Music of Israel
Encyclopedia
The music of Israel is a combination of Jewish and non-Jewish music traditions that have come together over the course of a century to create a distinctive musical culture. For more than 100 years, musicians have sought original stylistic elements that would define the emerging national spirit. In addition to creating an Israel
i style and sound, Israel's musicians have made significant contributions to classical
, jazz
, pop rock
and other international music genres. Since the 1970s, there has been a flowering of musical diversity, with Israeli rock, folk and jazz musicians creating and performing extensively, both locally and abroad. Many of the world's top classical musicians are Israelis or Israeli expatriates. The works of Israeli classical composers have been performed by leading orchestra
s worldwide.
. Songs in the early days were often contrafacta
— Russian folk tunes with translated or new lyrics in Hebrew. An example is Shir Hamitpachat, ("Song of the Kerchief") a Polish song by Jerzy Petersburski (Niebieska chusteczka, Sinij Platochek, синий платочек) with Hebrew lyrics by the Israeli poet and lyricist Natan Alterman.Version of the song here is sung by Arik Sinai, from his album "Shirim Hozrim". Music sample published by www.Songs.co.il These Russian-style tunes are generally in a minor key, and often accompanied by accordion, or by guitar imitating the sound of the balalaika
.
melodies found their way into the canon of Israeli folk music, with lyrics translated from the Yiddish, or new Hebrew words. An example is Numi Numi (Sleep My Child), a song composed by Joel Engel based on a Hassidic lullaby, with lyrics by Yehiel Heilprin.Most full-length songs included here are taken from http://www.nostalgia.org.il/amuta/freemp3/music/, a project to release historic recordings of Israeli music into the public domain. Readers who cannot play music in the Wikipedia standard ogg format can hear the song in mp3 format at http://www.nostalgia.org.il/amuta/freemp3/music/Sleep_My_Child.mp3.
and Tamooz and singer-songwriters such as Shalom Hanoch
and Miki Gavrielov, laid the foundations for what is today the rich and varied scene of Israeli pop and rock. Mixing Western pop and rock with the original style of Israeli folk music and Oriental Jewish music, particularly Yemenite, Greek and Andalusian-Moroccan, creates together the original and unique sound of Israeli music today.
Among the leaders in Israeli music are singers and bands such as: Etti Ankri
, David D'Or
, Aviv Gefen, Rita, Shlomo Artzi
, HaYehudim
, Ivri Lider
, and Dana International
. Both Lider and International often sing songs dealing with their own sexual preferences — Lider's song "Jesse" is about unrequited homosexual love, and International, a transsexual, began her singing career as a drag queen. Other pop stars include Ninet Tayeb, Harel Skaat and Shiri Maimon — all winners of the Israeli talent search TV show "Israeli Pop Idol." Maimon represented Israel in the Eurovision Song Contest 2005
, and reached top 4 out of over 25 countries, with her ballad "Hasheket Shenishar" (the silence that remains).
, the kanun
, the Arabic violin, the darbouka and the Greek bouzouki
, alongside electric and acoustic guitars, pianos and other western instruments. The singers add Arab-style melismatic ornamentation, (silsulim in Hebrew), and often sing in a nasal tone, similar to Arab music. The melodies are often modal, swinging between major and minor, and diction is guttural. While Arab music is traditionally homophonic, based on melodic patterns called maqama
t, Muzika Mizrahit is closer to Greek music, has harmonic accompaniment and usually uses a western, 12-tone scale.
The distinctive East-West sonorities of Muzika Mizrahit have left their imprint on Israeli popular music. An example is Zohar Argov
's HaPerach BeGani ("The flower in my garden"), with lyrics and music by Avihu Medina
.Music sample is taken from www.songs.co.il
The music of Yemenite Jews
was particularly influential in the development of Israeli music because it was seen by early Zionists as a link to their biblical roots. The music of the ancient Hebrews, wrote the musicologist A.Z. Idelsohn, "is preserved in memory and practice in various Jewish centers ... Yemen, in South Arabia, [is] a community that lived practically in seclusion for thirteen hundred years..." There was a Yemenite Jewish
community in Palestine before 1900, and the European settlers who came in the 1920s were enamored of the Yemenite style. Many of the early Zionist folksongs were westernized versions of Yemenite songs. In the 1930s and 1940s, Yemenite singer Bracha Zefira researched and recorded many Yemenite songs, and also sang original compositions in the Yemenite style. An example is the song "Shtu HaAdarim" (Drink, the Flock),Song sample from www.songs.co.il with words by Alexander Penn
and music by Nahum Nardi.
Yemenite music reached a world audience in the 1980s as a result of the efforts of Israeli singer Ofra Haza
, whose album Yemenite Songs
became an international hit with world music fans. Haza grew up in a traditional Yemenite family who lived in Tel Aviv's poor Hatikva neighborhood. She became famous for singing pop music, but later in her career became something of a cultural ambassador for her community, both in Israel and internationally. Several of her most famous tracks, such as "Im Nin Alu", were reworkings of traditional Yemenite songs, many composed by Rabbi Shalom Shabazi
, a medieval poet and mystic whose spiritual and artistic achievements are universally revered in the Yemenite community. Shabazi's poetry dealt with both religious and secular themes, giving Yemenite music a wider lyrical range than many other forms of traditional Jewish music, which tend to be liturgical in nature.
Greek-style bouzouki
music became increasingly popular in the early 1960s. Aris San
, a non-Jewish Greek singer who moved to Israel and became an Israeli citizen, was the driving spirit behind this trend. One of Aris San's hit songs was "Sigal" (lyrics by Yovav Katz). Aris San, who worked at the Zorba club in Jaffa, owned and opened by Shlomo Bachramov wrote songs for Aliza Azikri (Bahayim hakol over, Yesh ahava ata omer), that effectively broke down the barriers between Israeli song and the world of Greek and Mizrahi music. The songs of the iconic Greek singer Stelios Kazantzidis
were translated into Hebrew and performed by the country's leading singers.
A number of young musicians traveled to South America in the late 1960s, and brought back Latin rhythms and sonorities which became a force in popular music through the 1970s. An example is the song "Noah" by Matti Caspi
.
The American folk movement of the 1960s and 1970s influenced the Israeli national style, and Israeli folksingers, among them Chava Alberstein
Song "Ayliluli" taken from website www.songs.co.il — patterned themselves after Judy Collins
and Joni Mitchell
. In the 1960s, guitar duos such as the Dudaim and the Parvarim performed not only "canonical" Israeli songs, but also Hebrew versions of American and British folk songs.
The 1970s saw the growth of a new eclecticism in Israeli music. Rock, jazz and other genres began to strike roots, influenced by worldwide trends but also adding elements that were uniquely Israeli.
The Idan Raichel Project, a successful pop/ethnic group formed in the 2000s, merges Ethiopian and Western music. Raichel collaborated with Ethiopian Jewish immigrants to produce a unique sound, combining Electronic music sounds, classic piano, electric guitar, traditional drums and Ethiopian-style singing, with its complex quartertone scales and rhythms. The songs are sung in a combination of Hebrew and Amharic.
songs has developed, known as "Shirei Eretz Yisrael" — "Songs of the Land of Israel" or "Zemer ivri". These songs, composed from 1920 to the mid-1970s, have certain identifying musical characteristics:
The first efforts to create a corpus of music suitable for a new Jewish entity that would eventually become Israel were in 1882. This was the year of the First Aliyah
, the first wave of Jewish immigrants seeking to create a national homeland in Palestine. As there were no songs yet written for this national movement, Zionist
youth movements in Germany and elsewhere published songbooks, using traditional German and other folk melodies with new words written in Hebrew. An example of this is the song that became Israel's national anthem, "http://www.israel-embassy.org.uk/web/sounds/hatikva.htmHatikvah
]". The words, by the Hebrew poet Naftali Herz Imber
, express the longing of the Jewish people to return to the land of Zion. The melody is a popular eastern European folk melody.
In 1895 settlers established the first Jewish orchestra in Palestine. The orchestra was a wind band, located in the town of Rishon LeZion, and played light classics and marches.
Avraham Zvi Idelsohn
, a trained cantor from Russia and a musicologist, settled in Jerusalem in 1906, with the objective of studying and documenting the musics of the various Jewish communities there. At the time, there were a number of Jewish enclaves in Jerusalem, for Yemenites, Hassids, Syrians and other Jewish ethnic groups. Idelsohn meticulously documented the songs and musical idioms of these groups. He also made the first efforts to bring these songs to the attention of all Jewish settlers, with the aim of creating a new Jewish musical genre.
Idelsohn was joined in Palestine by a few more classically trained musicians and ethnomusicologists, including Gershon Ephros in 1909 and, later, Joel Engel in 1924. Like Idelsohn, Engel worked to disseminate traditional ethnic tunes and styles to the general Jewish public of Palestine.
The Second Aliyah
, beginning in 1904, saw an increase in composition of original songs by Jewish settlers in Palestine. Among the earliest composers of folk songs were Hanina Karchevsky ("BeShadmot Beit Lehem"), and David Ma'aravi ("Shira Hanoar").
Over the next 30 years, Jewish composers in Palestine began to seek new rhythmic and melodic modes that would distinguish their songs from the traditional European music they had been brought up on. Leaders of this musical movement were Matityahu Shelem ("VeDavid Yefe Eynaim", "Shibbolet Basadeh"), Yedidia Admon ("Shadmati"), and others. These composers sought to imitate the sounds of Arabic and other Middle Eastern music. They used simple harmonies, and preferred the natural minor to melodic and harmonic minors used by European music. They especially eschewed the interval of the augmented second, part of the "gypsy minor"
scale used typically in klezmer music. "Its character is depressing and sentimental", wrote music critic and composer Menashe Ravina in 1943. "The healthy desire to free ourselves of this sentimentalism causes many to avoid this interval."
Some musicians of the period, like Marc Lavry
, wrote in both the new Hebrew style and the European style in which they were trained. For example, "Zemer" is a song in the new style; Dan HaShomer
is an opera in the European classical tradition. Others, like Mordechai Zeira, lamented the fact that they did not write in the new Hebrew mold. Zeira, one of the most prolific and popular composers of the period ("Hayu Leylot", "Layla Layla", "Shney Shoshanim"), referred to his inability to write in the new style as "the Russian disease".
