Israel Cultural Excellence Foundation

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The Israel Cultural Excellence Foundation (IcExcellence) is a private cultural foundation which identifies, nurtures and supports Israel's most outstanding artists.

The foundation locates Israeli artists who bear the highest potential for excellence in a wide variety of artistic fields: Visual arts; music: classical, jazz and Israeli; dance; theater; cinema; product design; visual communication; fashion design and writing. The foundation supports its chosen artists, on their road to excellence, for an extended period of up to five years.

IcExcellence was founded by its managing director Rachel Marani, formerly Israel’s cultural attaché in Washington. It is financed by businesspeople, companies and foundations from Israel and all over the world. The artistic advisory committees consist of some 35 top artists and public opinion makers, including six Israel Prize laureates, such as: Dubi Lenz, Gal Uchovsky, David Tartakover, Michal Smoira-Cohn, Chaim Topol, Dani Karavan, Yossi Marhaim, Mendi Rodan, Ohad Naharin, Danny Gottfried, Ron Arad, Asher Fisch, Gershon Bram, Alex Padua and Micha Lewensohn.

In 2003, IcExcellence and Rachel Marani were honored for their promotion of constructive change in Israeli society with the 2003 Leadership Formation Award, given by the Israeli alumni associations of American Ivy League universities Harvard and Wharton-Penn Harvard Business School.

Nurturing the artists focuses on two main areas:

Developing and advancing the artist’s knowledge and skills: Each artist, assisted by the artistic committee and the foundation, builds a tailor-made, personal advancement program suited to his or her field of art, personality and professional needs. The many programs formed to date vary from artist to artist, ranging from training with an international mentor, through taking exclusive advanced courses in a foreign country, to learning a relevant professional software program.

Developing and advancing the artist’s professional career: The foundation encourages the artists to assume a proactive approach to advancing their careers, based on the understanding that great artistic talent is a prerequisite but in itself does not suffice for developing a prominent local and/or international career. The foundation’s chosen artists currently enjoy a number of seminars and annual meetings dealing with “career skills.” At the seminars, the artists are exposed, generally for the first time in their lives, to subjects such as strategic and business counseling, lessons on self-presentation, marketing, branding, networking, and more. Experts are available to advise the artists throughout the year as well. Starting last year, artists are also being offered individualized business coaching.

[edit] IcExcellence Chosen Artists, 2002-2006:

Israeli Music: Shlomi Saban, Rona Kenan, Din Din Aviv, Ron Shem Tov (Izabo) and Liturgical Singer Lior Elmalich

Classical Music:Conductors Gil Shohat, Dan Ettinger and Yaron Gottfried

Jazz: Eli Degibri and Avishai Cohen

Theater: Actor Itay Tiran and Set and Lighting Designer Bambi Friedman

Writing: Author Etgar Keret

Film & Television: Directors Tomer Heymann and David Ofek

Visual Art: Yehudit Sasportas, Zoya Cherkassky, Adi Nes and Gal Weinstein

Visual Communication: Graphic Designer Adi Stern and Illustrator Rutu Modan

Fashion Design: Claudette Zorea and Mirit Weinstock

Choreography and Dance: Idit Herman (Clipa Theater), Yasmeen Godder and Emanuel Gat

Product Design: Ron Gilad and Tal Gur

[edit] External Links

• The Israel Cultural Excellence Foundation Website
• "The Chosen People", Aviva Lori, Ha'aretz, May 5 2005.