israel - at the Israeli Arts Festival in Berlin and as a member of a delegation of Israeli artists to the Ukraine and Moldova.

Krasnovsky celebrates every trip to Europe and every concert. He recalls his performance a year ago in a church in Rome: "When you are surrounded by the works of Leonardo da Vinci hung on the sanctuary walls, there is no limit to your ability to play," says Krasnovsky, who adds that he will never forget the tremendous acclaim he received from the audience.

The morning after he returns from his European journeys, he shows up for work on the garbage truck, and life returns to its routine.

"I live for those performances," says Krasnovsky. "They are the most important thing in my life, the moments when I know who I am. And then from the heights I fall straight back into the garbage."