Emanuel Zamir worked in the 40s and 50s in a genre known as "shirei ro'im" (shepherd songs). He combined Bedouin music
with Biblical-style lyrics, often accompanied by the recorder.
In light of the national importance of creating a new Hebrew repertoire, the effort received support of national institutions. The Histadrut Labor Union
, which, prior to the founding of the state of Israel served many of the functions of a government, created the "Merkaz LeTarbut" (Cultural Center), which published many songbooks, and subsidized the composition of works by Hebrew composers. Public singalongs were actively encouraged. The kibbutz
movements distributed songsters and established the singalong as a central daily event in kibbutz life. Public singalongs were also seen as a way of teaching Hebrew to new immigrants from Europe and, later, from Middle Eastern countries.
The state radio has also been a powerful force in promoting the Hebrew song. Until 1990, all radio and television stations were government owned and controlled. As such, they were leading arbiters of taste in Palestine and later in Israel. "... the stations perceived it their duty to initiate special projects for the preservation of the Israeli song heritage and to encourage the writing and recording of 'authentic' music."
According to Netiva Ben-Yehuda, linguist and music historian, youths carried notebooks to jot down the songs they would sing with their friends.
This view—that Israeli music is a defining element in the creation of Israeli culture—continues to this day, and influences artists in all musical genres—pop, rock, and classical.
The cabarets were launching pads for the careers of some of Israel's leading popular music stars: Shoshana Damari, who popularized Yemenite-style singing worldwide, started performing as a teenager at Li-La-Lo; Yaffa Yarkoni also started as a cabaret singer. Composers Nahum Nardi ("Shtu HaAdarim", "Cakhol Yam HaMayim"), Moshe Vilensky ("BeKhol Zot Yesh Ba Mashehu", "Hora Mamtera"), Daniel Sambursky ("Shir Haemek", "Zemer HaPlugot"Song is from www.nostalgia.com), and others created songs that became part of the canonical Israeli repertoire. Poet Natan Alterman wrote many of the lyrics.
The cabarets also contributed to diversity in Israeli music. Many of the songs were in a popular, light style, distinct from the New Hebrew style or the Russian folk style that was prevalent. Many songs were in the major key rather than minor, had upbeat rhythms and included tangos, sambas and other Latin styles.
Cabarets and musical reviews continued after the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948.
, concertmaster of the Berlin Philharmonic, Paul Ben-Haim
, composer and opera conductor, and composer Alexander Boskovitz.
Just as writers of popular music sought a new Hebrew style, many classical composers sought new modes of composition that would give expression to their new national identity. "... One cannot continue in this country writing works which are based on purely western concepts", wrote music critic David Rosolio in 1946. "The landscape, the lifestyle, the environment, all require a change and fundamentally different approach." Boskovitz in his "Semitic Suite" for piano (1945) writes in a homophonic style with a drone accompaniment and repeated notes, imitating the sound of the Arabic oud and kanun. Ben-Haim wrote "Sonata A Tre" for cembalo, mandolin and guitar (1968), which also has a distinctly Middle Eastern sound.
By 1935, Jewish musicians throughout Europe were faced with dismissal, persecution, and expulsion. To meet the pressing need to rescue these musicians, concert violinist Bronislaw Huberman
decided to form an orchestra in Palestine — both as a safe haven and as a unique musical endeavor. Huberman recruited musicians from Europe's leading orchestras, and the Palestine Philharmonic made its debut in December 1936, under the baton of Arturo Toscanini
. The Israel Philharmonic Orchestra
has been a leading force in Israeli music and culture. It has debuted many works by Israeli composers, and has helped launch the careers of many Israeli musicians. The orchestra has played a number of concerts that have had historic significance for Israel. In 1967, immediately after the 1967 war, conductor Leonard Bernstein
led the orchestra on a tour to the Sinai desert, the site of fighting only days before. The symphony also performed on the Lebanese border in the 1980s, playing to an audience of mixed Israelis and Lebanese who gathered on both sides of the border fence to listen. Music director Zubin Mehta
, though not himself an Israeli, speaks some Hebrew and is an important figure in the Israeli musical scene.
In the wake of decades of conflict with the Arabs, the themes of war and peace have become an integral part of Israeli music. From pre-state times until the present day, many songs deal with war, sacrifice, loss, heroism, and the longing for peace. Extremely militaristic songs that glorify triumph over the enemy are not the standard in the Israeli repertoire. Rather, most songs dealing with war are melancholy in tone. An extreme example is the song "Eliphelet": to a halting melody in a minor key by Sasha Argov
, the song (lyrics by Natan Alterman) tells of a boy "without a penny's worth of character", who is killed in combat for an unthinking error of judgment.Music sample taken from www.Songs.co.il
The influence of the military on Israeli music, however, goes far beyond its being a source of inspiration for songs. The military establishment has been an active promoter of music, through its corps of military performance groups, and through its army-run radio station, Galei Tsahal.
Since the 1950s, the Israel Defense Forces
(IDF) has run performing groups called Lehakot Tsva'iyot (Army Ensembles). These groups, comprising enlisted soldiers with talent or performing experience, tour bases and field positions to entertain the troops. Performing original materials meticulously prepared and performed, these groups became leaders in the Israeli music and entertainment field. Many of Israel's most popular songs were written for the Lehakot Tsva'iyot — for example, "Dina Barzilai" (words: Haim Hefer, music: Sasha Argov), "Halleluya" (words and music: Yair Rosenblum), "Yeshnan Banot" (words: Yoram Tahar-Lev, music: Yair Rosenblum). Dubi Zeltzer, considered one of the founding fathers of Israeli pop music, wrote many of the songs for the Nahal Brigade entertainment troupe.
The Lehakot Tsva'iyot were incubators for performers and composers who, from the 1960s to the present, have become Israel's stars. Among the artists who began their careers in the Lehakot are Arik Einstein
, Chava Alberstein
, the members of Kaveret
, Yehoram Gaon
,Music sample of Yehoram Gaon's song "Nehederet" is extracted from the playback on Gaon's personal website, www.yehoramgaon.com. Nehama Hendel, Yardena Arazi
, Shlomo Artzi
, Etti Ankri
, and David D'Or
. Composers and lyricists who made their names writing material for the Lehakot include Naomi Shemer
, Yohanan Zarai, Yoni Rechter
, Nurit Hirsh
, and Yair Rosenblum.
Galey Tsahal
, the IDF-run radio station, has been a force in promoting original Israeli music. Galey Tsahal began broadcasting in 1950. It devoted much of its broadcast time to popular music.
The music of the Lehakot and of Galey Tsahal was not specifically military music; most of the songs produced and broadcast were general songs. However, the IDF did see music as an important propaganda tool, and actually sponsored the composition of songs on subjects it deemed important. For example, lyricist Haim Hefer
was invited to spend a week accompanying the elite commando group "Haruv", and to base a song on his experience. The result was "Yesh Li Ahuv BeSayeret Haruv" (I have a lover in the Haruv commando unit) (music: Yair Rosenblum).
marked an important turning point in Israeli culture. In the words of Amos Elon
, "in the Six Day War of 1967, the Israeli people came of age... it marked the transition from adolescence to maturity." The period after the war saw a burgeoning of cultural activity — within a few years, the number of art galleries increased by a third, the number of theaters doubled, and a proliferation of restaurants, night clubs, discothèques opened. Economic growth went from 1 percent per annum before the war to 13 percent the following year.
The Israeli music scene opened up to the rest of the world. Rock music, which prior to the war had almost no audience and was almost never played on the state radio, started drawing audiences. Muzika Mizrahit, the underground style of popular music enjoyed by Israelis of Sephardic origin
, gradually gained legitimacy and recognition. Israeli musicians performed abroad with increasing frequency, and European and American musicians came to Israel to perform.
In this growth of diversification, much Israeli music lost its national flavor, and became largely inspired by international styles. The Israeli preoccupation with defining a national style faded. "I don't like the attempt to be ethnic very much", said rock musician Shalom Hanoch in an interview. "I don't search for roots [in my music], my roots are within me... I don't have to add oriental flavor for people to know that I am from the Middle East."
Nonetheless, many Israeli musicians, both popular and classical, continued to be concerned with defining a distinctly national identity in their music.
in Jerusalem and the Buchmann-Mehta School of Music in Tel Aviv — as well as two private schools that teach mostly jazz and popular music (The Rimon school in Ramat Hasharon and the Hed school in Tel Aviv).
Until the end of the 1980s, the Israeli government, primarily through its control of radio and television, continued to play a central role in shaping the musical tastes of Israelis. In 1965, a feud between rival concert promoters was behind conservative forces in the government that refused to allocate foreign currency to pay for the Beatles to play in Israel. Some rock and Muzika Mizrahit artists complained that the radio and television discriminated against their music, preventing the commercial success of these increasingly popular genres.
With the commercialization of Israeli radio and television in the 1990s, the hegemony of the state-run media as arbiters of musical taste declined. In their place, recording companies, impresarios and clubs became increasingly important in finding new talent and advancing careers, in a manner more typical of European and American industries.
Song contests received an important boost in 1978
when the Israeli song "A-Ba-Ni-Bi
", sung by Izhar Cohen
and Alphabeta
, with words by Ehud Manor
and music by Nurit Hirsh
, won first prize in the Eurovision Song Contest
. Israel won first prize again the following year
with "Halleluyah" (lyrics: Shimrit Or, music: Kobi Oshrat, performed by Gali Atari
and Milk and Honey
), and a third time in 1998
, when the Israeli transsexual rock star Dana International
sang "Diva
" (lyrics: Yoav Ginai, music: Svika Pick
).
Although geographically not in Europe
, Israel is within the European Broadcasting Area
and is a member of the European Broadcasting Union
, and can thus participate in the Eurovision Song Contest. Israel made its first appearance there in 1973
.
