Roger Ychai has created a life less ordinary by finding out how the standard definitions of music and art didn't quite fit. David Rapp

When Roger Ychai expressed a desire to specialize in Persian music, his teacher agreed, on the condition that he purchase the string instruments in Iran. Roger was not fazed. The next day he bought a used motorcycle and set off on his journey. For over two weeks, he rode his motorcycle from morning to night. From France, he rode through Switzerland, Italy, Yugoslavia and Romania. Then he boarded a ferry to Turkey and from there, crossed the border into Iran.

That was back in 1969, after Roger attended a concert of oriental music at a private home in Paris. The music made a profound impression on him.

Roger will soon be turning 60. In his spacious art and music studio in Jerusalem, he organizes concerts of the type that changed his life more than 30 years ago in Paris.

The news has spread by word of mouth. On the second floor of an industrial building in Talpiot, in his studio, musical ensembles and soloists have been performing up to several times a week.

Roger grins as he remembers that trip to Teheran. It opened his eyes to the totality of the artist's life. The Romanian border police were not very welcoming. "I arrived at the border together with some other motorcyclists, and we were all pretty unkempt, with wild beards," he relates. " They refused to let us into the country, but a girl who worked at the border crossing took me aside and suggested that I declare myself an artist. She said that artists are always treated differently. Luckily, my occupation was already listed as "artist" in my passort. After lengthy negotiations, they finally let us in." The whole time Roger and his artist friends were in Romania, a police helicopter circled over their heads. Their entry was sanctioned only for transit purposes.

In Teheran, Roger met with Iran's minister of culture, who told him about an ancient music festival sponsored by the Shah at the antiquities at Persepolis. Roger rode another 1,000 kilometers to get there, and spent several months in Persepolis and Shiraz. Through music, he says, he was able to overcome the language difficulty. Although he was born in Algeria and lived there until the age of 16, he could, not even decipher the Arabic numerals on the telephones.

In Algeria, Roger had begun violin lessons at a very young age, and had made up his mind that he would be a musician The death of his violin teacher was a great trauma for him. At the age of eight, he took the two violins his parents had bought him to a music shop and exchanged them for a guitar. He never went back to playing the violin. In his teens, he decided that Algeria was not for him. "I was looking for something more cultured," he says. "Algeria was very Mediterranean. It didn't suit me." After a fierce argument with his parents, he immigrated to France. "I moved to Strasbourg, but I was very lonely there. I had enrolled in a vocational school to 'learn a profession', but I dropped out pretty quickly."

While visiting his brother, who lived in Paris, Roger heard the sounds of piano music coming up from the basement. Someone was playing Chopin. He stole downstairs and there he met the composer Andre Hajdu, who took him under his wing. In the years that followed, Roger studied music and painting in Paris. In 1968, he won a scholarship to study in Budapest. Because of that, he says he missed the student uprisings in France. Upon his return to Paris, he decided to enroll in music school. In those days, guitar was not considered a serious instrument, so he was forced to major in French horn.

Roger was disturbed by this arbitrary classification of instruments into "serious" and "not serious." In his eyes, it was intellectual dogmatism "Every evening I used to sit in the bohemian cafes of Paris and think about how I hadn't found what I was looking for," says Roger. "The musicians I met were always talking about technique, but I wanted something more spiritual, something less stiff. What interests me is the message and meaning of music, and the human being behind it. I don't want to know music. I want to live it."

Roger found this spirituality in Persian music. "When I returned from Iran with the instruments, I began to study with a master," he relates. "I delved into Persian religion and tradition. The context and practical aspects were as important to me as the theory. But I never gave up guitar. I made records of classical guitar music, including an adaptation of Bach for two guitars. I lived in a big house, where I taught music. People who want to study with me, live with me. For me, there is no separation between life, and art."

When his father died in 1979, Roger went through an emotional crisis. He left everything and moved to a beach town near Marseille. He remembers it as more than a period of personal bereavement. It was a time of philosophical existential doubt. "I was torn between the didactic Western approach, in which everything is written down, and the oral traditions of the East. I wasn't satisfied with either approach. Writing weighs you down and hinders newness and change. When every note is on paper, spontaneity is lost. Music turns into gymnastics of the eye and the hand."
But the Eastern approach wasn't the answer, either. "In the East, there is more emotion and room for improvisation which adds power to the musical language, but total reliance on a master narrows the horizons. 'The guru approach is actually a guard against artistic theft. The teacher sits and teaches his loyal students, who form a closed and secretive group. I don't like that."

Roger felt that he had reached a dead end. He decide to leave France, and deliberated wether to go to Israel or the United States. In his parents home, he reveals he was not exposed to Jewish tradition. Neither did he get a clear picture of family history. His maternal grandfather, a descendant of the Jews of Spain, was sent to the front in World War 1, where he was killed. His father was orphaned at a young age. "I got to a stage in my life where I didn't know who, I was," says Roger. "I didn't feel Algerian, and I didn't feel French. I was looking for an identity."

In 1981, Roger immigrated to Israel. As soon as he arrived, he spent three days alone in the desert, which, he says, did wonders for his soul. But Israel has strange ways of shaping identity. His first months in the country, were a great shock. "I couldn't teach because the students would arrive for a lesson an hour late or forget their instrument at home. I couldn't believe the lack of discipline. It killed me."

It was here, however, that Roger's musical career took off. He taught music at various institutions, wrote compositions of his own, including Ladino music, and, in 1986, was vited to perform at the Israel Festival.

Alongside this musical activity, he flourished as an artist: He began to paint and create collages. "In 1990, while I was cleaning the house for Passover, I found all these pictures and papers in the closet. I sat down with the material and started cutting and pasting. The result was a collage, which I worked on throughout the holiday."

Roger says that the subjects of his collages are related to issues he worked on in psychoanalysis. Hanging in his studio in Talpiot is a large collage composed of thousands of tiny pictures, many of them of clocks. Time and death are recurrent themes in his work.

Roger's curiosity about the connection between music and the plastic arts was the impetus for the current series of performances in his studio. One evening, for example, he asked the musicians to play in candlelight. Last week Samir Mahout was invited to play the oud. During the intermission, the audience strolled around the studio, helped themselves to tea or coffee, and had a look at some of Roger's work. Another performance revolved around Roger's collages. Roger turned the spotlight on his collages, one after another, and the, musicians improvised. a fitting piece of music.

"My collages are like stories," explains Roger. "Putting the little details together to create one big story is really an artistic improvisation. That's why they go so well with musical improvisation."

In 1995, Roger stopped doing collages and began to paint in oils under the tutelage of artist Anatoly Basin. In so doing, he says, he has moved from the world of words to the purely visual world. For Roger, the link between music and the plastic arts represents a marriage of the two different approaches upon which he was reared. "To look at a painting, you have to stand back a little. To listen to music, you, have to come closer. Western philosophy talks about the visual aspect of the light brought by Jesus, whereas Jewish philosophy is built on listening, as illustrated the Shma prayer ("Hear O Israel"). I love the interaction between disciplines. The purpose of art is to stimulate human beings, to get them to see and to hear."

In his enormous studio, which he rents from a company that has offices in the building, Roger combines life and art. With the help of his many students, he renovated the premisses and readied it for performances. The first season ended this week. The plan is to reopen in the fall.        .
"I have no parents and no children, but I'm not alone, says Roger. "I'm happy to be able to share this studio with students and artists. To be an artist is a calling, and want to fulfill that calling."