The first successful rock group in Israel was "The Churchills
", formed in 1967 by guitarists Haim Romano and Yitzhak Klepter. Singer Arik Einstein, a graduate of the Lehakot Tzva'iyot and a rising star in the Israeli music world, chose them as his backup group in 1969, and together they were the first group to offer a publicly acceptable rock sound.
In the 1970s, the Israeli rock idiom was developed by:
, Yehoram Gaon
and Naomi Shemer
continued to write and perform songs in the canonical "Land of Israel" style. Naomi Shemer's songs, including "Yerushalayim Shel Zahav" (Jerusalem of Gold), "Hoy Artsi Moladeti" (Oh my Land My Homeland, lyrics Shaul Tchernichovsky
), "Horshat HaEkaliptus" (The Eucalyptus Grove), have become icons in the patriotic repertoire. Much of her success, including "Yerushalaim Shel Zahav", was due to the song contests of the time.
Bridging the parallel developments of Israeli rock and the continuation of the Land of Israel tradition was a group of musicians who sought to create an authentic Israeli style that would incorporate elements of the new rock sound. These artists include Yehudit Ravitz
,Song sample "Lakahat Et Yadi BeYadeh" taken from http://www.songs.co.il. Yoni Rechter
, Shlomo Gronich
, Matti Caspi
, as well as rock pioneers Gidi Gov
, Danny Sanderson
and Arik Einstein
. Their style of progressive rock often adopted the lyrical ballad style of the canonical repertoire, and mixed traditional instruments—flute and recorder, darbuka, and acoustical guitar—with electric guitars, trap sets and synthesizers. Unlike typical hard rock, with its repetitive common-time rhythms and straightforward chord progressions, the songs of these artists were often complex rhythmically and harmonically. Matti Caspi's song "Noah", for example, has a Latin feel, with strong jazz-like offbeats, chromatic harmonic accompaniments, and words relating to the biblical story of Noah. David Broza
made flamenco
style music popular in the late 70s and 80s.
Rock was something of a musical revolution for Israel. However, unlike the rock music of America in the 1960s and 1970s, it was not always an expression of social revolution. Israeli rock, up until 1985, with the appearance of Aviv Gefen, almost never dealt with the themes of drugs, sex, youthful anger and alienation (though Arik Einstein's "Shuv Lo Shaket" is an exception), and revolution. Its stars, with the exception of Shalom Hanoch
and Svika Pick
, were clean-cut Israelis, mostly with neatly trimmed hair, who had served in the army and were exemplary citizens.
Aviv Gefen changed that. Starting his career at age 17, Gefen appeared on stage in drag and heavy makeup, bragged about his evasion of the draft, and sang about drugs, sex and alienation in a hard-rock style reminiscent of Punk Rock. His music struck a deep chord among Israeli youth. He also symbolised the break with the old traditions, though his Beatles and Pink Floyd influenced music was in no sharp contrast stylistically to that of his father, Yehonatan Geffen
, one of the leading lyricists of the day.
Aviv Gefen is still considered as one of Israel's biggest selling contemporary male artist today, though his style and early provocative appearance has dramatically mellowed in recent years.
Since 1980, the number of Israeli groups has multiplied, with hundreds of groups singing in all modern styles. Leading performers have included the internationally acclaimed dance music singer Ofra Haza
(singer of "Im Nin'Alu
", from the album Shaday
[1988]), Berry Sakharof
,Sample of song "Raash Lavan" taken from www.songs.co.il often referred to as "The Prince of Israeli Rock"; Rami Fortis
, the groups "Efo HaYeled?" (Where is the Child?), "Ethnix
", "Teapacks
", "Tislam", "Mashina
", "Zikney Tzfat" (The Elders of Safad), "Rockfour
", "HaMakhshefot" (The Witches), "Mofa Ha'arnavot Shel Dr. Kasper"(Dr. kasper's Rabbits Show) and Monica Sex
.
Singers who mix rock and pop elements with the traditional songs of the Land of Israel are usually achieving tremendous popularity and considered as leading acts in Israeli music today, singers such as Rita
, Shlomo Artzi, Achinoam Nini
, Ivri Lider
, Aviv Gefen, Dana Berger, Evyatar Banai, Harel Skaat
, Ninet Tayeb, Shiri Maimon
, Dana International
, Sharon Haziz, Mika Karni Roni Duani, David D'or
, Metropolin and many more. Most of these artists also like to mix some elements of electronic sounds of Dance music, so you can find style influences of pop icons such as Madonna
and Kylie Minogue
in Israeli music as well.
works in the genres of world and Middle Eastern music in Israel, imbuing Israeli music with Arabic and Bedouin influences. He also runs the East West House, where some of the country's youngest talents come to play their esoteric ethnic music in the eclectic and mixed Jewish and Arabic environment of Jaffa
.
is popular in Israel, and some Israeli trance artists have gained international recognition, among them Alien Project
, Astrix
, Astral Projection, Maor Levi, and Infected Mushroom
. Offer Nissim
is one of the most internationally acclaimed contemporary house music producers.
and hip hop
with groups such as Hadag Nahash
, Subliminal
, Sagol 59
and Kele 6 performing Israeli hip hop
.
. Though some heavy metal in Israel is seen as Satanic, Orphaned Land
and Melechesh
have overcome controversy and become well known in the extreme metal underground.
Other Israeli composers of note, including Noam Sherif, Ami Maayani, Yehezkel Braun
, and Zvi Avni, have also used Jewish and Israeli themes in their compositions. A new generation of composers includes Yitzhak Yedid
, Lior Navok
, Gilad Hochman
.
In addition to the Israel Philharmonic, a number of other Israeli orchestras have achieved renown. These include the Jerusalem Broadcast Orchestra, which is supported by the state radio and television authority; the Rishon LeZion Orchestra, and the Camerata Orchestra. One of the motivations for creating these orchestras was to provide employment for Russian immigrant musicians, who arrived in Israel with a high professional level but could not find jobs in their field.
The New Israel Opera Company was founded in 1985. This was the first successful attempt to establish a permanent repertory opera, after a series of failed attempts starting in the 1940s In 1995, the Opera moved into a permanent home in the Golda Center in Tel Aviv.
Israel has produced some of the world's leading performers and conductors. These include pianist and conductor Daniel Barenboim
, and a large number of violinists, among them Itzhak Perlman
, Pinchas Zukerman
, Gil Shaham
, Ivry Gitlis
, Gil Shohat and Shlomo Mintz
.
The Jerusalem Quartet is a string quartet that has achieved international acclaim. Other leading chamber groups include the Jerusalem Trio, the Tel Aviv Soloists, the Carmel Quartet
and the Aviv Quartet.
The Muzika Mizrahit movement started in the 1950s with homegrown performers in the ethnic neighborhoods of Israel — the predominantly Yemenite "Kerem Hatemanim
" neighborhood of Tel Aviv, Moroccan neighborhoods and neighborhoods of Iranian and Iraqi immigrants — who played at weddings and other events. They performed songs in Hebrew, but in a predominantly Arabic style, on traditional instruments — the Oud
, the Kanun, and the darbuka. Jo Amar and Filfel al-Masry, were two early proponents of Moroccan and Egyptian extraction. In the 1960s, they added acoustic guitar and electric guitar, and their sound became more eclectic. Vocalists typically decorated their singing with melisma
and other oriental-style ornaments, and delivery was often nasal or guttural in character. Intonation was typically Western, however; singers did not use the quartertone scales typical of Arabic music.
Lyrics were originally texts taken from classic Hebrew literature, including liturgical texts and poems by medieval Hebrew
poets. Later they added texts by Israeli poets, and began writing original lyrics as well. An example is the song "Hanale Hitbalbela" (Hannale was confused), sung by Yizhar Cohen. The lyrics are by the modern Hebrew poet and lyricist Natan Alterman, to a traditional tune.
In the 1970s and early 1980s, a few of these performers began distributing their songs on cassette tapes. The tapes were an instant hit. They were sold in kiosk
s in the rundown shopping area around the Tel Aviv bus station, and the music became known derogatorily as "Muzikat Kassetot", cassette music, or "Bus station music". Performers during this period included Shimi Tavori
, Zehava Ben
Sample of Zehava Ben's song "Pashut VeAmiti" taken from www.songs.co.il. and Zohar Argov
, whose song "HaPerah BeGani" (the Flower in my Garden) became a major hit. Argov, a controversial character who died in 1987 by suicide while in jail, became known as the "King of Muzika Mizrahit"; he became a folk hero, and a movie was made of his life.
Despite the obvious popularity of this music, the state radio eschewed Muzika Mizrahit almost entirely. "The educational and cultural establishment made every effort to separate the second generation of eastern immigrants from this music, by intense socialization in schools and in the media", wrote the social researcher Sami Shalom Chetrit.
The penetration of Muzika Mizrahit into the Israeli establishment was the result of pressure by Mizrahi composers and producers such as Avihu Medina
, the overwhelming, undeniable popularity of the style, and the gradual adoption of elements of Muzika Mizrahit by mainstream artists. Yardena Arazi
, one of Israel's most popular stars, made a recording in 1989 called "Dimion Mizrahi" (Eastern Imagination), and included original materials and some canonic Israeli songs. Also, some performers started developing a fusion style of Muzika Mizrahit, Israeli, Greek, rock, and other styles. These included Ehud Banai
, Yehuda Poliker
, and Shlomo Bar
, whose group "HaBrera HaTivit" (The Natural Choice, or the Natural Selection) incorporated Sitar
s, tabla
, and other Indian
instruments to create a new, "World
" style.
The acceptance of Muzika Mizrahit, over the 1990s, parallels the social struggle of Israelis of Mizrahi origin to achieve social and cultural acceptance. "Today, the popular Muzika Mizrahit has begun to erase the differences from rock music, and we can see not a few artists turning into mainstream... This move to the mainstream culture includes cultural assimilation", writes literary researcher and critic Mati Shmuelof.
One of the pioneers of Hassidic rock was the "singing rabbi," Shlomo Carlebach
, who developed a large following in New York in the 1960s, singing religious songs in a folk style reminiscent of Peter, Paul and Mary
. Israeli Hassidic rock performers include the group "Reva LeSheva" and singers Adi Ran
and Naftali Abramson. Because of an halakhic
restriction on women singing to mixed audiences, there are no women in Hassidic rock groups. Concerts will usually be gender segregated.
While the style is embraced enthusiastically by the religious Zionist
movement, including Gush Emunim
, it is not without its opponents within the Haredi
community. Some Haredi rabbis have "a hard time with someone screaming out `Yes, there's the Holy One, blessed be He' at the top of his lungs all of a sudden", says Kobi Sela, religious music critic.
community in Israel, comprising 20 percent of Israel's permanent population at the end of 2007, has developed its own unique forms of musical expression.
Until the early 1990s, little original music was produced by this community and the focus was on the great stars of the Arab world – Umm Kulthum, Fairuz
, Farid al-Atrash
, and others. Original local music did not achieve popularity or wide distribution among the local population until the 1980s. For the most part, local performers at weddings and other events played music written in Egypt
, Lebanon
, and Syria
.
With the onset of the 21st century, local stars emerged, among them the internationally acclaimed oud
and violin virtuoso Taiseer Elias, singer Amal Murkus
,Video interview and song taken from http://www.freemuse.org/sw589.asp. and brothers Samir and Wissam Joubran
. Israeli Arab musicians have achieved fame beyond Israel's borders: Elias and Murkus frequently play to audiences in Europe and America, and oud player Darwish Darwish (Prof. Elias's student) was awarded first prize in the all-Arab oud contest in Egypt in 2003.
Living as an Arab minority within Israel has been an influence on Israeli Arabs, which is reflected in their music. Israeli Arab musicians are in the forefront of the quest to define their emerging identity. Lyrics deal with issues of identity, conflict, remembrance and peace. For example, Kamilya Joubran's song "Ghareeba", a setting of a poem by Khalil Gibran
, deals with a sense of isolation and loneliness felt by the Arab Palestinian woman:Song sample is from Kamilya Jubran – Ghareeba
Several groups have emerged, such as Elias's Bustan Avraham, The Olive Leaves, and Shlomo Gronich's Israeli-Palestinian ensemble in which Jews and Palestinians perform together, creating a fusion style of music. Joint musical bands such as Zimrat Yah, Shams Tishrin, Blues Job, and Sahar, appear all over Israel, particularly in the Galilee
.The Olive Leaves gave a successful concert tour in Jordan in 1995, with lead singer Shoham Eynav (Jewish) singing songs in both Hebrew and Arabic.
Israeli Arabs have also branched out into other musical styles. Palestinian hip-hop artist Tamer Nafar, founder of the rap group DAM, became an independent rap star after a politically charged dispute with Israeli rapper Subliminal. His music expresses the frustration and alienation that many Israeli-Palestinians feel. The rock music of Basam Beromi, singer of the group "Khalas" (Enough!), protests against the strictures of traditional Arab society. The song "What have we come to?", for example, tells the story of a young girl in love, whose family murders her for violating strict traditional codes of courtship
. London-trained guitarist Michel Sajrawy combines jazz, rock, and gypsy with classical Arab music.
While music education for Israeli Arabs is less developed, there has been a steady growth of opportunities in this sector. The Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance
has an advanced degree program, headed by Taiseer Elias, in Arabic music. In 2007, the first precollege conservatory for the Arab-speaking population opened in Shfaram.
, and others. Between 1949 and 1950, almost all these professional musicians fled Iraq for Israel. The Israel Broadcasting Authority (IBA) Arabic Orchestra was instrumental in sustaining their musical traditions in Israel.
Many of these musicians were forced to seek employment outside the music business, but they continued to perform in the community. "Our musical tradition continues", said Suad Bazun, singer and daughter to a family of leading Iraqi musicians. "Today the grandchildren and the great-grandchildren continue to fill their homes with the songs of Iraq."
in Israel. A number of private language institutes and universities offer programs in these languages, which were the spoken languages of Jews of the Diaspora. A Yiddish theater group, the YiddishShpiel, in Tel Aviv, offers popular musical shows. Several leading Israeli artists have recorded songs in these languages, including an album in Ladino by Yehoram Gaon
, and an album in Yiddish by Chava Alberstein
."Shirei Am BeYiddish" (1977), produced by NMC. Song sample is from www.songs.co.il
Also, a number of new anthologies of Yiddish songs have been compiled, including a seven-volume anthology edited by Sinai Leichter, published by the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
s in Israel. They come from the Philippines, Thailand, India, China, Africa, Eastern Europe, and elsewhere. Each community of migrant workers has its own musical culture. A visitor to the neighborhood of the Central bus station in Tel Aviv will hear strains of popular music from Addis Ababa, Bangkok, and Manila. Foreign workers also have their local popular music groups, that perform at parties and on holidays.
The Israel Ministry of Education supports 41 music conservatories throughout the country. Conservatories offer programs for all ages. One of the most notable of these is the Stricker Conservatory of Tel Aviv, which, besides offering lessons and courses, sponsors a number of concert series and master classes by visiting artists.
A number of institutions of higher education offer degrees in music and musicology. In addition to the two music academies in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, both Tel Aviv University
and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem
offer advanced degrees in musicology. The Hebrew University is also home to the Jewish Music Research Center. Bar-Ilan University
has BA, MA and PhD programs in musicology and a program in music therapy; in 2007, its Safed College opened a three-year program in ethnic music including Klezmer, Hassidic, Western and Eastern music styles. Levinsky College offers a teaching certificate of a BA degree in music education.
Music education does not end with degree programs. Israel offers numerous opportunities for adult musicians to continue learning and performing, even if they do not pursue this as a career. There are two organizations for amateur chamber music players — The Israel Chamber Music Club, for string players, and Yanshuf for wind players. There are more than 20 community orchestras scattered throughout Israel for amateur musicians.
supporters have taken a repertoire of old religious songs and invested them with political meaning. An example is the song "Utsu Etsu VeTufar" (They gave counsel but their counsel was violated). The song signifies the ultimate rightness of those steadfast in their beliefs, suggesting the rightness of Gush Emunim
's struggle against anti-settlement policy by the government.
In 1967 war, Israel annexed Arab neighborhoods surrounding Jerusalem, a move widely supported at the time, but which has engendered controversy since. A few weeks before the war, Naomi Shemer wrote Jerusalem of Gold, sung by Shuli Natan
, extolling the beauties of Jerusalem.Song sample, sung by Shuli Natan, taken from www.songs.co.il That song, and others by Naomi Shemer have become associated with those in Israel who believe that Israel has no obligation to forgo territories occupied in 1967.
In February 1994, Kach supporter Baruch Goldstein
massacred 29 Arab worshipers in the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron
. While the act was universally condemned by the Israeli establishment, some extremists praised it. After the massacre, members of the utra-right Kach
movement adopted "Barukh HaGever", a song often played at Jewish weddings with its own line dance, because the Hebrew title can be interpreted as "Blessed be the Man" or "Baruch the Hero."
Minutes before Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was murdered
at a political rally in November 1995, Israeli folk singer Miri Aloni sang the Israeli pop song Shir Lashalom
(Song for Peace). This song, originally written in 1969 and performed extensively by the Lahaqot Tsvayiot at the time, has become one of the anthems of the Israeli peace camp.
During the Arab uprising known as the First Intifada
, Israeli singer Si Heyman sang Yorim VeBokhim (Shoot and Weep), written by Shalom Hanoch, to protest Israeli policy in the territories. This song was banned briefly by the state-run radio, but later became popular.
Pink Floyd
's Another Brick in the Wall
is used as a protest song by many opponents of Israel's barrier in the West Bank, which is now half finished. The lyrics have been adapted to: "We don't need no occupation. We don't need no racist wall."
Since the onset of the Oslo Process and, more recently, Israel's unilateral disengagement plan
, protest songs became a major avenue for opposition activists to express sentiments. Songs protesting these policies were written and performed by Israeli musicians, such as Ariel Zilber
, Shalom Flisser, Aharon Razel, Eli Bar-Yahalom, Yuri Lipmanovich, Ari Ben-Yam, and many others.
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
i style and sound, Israel's musicians have made significant contributions to classical
Classical music
Classical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 11th century to present times...
, jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
, pop rock
Pop rock
Pop rock is a music genre which mixes a catchy pop style and light lyrics in its guitar-based rock songs. There are varying definitions of the term, ranging from a slower and mellower form of rock music to a subgenre of pop music...
and other international music genres. Since the 1970s, there has been a flowering of musical diversity, with Israeli rock, folk and jazz musicians creating and performing extensively, both locally and abroad. Many of the world's top classical musicians are Israelis or Israeli expatriates. The works of Israeli classical composers have been performed by leading orchestra
Orchestra
An orchestra is a sizable instrumental ensemble that contains sections of string, brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments. The term orchestra derives from the Greek ορχήστρα, the name for the area in front of an ancient Greek stage reserved for the Greek chorus...
s worldwide.
National identity
Music in Israel is an integral part of national identity. Beginning in the days of the pioneers, Hebrew songs and public singalongs (Shira beTsibur) were encouraged and supported by the establishment. "Public singalongs were a common pastime [of the early settlers], and were for them a force in defining their identity", wrote Nathan Shahar. This view of music as nation-building continues to this day. "We are in the midst of creating a culture", says Nahum Heyman, one of Israel's leading folk music composers and music historians. Jewish immigrants from Europe, Asia, the Middle East and elsewhere brought with them their musical traditions, melding and molding them into a new Israeli sound.Russian folk music
Many of the Zionist immigrants who arrived before 1935 came from Russia. They brought with them the folk tunes and musical style of RussiaEthnic Russian music
Ethnic Russian music specifically deals with the folk music traditions of the ethnic Russian people. It does not include the various forms of art music, which in Russia often contains folk melodies and folk elements or music of aother ethnic groups living in Russia.-History:The roots of Russian...
. Songs in the early days were often contrafacta
Contrafactum
In vocal music, contrafactum refers to "the substitution of one text for another without substantial change to the music"....
— Russian folk tunes with translated or new lyrics in Hebrew. An example is Shir Hamitpachat, ("Song of the Kerchief") a Polish song by Jerzy Petersburski (Niebieska chusteczka, Sinij Platochek, синий платочек) with Hebrew lyrics by the Israeli poet and lyricist Natan Alterman.Version of the song here is sung by Arik Sinai, from his album "Shirim Hozrim". Music sample published by www.Songs.co.il These Russian-style tunes are generally in a minor key, and often accompanied by accordion, or by guitar imitating the sound of the balalaika
Balalaika
The balalaika is a stringed musical instrument popular in Russia, with a characteristic triangular body and three strings.The balalaika family of instruments includes instruments of various sizes, from the highest-pitched to the lowest, the prima balalaika, secunda balalaika, alto balalaika, bass...
.
Eastern European klezmer music
Klezmer music was also brought to the country by the immigrants of the early 20th century. Many Hassidic and klezmerKlezmer
Klezmer is a musical tradition of the Ashkenazic Jews of Eastern Europe. Played by professional musicians called klezmorim, the genre originally consisted largely of dance tunes and instrumental display pieces for weddings and other celebrations...
melodies found their way into the canon of Israeli folk music, with lyrics translated from the Yiddish, or new Hebrew words. An example is Numi Numi (Sleep My Child), a song composed by Joel Engel based on a Hassidic lullaby, with lyrics by Yehiel Heilprin.Most full-length songs included here are taken from http://www.nostalgia.org.il/amuta/freemp3/music/, a project to release historic recordings of Israeli music into the public domain. Readers who cannot play music in the Wikipedia standard ogg format can hear the song in mp3 format at http://www.nostalgia.org.il/amuta/freemp3/music/Sleep_My_Child.mp3.
Rock and pop music
Since the late 1960s, Israeli popular music has been deeply influenced by mainstream pop and rock music from the United Kingdom and the U.S. Iconic Israeli 1970s rock groups such as KaveretKaveret
Kaveret , also known as Poogy , was an Israeli rock band in the mid-1970s that won much fame around the world for their often humorous songs and unique style of music. Their shows included many skits, among which are the Sipurey Poogy...
and Tamooz and singer-songwriters such as Shalom Hanoch
Shalom Hanoch
Shalom Hanoch is an Israeli rock singer, lyricist and composer.He is considered to be the father of Israeli rock and the most important artist of that area. His works have profoundly influenced Israeli rock and modern Israeli music...
and Miki Gavrielov, laid the foundations for what is today the rich and varied scene of Israeli pop and rock. Mixing Western pop and rock with the original style of Israeli folk music and Oriental Jewish music, particularly Yemenite, Greek and Andalusian-Moroccan, creates together the original and unique sound of Israeli music today.
Among the leaders in Israeli music are singers and bands such as: Etti Ankri
Etti Ankri
Esther "Etti" Ankri is an Israeli singer-songwriter. She is a former Female Singer of the Year in Israel, and has also performed in the United States, England, and India. Ankri has been called a "rock genius", the "poet of Israeli spirituality," and "the contemporary voice of.....
, David D'Or
David D'Or
David D'Or is an Israeli singer, composer, and songwriter. A countertenor with a vocal range of more than four octaves, he is a three-time winner of the Israeli "Singer of the Year" and "Best Vocal Performer" awards. He was also chosen to represent Israel in the 2004 Eurovision Song Contest, at...
, Aviv Gefen, Rita, Shlomo Artzi
Shlomo Artzi
Shlomo Artzi is an Israeli folk rock singer-songwriter, and composer.He was born on November 26, 1949, in Moshav Alonei Abba. In the course of his career, he has sold over 1.5 million albums, making him one of Israel's most successful male singers....
, HaYehudim
HaYehudim
HaYehudim is an Israeli hard rock band, formed in 1992 by married couple Tom Petrover and Orit Shachaf, who share guitar playing and vocal duties. The band has achieved tremendous success in Israel despite commercial disregard in its first years, and has sold over 200,000 albums in Israel.The band...
, Ivri Lider
Ivri Lider
Ivri Lider is an Israeli pop rock singer-songwriter. He is one of the biggest-selling contemporary artists in Israeli music, and has won the Male Singer of the Year honor from major Israeli national and local radio stations since entering the Israeli music scene in the late 1990s...
, and Dana International
Dana International
Sharon Cohen , professionally known as Dana International is an Israeli pop singer of Yemenite Jewish ancestry. She has released eight albums and three additional compilation albums, positioning herself as one of Israel's most successful musical acts ever...
. Both Lider and International often sing songs dealing with their own sexual preferences — Lider's song "Jesse" is about unrequited homosexual love, and International, a transsexual, began her singing career as a drag queen. Other pop stars include Ninet Tayeb, Harel Skaat and Shiri Maimon — all winners of the Israeli talent search TV show "Israeli Pop Idol." Maimon represented Israel in the Eurovision Song Contest 2005
Eurovision Song Contest 2005
The Eurovision Song Contest 2005 was the 50th Eurovision Song Contest, which was held at the Palace of Sports, Kiev, Ukraine. The winner was Greece's My Number One, written by Christos Dantis and Natalia Germanou and performed by Swedish-born Greek singer Elena Paparizou, who scored 230 points,...
, and reached top 4 out of over 25 countries, with her ballad "Hasheket Shenishar" (the silence that remains).
Middle Eastern music
The earliest composers of Hebrew folk music were influenced by the sounds of the local Arab music. Later, Oriental musical traditions were brought by Jewish immigrants from Arab lands — from Morocco, Yemen, Iraq, Egypt and elsewhere. These immigrants developed an eclectic Mediterranean style called "Muzika Mizrahit" (Oriental music), which became increasingly popular in the early 1960s and was later influenced by popular Greek music (Rembetiko), whilst at the same time, influencing Israeli pop and rock. Muzika Mizrahit combines eastern and western elements: the ensemble includes Middle Eastern instruments, such as the oudOud
The oud is a pear-shaped stringed instrument commonly used in North African and Middle Eastern music. The modern oud and the European lute both descend from a common ancestor via diverging paths...
, the kanun
Kanun (Instrument)
The Qanun is a string instrument found in the 10th century in Farab in Turkestan...
, the Arabic violin, the darbouka and the Greek bouzouki
Bouzouki
The bouzouki , is a musical instrument with Greek origin in the lute family. A mainstay of modern Greek music, the front of the body is flat and is usually heavily inlaid with mother-of-pearl. The instrument is played with a plectrum and has a sharp metallic sound, reminiscent of a mandolin but...
, alongside electric and acoustic guitars, pianos and other western instruments. The singers add Arab-style melismatic ornamentation, (silsulim in Hebrew), and often sing in a nasal tone, similar to Arab music. The melodies are often modal, swinging between major and minor, and diction is guttural. While Arab music is traditionally homophonic, based on melodic patterns called maqama
Maqama
Maqāma are an Arabic literary genre of rhymed prose with intervals of poetry in which rhetorical extravagance is conspicuous. The 10th century author Badī' al-Zaman al-Hamadhāni is said to have invented the form, which was extended by al-Hariri of Basra in the next century...
t, Muzika Mizrahit is closer to Greek music, has harmonic accompaniment and usually uses a western, 12-tone scale.
The distinctive East-West sonorities of Muzika Mizrahit have left their imprint on Israeli popular music. An example is Zohar Argov
Zohar Argov
Zohar Argov was a popular Israeli singer and a distinctive voice in the Mizrahi music scene.- Background :The most serious hurdle on the way to stardom was Argov's socioeconomic background. He was born in Rishon LeZion, and grew up in a poor family, the eldest of ten children...
's HaPerach BeGani ("The flower in my garden"), with lyrics and music by Avihu Medina
Avihu Medina
Avihu Medina is an Israeli composer, arranger, songwriter, and singer of Mediterranean Israeli music.-Biography:Medina is the third son of Aaron and Leah Medina. His mother's family immigrated in 1906 and she was born in Jerusalem, and his father immigrated to Israel from Yemen in 1939 when it was...
.Music sample is taken from www.songs.co.il
Traditional Jewish Yemenite music
Music of Yemen
Yemen is a country on the Arabian Peninsula, and the music of Yemen is primarily known abroad for a series of pan-Arab popular stars and the Yemenite Jews who became musical stars in Israel during the 20th century. In the Arab world, Yemen has long been a cultural capital.Yemen's national anthem is...
was particularly influential in the development of Israeli music because it was seen by early Zionists as a link to their biblical roots. The music of the ancient Hebrews, wrote the musicologist A.Z. Idelsohn, "is preserved in memory and practice in various Jewish centers ... Yemen, in South Arabia, [is] a community that lived practically in seclusion for thirteen hundred years..." There was a Yemenite Jewish
Yemenite Jews
Yemenite Jews are those Jews who live, or whose recent ancestors lived, in Yemen . Between June 1949 and September 1950, the overwhelming majority of Yemen's Jewish population was transported to Israel in Operation Magic Carpet...
community in Palestine before 1900, and the European settlers who came in the 1920s were enamored of the Yemenite style. Many of the early Zionist folksongs were westernized versions of Yemenite songs. In the 1930s and 1940s, Yemenite singer Bracha Zefira researched and recorded many Yemenite songs, and also sang original compositions in the Yemenite style. An example is the song "Shtu HaAdarim" (Drink, the Flock),Song sample from www.songs.co.il with words by Alexander Penn
Alexander Penn
-Early years:Penn was born in Nizhne Kolymsk, Russia. As a youth, he was a boxer. He moved to Moscow in 1920, to study cinema, and published his first poems in Russian that year. In 1927, he immigrated to Mandatory Palestine...
and music by Nahum Nardi.
Yemenite music reached a world audience in the 1980s as a result of the efforts of Israeli singer Ofra Haza
Ofra Haza
Ofra Haza was an Israeli singer of Yemeni origin, an actress and international recording artist....
, whose album Yemenite Songs
Yemenite Songs
Yemenite Songs a.k.a. Shirey Teyman is a 1984 album by Ofra Haza, in which the Israeli pop star returned to her roots interpreting traditional Yemeni Jewish songs with lyrics coming from the poetry of 16th century Rabbi Shalom Shabazi...
became an international hit with world music fans. Haza grew up in a traditional Yemenite family who lived in Tel Aviv's poor Hatikva neighborhood. She became famous for singing pop music, but later in her career became something of a cultural ambassador for her community, both in Israel and internationally. Several of her most famous tracks, such as "Im Nin Alu", were reworkings of traditional Yemenite songs, many composed by Rabbi Shalom Shabazi
Shalom Shabazi
Rabbi Shalom ben Yosef Shabbazi, also Abba Shalem Shabbezi or Salim Elshibzi was one of the greatest Jewish poets who lived in 17th century Yemen and now considered the 'Poet of Yemen'. Shabbazi was born in 1619 at Jewish Sharab, close to Ta'izz, and lived most of his life in Ta'izz from which he...
, a medieval poet and mystic whose spiritual and artistic achievements are universally revered in the Yemenite community. Shabazi's poetry dealt with both religious and secular themes, giving Yemenite music a wider lyrical range than many other forms of traditional Jewish music, which tend to be liturgical in nature.
Early Hebrew national style
This is an eclectic style created by the early Zionist settlers. Beginning in the early 1920s, the pioneers sought to create a new style of music that would strengthen ties with their Hebrew roots and distinguish them from Diaspora Jewry and its perceived weakness. Elements were borrowed a bit from Arabic music and, to a lesser extent, traditional Yemenite and eastern Jewish music. The songs were often homophonic, modal, and limited in range. Examples of this emerging style include "Shadmati" by Yedidia Admon,Song sample taken from www.songs.co.il and "Shibbolet Basadeh" by Matityahu Shelem.Greek, Latin American, Ethiopian and other influences
Bouzouki
The bouzouki , is a musical instrument with Greek origin in the lute family. A mainstay of modern Greek music, the front of the body is flat and is usually heavily inlaid with mother-of-pearl. The instrument is played with a plectrum and has a sharp metallic sound, reminiscent of a mandolin but...
music became increasingly popular in the early 1960s. Aris San
Aris San
Aris San was Greek singer and nightclub owner who popularized Greek music in Israel in the late 1950s and 1960s. -Biography:Aristides Saisanas was born in Kalamata, Greece. At the age of 17, he sailed from Athens to Israel, changing his name to "Aris San" on board. San began playing at the...
, a non-Jewish Greek singer who moved to Israel and became an Israeli citizen, was the driving spirit behind this trend. One of Aris San's hit songs was "Sigal" (lyrics by Yovav Katz). Aris San, who worked at the Zorba club in Jaffa, owned and opened by Shlomo Bachramov wrote songs for Aliza Azikri (Bahayim hakol over, Yesh ahava ata omer), that effectively broke down the barriers between Israeli song and the world of Greek and Mizrahi music. The songs of the iconic Greek singer Stelios Kazantzidis
Stelios Kazantzidis
Stylianos Kazantzidis was a prominent Greek singer. A leading singer of Greek popular music, or Laïkó, he collaborated with many of Greece's foremost composers.-Biography :...
were translated into Hebrew and performed by the country's leading singers.
A number of young musicians traveled to South America in the late 1960s, and brought back Latin rhythms and sonorities which became a force in popular music through the 1970s. An example is the song "Noah" by Matti Caspi
Matti Caspi
Matti Caspi is an Israeli composer, musician, singer, and lyricist. Born in 1949, he is regarded as one of Israel’s top musicians.His music style is difficult to classify. He is influenced by classical music, Brazilian and Latin music, Jazz, Rock and other genres. It is possible to hear all these...
.
The American folk movement of the 1960s and 1970s influenced the Israeli national style, and Israeli folksingers, among them Chava Alberstein
Chava Alberstein
Chava Alberstein is an Israeli singer, lyricist, composer, and musical arranger.-Biography:Chava Alberstein, born in Szczecin, Poland, moved to Israel with her family in 1950. She grew up in Kiryat Haim....
Song "Ayliluli" taken from website www.songs.co.il — patterned themselves after Judy Collins
Judy Collins
Judith Marjorie "Judy" Collins is an American singer and songwriter, known for her eclectic tastes in the material she records ; and for her social activism. She is an alumna of the University of Colorado.-Musical career:Collins was born and raised in Seattle, Washington...
and Joni Mitchell
Joni Mitchell
Joni Mitchell, CC is a Canadian musician, singer songwriter, and painter. Mitchell began singing in small nightclubs in her native Saskatchewan and Western Canada and then busking in the streets and dives of Toronto...
. In the 1960s, guitar duos such as the Dudaim and the Parvarim performed not only "canonical" Israeli songs, but also Hebrew versions of American and British folk songs.
The 1970s saw the growth of a new eclecticism in Israeli music. Rock, jazz and other genres began to strike roots, influenced by worldwide trends but also adding elements that were uniquely Israeli.
The Idan Raichel Project, a successful pop/ethnic group formed in the 2000s, merges Ethiopian and Western music. Raichel collaborated with Ethiopian Jewish immigrants to produce a unique sound, combining Electronic music sounds, classic piano, electric guitar, traditional drums and Ethiopian-style singing, with its complex quartertone scales and rhythms. The songs are sung in a combination of Hebrew and Amharic.
Land of Israel style
Despite the great diversity in Israeli music today, a corpus of canonicalCanonical
Canonical is an adjective derived from canon. Canon comes from the greek word κανών kanon, "rule" or "measuring stick" , and is used in various meanings....
songs has developed, known as "Shirei Eretz Yisrael" — "Songs of the Land of Israel" or "Zemer ivri". These songs, composed from 1920 to the mid-1970s, have certain identifying musical characteristics:
- Use of minor keys. The canonical songs are almost universally in minor. Songs based in the Russian or klezmer traditions normally use the harmonic minor (that is, with an elevated seventh), while songs in the New Hebrew style use natural minor, often with a diminished second leading to the tonic. Songs in this style are also sometimes modal, or semimodal, ending on the dominant rather than the tonic. An example is Moshe,Available in mp3 format here. by Immanuel Zamir, sung by Yaffa Yarkoni.
- Hora, debkaDabkeDabke is an Arab folk dance. It is popular in several Arab countries such as Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan, Syria,and Iraq. A line dance, it is widely performed at weddings and joyous occasions...
and other dance rhythms. These dance rhythms often have strong offbeats and asymmetric meters. They accompany popular Israeli folk dances. An example of a debka rhythm is At Adama,Available in mp3 format here. based on a Bedouin melody, and sung by Ran Eliran.
- Use of the darbukaGoblet drumThe goblet drum is a hand drum with a goblet shape used mostly in the Middle East, North Africa, and Eastern Europe....
, the tambourineTambourineThe tambourine or marine is a musical instrument of the percussion family consisting of a frame, often of wood or plastic, with pairs of small metal jingles, called "zils". Classically the term tambourine denotes an instrument with a drumhead, though some variants may not have a head at all....
and other instruments associated with middle eastern music.
- Lyrics that relate to the Israeli experience. As one might expect in a country that has faced major wars and military conflicts since its inception, army life and wars are common themes in Israeli songwriting. Interestingly, very few of the war songs are marching songs, and none denigrate the Arab enemies. Most are melancholy, focusing on separation and loss during war, and the longing for peace. Many songs are about pioneering, building up the land, and love of hiking and nature. Others are based on biblical texts. A typical pioneer marching song is Anu Nihiyeh HaRishonimAvailable in mp3 format here. (We will be the first), with words by Yosef Haftman to a traditional melody.
- A distinctive vocal style. Israeli singers — especially those of Yemenite origin or who specialize in more middle eastern style songs — tend to sing with a guttural, throaty enunciation. A folk legend contends that these singers would drink water from goatskin watersacks, and the hairs of the goat would stick in their throats. An example of this style can be heard in the song Ein Adir KeAdonai,Available in mp3 format here. (There is none so great as God), a traditional liturgical melody sung by Bracha Zefira.
Early history
First Aliyah
The First Aliyah was the first modern widespread wave of Zionist aliyah. Jews who migrated to Palestine in this wave came mostly from Eastern Europe and from Yemen. This wave of aliyah began in 1881–82 and lasted until 1903. An estimated 25,000–35,000 Jews immigrated to Ottoman Syria during the...
, the first wave of Jewish immigrants seeking to create a national homeland in Palestine. As there were no songs yet written for this national movement, Zionist
Zionism
Zionism is a Jewish political movement that, in its broadest sense, has supported the self-determination of the Jewish people in a sovereign Jewish national homeland. Since the establishment of the State of Israel, the Zionist movement continues primarily to advocate on behalf of the Jewish state...
youth movements in Germany and elsewhere published songbooks, using traditional German and other folk melodies with new words written in Hebrew. An example of this is the song that became Israel's national anthem, "http://www.israel-embassy.org.uk/web/sounds/hatikva.htmHatikvah
Hatikvah
"Hatikvah" is the national anthem of Israel. The anthem was written by Naphtali Herz Imber, a secular Galician Jew from Zolochiv , who moved to the Land of Israel in the early 1880s....
]". The words, by the Hebrew poet Naftali Herz Imber
Naftali Herz Imber
Naphtali Herz Imber was a Jewish poet and Zionist who wrote the lyrics of Hatikvah, the national anthem of the State of Israel.Imber was born in Złoczów , a town in Galicia, Austrian Empire...
, express the longing of the Jewish people to return to the land of Zion. The melody is a popular eastern European folk melody.
In 1895 settlers established the first Jewish orchestra in Palestine. The orchestra was a wind band, located in the town of Rishon LeZion, and played light classics and marches.
Avraham Zvi Idelsohn
Abraham Zevi Idelsohn
Abraham Zevi Idelsohn was a prominent Jewish ethnologist and musicologist, who conducted several comprehensive studies of Jewish music around the world....
, a trained cantor from Russia and a musicologist, settled in Jerusalem in 1906, with the objective of studying and documenting the musics of the various Jewish communities there. At the time, there were a number of Jewish enclaves in Jerusalem, for Yemenites, Hassids, Syrians and other Jewish ethnic groups. Idelsohn meticulously documented the songs and musical idioms of these groups. He also made the first efforts to bring these songs to the attention of all Jewish settlers, with the aim of creating a new Jewish musical genre.
Idelsohn was joined in Palestine by a few more classically trained musicians and ethnomusicologists, including Gershon Ephros in 1909 and, later, Joel Engel in 1924. Like Idelsohn, Engel worked to disseminate traditional ethnic tunes and styles to the general Jewish public of Palestine.
Birth of a new Hebrew national style
Second Aliyah
The Second Aliyah was an important and highly influential aliyah that took place between 1904 and 1914, during which approximately 40,000 Jews immigrated into Ottoman Palestine, mostly from the Russian Empire, some from Yemen....
, beginning in 1904, saw an increase in composition of original songs by Jewish settlers in Palestine. Among the earliest composers of folk songs were Hanina Karchevsky ("BeShadmot Beit Lehem"), and David Ma'aravi ("Shira Hanoar").
Over the next 30 years, Jewish composers in Palestine began to seek new rhythmic and melodic modes that would distinguish their songs from the traditional European music they had been brought up on. Leaders of this musical movement were Matityahu Shelem ("VeDavid Yefe Eynaim", "Shibbolet Basadeh"), Yedidia Admon ("Shadmati"), and others. These composers sought to imitate the sounds of Arabic and other Middle Eastern music. They used simple harmonies, and preferred the natural minor to melodic and harmonic minors used by European music. They especially eschewed the interval of the augmented second, part of the "gypsy minor"
Hungarian gypsy scale
The Hungarian Gypsy Scale is a name given by different authorities to two different scale forms. The more commonly used of these scales is the fourth mode of the Double harmonic scale , it can be found by sharpening the 4th degree of the harmonic minor scale to introduce an additional gap, or...
scale used typically in klezmer music. "Its character is depressing and sentimental", wrote music critic and composer Menashe Ravina in 1943. "The healthy desire to free ourselves of this sentimentalism causes many to avoid this interval."
Some musicians of the period, like Marc Lavry
Marc Lavry
Marc Lavry was an Israeli composer and conductor.Marc Lavry was a most prolific composer who belonged to an exclusive group of artists who formulated what is known today as Israeli music....
, wrote in both the new Hebrew style and the European style in which they were trained. For example, "Zemer" is a song in the new style; Dan HaShomer
Marc Lavry
Marc Lavry was an Israeli composer and conductor.Marc Lavry was a most prolific composer who belonged to an exclusive group of artists who formulated what is known today as Israeli music....
is an opera in the European classical tradition. Others, like Mordechai Zeira, lamented the fact that they did not write in the new Hebrew mold. Zeira, one of the most prolific and popular composers of the period ("Hayu Leylot", "Layla Layla", "Shney Shoshanim"), referred to his inability to write in the new style as "the Russian disease".
Emanuel Zamir worked in the 40s and 50s in a genre known as "shirei ro'im" (shepherd songs). He combined Bedouin music
Bedouin music
Bedouin music is the music of nomadic Bedouin tribes of the Arabian Peninsula,the Sudan and the Levant. It is closely linked to its text. Songs are based on poetry and are sung either unaccompanied, or to the stringed instrument, the rebab....
with Biblical-style lyrics, often accompanied by the recorder.
Music as a nation builder
The movement to create a repertoire of Hebrew songs, and specifically a distinctive musical style for those songs, was seen not merely as a creative outlet, but as a national imperative. This imperative — which influenced the literature, theater and graphic arts of the period as well as music — was to seek cultural roots of the new Israeli nation in the culture of the ancient Hebrews of the Bible. The characteristics of the new Hebrew style, contended composer Yitzhak Edel, are "remnants of ancient Hebrew music that have struggled to survive the years of diaspora... the primitive life of our settlers, who broke away from the European civilization, sought a musical expression that would suit their world view."In light of the national importance of creating a new Hebrew repertoire, the effort received support of national institutions. The Histadrut Labor Union
Histadrut
HaHistadrut HaKlalit shel HaOvdim B'Eretz Yisrael , known as the Histadrut, is Israel's organization of trade unions. Established in December 1920 during the British Mandate for Palestine, it became one of the most powerful institutions of the State of Israel.-History:The Histadrut was founded in...
, which, prior to the founding of the state of Israel served many of the functions of a government, created the "Merkaz LeTarbut" (Cultural Center), which published many songbooks, and subsidized the composition of works by Hebrew composers. Public singalongs were actively encouraged. The kibbutz
Kibbutz
A kibbutz is a collective community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture. Today, farming has been partly supplanted by other economic branches, including industrial plants and high-tech enterprises. Kibbutzim began as utopian communities, a combination of socialism and Zionism...
movements distributed songsters and established the singalong as a central daily event in kibbutz life. Public singalongs were also seen as a way of teaching Hebrew to new immigrants from Europe and, later, from Middle Eastern countries.
The state radio has also been a powerful force in promoting the Hebrew song. Until 1990, all radio and television stations were government owned and controlled. As such, they were leading arbiters of taste in Palestine and later in Israel. "... the stations perceived it their duty to initiate special projects for the preservation of the Israeli song heritage and to encourage the writing and recording of 'authentic' music."
According to Netiva Ben-Yehuda, linguist and music historian, youths carried notebooks to jot down the songs they would sing with their friends.
This view—that Israeli music is a defining element in the creation of Israeli culture—continues to this day, and influences artists in all musical genres—pop, rock, and classical.
Musical cabarets
Starting in the 1920s, cafe and cabaret music became popular in Palestine, and became an important formative force in Israeli music. Before the establishment of the state, there were three leading cabarets — HaQumQum (The Kettle), HaMatate (The Broom), and Li-La-Lo. These cabarets staged variety shows that combined political satire, drama and song.The cabarets also contributed to diversity in Israeli music. Many of the songs were in a popular, light style, distinct from the New Hebrew style or the Russian folk style that was prevalent. Many songs were in the major key rather than minor, had upbeat rhythms and included tangos, sambas and other Latin styles.
Cabarets and musical reviews continued after the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948.
Aliyah of musicians in the 1930s
The rise of Nazism in Europe forced many Jewish musicians to leave. Some of these musicians came to Israel. The immigration included some of the leading classical musicians of Europe, including Ödön PártosÖdön Pártos
Ödön Pártos [alternate English transcription: Oedeon Partos; Hungarian original: Pártos Ödön, Hebrew: עֵדֶן פרטוש ] , was a Hungarian-Israeli violist and composer...
, concertmaster of the Berlin Philharmonic, Paul Ben-Haim
Paul Ben-Haim
Paul Ben-Haim was an Israeli composer. Born Paul Frankenburger in Munich, Germany, he studied composition with Friedrich Klose and he was assistant conductor to Bruno Walter and Hans Knappertsbusch from 1920 to 1924...
, composer and opera conductor, and composer Alexander Boskovitz.
Just as writers of popular music sought a new Hebrew style, many classical composers sought new modes of composition that would give expression to their new national identity. "... One cannot continue in this country writing works which are based on purely western concepts", wrote music critic David Rosolio in 1946. "The landscape, the lifestyle, the environment, all require a change and fundamentally different approach." Boskovitz in his "Semitic Suite" for piano (1945) writes in a homophonic style with a drone accompaniment and repeated notes, imitating the sound of the Arabic oud and kanun. Ben-Haim wrote "Sonata A Tre" for cembalo, mandolin and guitar (1968), which also has a distinctly Middle Eastern sound.
Israel Philharmonic Orchestra
Bronislaw Huberman
Bronisław Huberman was a Jewish Polish violinist. He was known for his individualistic and personal interpretations and was praised for his tone color, expressiveness, and flexibility...
decided to form an orchestra in Palestine — both as a safe haven and as a unique musical endeavor. Huberman recruited musicians from Europe's leading orchestras, and the Palestine Philharmonic made its debut in December 1936, under the baton of Arturo Toscanini
Arturo Toscanini
Arturo Toscanini was an Italian conductor. One of the most acclaimed musicians of the late 19th and 20th century, he was renowned for his intensity, his perfectionism, his ear for orchestral detail and sonority, and his photographic memory...
. The Israel Philharmonic Orchestra
Israel Philharmonic Orchestra
The Israel Philharmonic Orchestra is the leading symphony orchestra in Israel. It was originally known as the Palestine Orchestra, and in Hebrew as התזמורת הסימפונית הארץ ישראלית The Israel Philharmonic Orchestra (abbreviation IPO; Hebrew: התזמורת הפילהרמונית הישראלית, ha-Tizmoret ha-Filharmonit...
has been a leading force in Israeli music and culture. It has debuted many works by Israeli composers, and has helped launch the careers of many Israeli musicians. The orchestra has played a number of concerts that have had historic significance for Israel. In 1967, immediately after the 1967 war, conductor Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, author, music lecturer and pianist. He was among the first conductors born and educated in the United States of America to receive worldwide acclaim...
led the orchestra on a tour to the Sinai desert, the site of fighting only days before. The symphony also performed on the Lebanese border in the 1980s, playing to an audience of mixed Israelis and Lebanese who gathered on both sides of the border fence to listen. Music director Zubin Mehta
Zubin Mehta
Zubin Mehta is an Indian conductor of western classical music. He is the Music Director for Life of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra.-Biography:...
, though not himself an Israeli, speaks some Hebrew and is an important figure in the Israeli musical scene.
Music and the military
The military establishment in Israel, and the role of the military in Israeli culture, have been decisive influences on Israeli music.In the wake of decades of conflict with the Arabs, the themes of war and peace have become an integral part of Israeli music. From pre-state times until the present day, many songs deal with war, sacrifice, loss, heroism, and the longing for peace. Extremely militaristic songs that glorify triumph over the enemy are not the standard in the Israeli repertoire. Rather, most songs dealing with war are melancholy in tone. An extreme example is the song "Eliphelet": to a halting melody in a minor key by Sasha Argov
Sasha Argov
-Early life:Argov was born in Moscow. He immigrated to Palestine from Russia in 1934 with his parents.-Music career:He started composing at the age of five, began his formal music training one year later, and composed hundreds of popular songs. Among them were songs for the Israel Defense Forces,...
, the song (lyrics by Natan Alterman) tells of a boy "without a penny's worth of character", who is killed in combat for an unthinking error of judgment.Music sample taken from www.Songs.co.il
Since the 1950s, the Israel Defense Forces
Israel Defense Forces
The Israel Defense Forces , commonly known in Israel by the Hebrew acronym Tzahal , are the military forces of the State of Israel. They consist of the ground forces, air force and navy. It is the sole military wing of the Israeli security forces, and has no civilian jurisdiction within Israel...
(IDF) has run performing groups called Lehakot Tsva'iyot (Army Ensembles). These groups, comprising enlisted soldiers with talent or performing experience, tour bases and field positions to entertain the troops. Performing original materials meticulously prepared and performed, these groups became leaders in the Israeli music and entertainment field. Many of Israel's most popular songs were written for the Lehakot Tsva'iyot — for example, "Dina Barzilai" (words: Haim Hefer, music: Sasha Argov), "Halleluya" (words and music: Yair Rosenblum), "Yeshnan Banot" (words: Yoram Tahar-Lev, music: Yair Rosenblum). Dubi Zeltzer, considered one of the founding fathers of Israeli pop music, wrote many of the songs for the Nahal Brigade entertainment troupe.
The Lehakot Tsva'iyot were incubators for performers and composers who, from the 1960s to the present, have become Israel's stars. Among the artists who began their careers in the Lehakot are Arik Einstein
Arik Einstein
Arik Einstein is an Israeli singer-songwriter.Einstein was a vocalist for Batzal Yarok , Shleeshiyat Gesher Hayarkon and Hahalonot Hagvohim . His collaboration with Shalom Hanoch and the Churchills planted the seeds for the first Israeli rock albums...
, Chava Alberstein
Chava Alberstein
Chava Alberstein is an Israeli singer, lyricist, composer, and musical arranger.-Biography:Chava Alberstein, born in Szczecin, Poland, moved to Israel with her family in 1950. She grew up in Kiryat Haim....
, the members of Kaveret
Kaveret
Kaveret , also known as Poogy , was an Israeli rock band in the mid-1970s that won much fame around the world for their often humorous songs and unique style of music. Their shows included many skits, among which are the Sipurey Poogy...
, Yehoram Gaon
Yehoram Gaon
Yehoram Gaon is a Jewish Israeli singer, actor, director, producer, TV and radio host, and public figure...
,Music sample of Yehoram Gaon's song "Nehederet" is extracted from the playback on Gaon's personal website, www.yehoramgaon.com. Nehama Hendel, Yardena Arazi
Yardena Arazi
Yardena Arazi is an Israeli singer and entertainer.-Biography:Yardena Arazi was born on Kibbutz Kabri and grew up in Haifa. Arazi is the daughter of Jewish immigrants from France and Germany. She joined the Beit Rothschild group at 16 and became its lead vocalist. She did her military service in...
, Shlomo Artzi
Shlomo Artzi
Shlomo Artzi is an Israeli folk rock singer-songwriter, and composer.He was born on November 26, 1949, in Moshav Alonei Abba. In the course of his career, he has sold over 1.5 million albums, making him one of Israel's most successful male singers....
, Etti Ankri
Etti Ankri
Esther "Etti" Ankri is an Israeli singer-songwriter. She is a former Female Singer of the Year in Israel, and has also performed in the United States, England, and India. Ankri has been called a "rock genius", the "poet of Israeli spirituality," and "the contemporary voice of.....
, and David D'Or
David D'Or
David D'Or is an Israeli singer, composer, and songwriter. A countertenor with a vocal range of more than four octaves, he is a three-time winner of the Israeli "Singer of the Year" and "Best Vocal Performer" awards. He was also chosen to represent Israel in the 2004 Eurovision Song Contest, at...
. Composers and lyricists who made their names writing material for the Lehakot include Naomi Shemer
Naomi Shemer
Naomi Shemer was a leading Israeli songwriter hailed as the "first lady of Israeli song and poetry."-Biography:Naomi Sapir was born on Kvutzat Kinneret, a kibbutz her parents had helped found, on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. In the 1950s she served in the Israeli Defense Force's Nahal...
, Yohanan Zarai, Yoni Rechter
Yoni Rechter
Yoni Rechter is an Israeli musician, composer, pianist, arranger and singer.-Biography:Yonatan Rechter was born in Tel Aviv, Israel. He was the son of Israeli architect Ya'akov Rechter and stepson of Israeli actress Hanna Meron. He attended Tichon Hadash high school...
, Nurit Hirsh
Nurit Hirsh
Nurit Hirsh is an Israeli composer, arranger and conductor who has written over a thousand Hebrew songs. -Biography:Nurit Hirsh studied at the Academy of Music in Tel Aviv, majoring in piano. She also studied composition with Mordecai Seter, orchestration with Noam Sheriff and conducting with ...
, and Yair Rosenblum.
Galey Tsahal
Israel Army Radio
Army Radio or Galei Tzahal known in Israel by its acronym Galatz , is a nationwide Israeli radio network operated by the Israel Defense Forces....
, the IDF-run radio station, has been a force in promoting original Israeli music. Galey Tsahal began broadcasting in 1950. It devoted much of its broadcast time to popular music.
The music of the Lehakot and of Galey Tsahal was not specifically military music; most of the songs produced and broadcast were general songs. However, the IDF did see music as an important propaganda tool, and actually sponsored the composition of songs on subjects it deemed important. For example, lyricist Haim Hefer
Haim Hefer
-Biography:Hefer was born in Sosnowiec, Poland in 1925 to Issachar Feiner, a chocolate salesman, and Rivka Herzberg, a housewife. He had a private Hebrew tutor....
was invited to spend a week accompanying the elite commando group "Haruv", and to base a song on his experience. The result was "Yesh Li Ahuv BeSayeret Haruv" (I have a lover in the Haruv commando unit) (music: Yair Rosenblum).
1967 as a turning point
The 1967 warSix-Day War
The Six-Day War , also known as the June War, 1967 Arab-Israeli War, or Third Arab-Israeli War, was fought between June 5 and 10, 1967, by Israel and the neighboring states of Egypt , Jordan, and Syria...
marked an important turning point in Israeli culture. In the words of Amos Elon
Amos Elon
-Biography:Amos Elon was born in Vienna. He immigrated to Mandate Palestine in 1933. He studied law and history in Israel and England. He was married to Beth Elon, a New York-born literary agent, with whom he had one daughter, Danae. In the 1990s, Elon began to spend much of his time in Italy...
, "in the Six Day War of 1967, the Israeli people came of age... it marked the transition from adolescence to maturity." The period after the war saw a burgeoning of cultural activity — within a few years, the number of art galleries increased by a third, the number of theaters doubled, and a proliferation of restaurants, night clubs, discothèques opened. Economic growth went from 1 percent per annum before the war to 13 percent the following year.
The Israeli music scene opened up to the rest of the world. Rock music, which prior to the war had almost no audience and was almost never played on the state radio, started drawing audiences. Muzika Mizrahit, the underground style of popular music enjoyed by Israelis of Sephardic origin
Mizrahi Jews
Mizrahi Jews or Mizrahiyim, , also referred to as Adot HaMizrach are Jews descended from the Jewish communities of the Middle East, North Africa and the Caucasus...
, gradually gained legitimacy and recognition. Israeli musicians performed abroad with increasing frequency, and European and American musicians came to Israel to perform.
In this growth of diversification, much Israeli music lost its national flavor, and became largely inspired by international styles. The Israeli preoccupation with defining a national style faded. "I don't like the attempt to be ethnic very much", said rock musician Shalom Hanoch in an interview. "I don't search for roots [in my music], my roots are within me... I don't have to add oriental flavor for people to know that I am from the Middle East."
Nonetheless, many Israeli musicians, both popular and classical, continued to be concerned with defining a distinctly national identity in their music.
Evolution of the music industry
Starting in 1967, the productions of the Lehakot Tzva'iyot became much more elaborate, and for the next five years these groups played a defining role in Israeli music. However, in the 1980s the Lehakot started to decline, until they were discontinued altogether. Taking their place as a breeding ground for new musical talent were the two classical music academies in Israel — The Rubin AcademyJerusalem Academy of Music and Dance
The Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance , founded in 1958 as the Rubin Academy of Music, is located on the Givat Ram campus of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.-History:...
in Jerusalem and the Buchmann-Mehta School of Music in Tel Aviv — as well as two private schools that teach mostly jazz and popular music (The Rimon school in Ramat Hasharon and the Hed school in Tel Aviv).
Until the end of the 1980s, the Israeli government, primarily through its control of radio and television, continued to play a central role in shaping the musical tastes of Israelis. In 1965, a feud between rival concert promoters was behind conservative forces in the government that refused to allocate foreign currency to pay for the Beatles to play in Israel. Some rock and Muzika Mizrahit artists complained that the radio and television discriminated against their music, preventing the commercial success of these increasingly popular genres.
With the commercialization of Israeli radio and television in the 1990s, the hegemony of the state-run media as arbiters of musical taste declined. In their place, recording companies, impresarios and clubs became increasingly important in finding new talent and advancing careers, in a manner more typical of European and American industries.
Song contests
From 1960 to 1980, Israeli radio and television promoted music by running frequent song contests. Success in a song contest was often the key to success for an artist in those days.Song contests received an important boost in 1978
Eurovision Song Contest 1978
The Eurovision Song Contest 1978 was the 23rd of its kind, and was held on 22 April 1978 in Paris. With Denise Fabre and Léon Zitrone as the presenters - the first time more than one presenter hosted the contest - the contest was won by Izhar Cohen & the Alphabeta who represented Israel, with their...
when the Israeli song "A-Ba-Ni-Bi
A-Ba-Ni-Bi
"A-Ba-Ni-Bi" was the winning song in the Eurovision Song Contest 1978, performed for Israel by Izhar Cohen and Alphabeta....
", sung by Izhar Cohen
Izhar Cohen
Izhar Cohen is an Israeli singer and actor.Representing Israel, he won the 1978 Eurovision Song Contest with the group Alphabeta performing "A-Ba-Ni-Bi" with music by Nurit Hirsh and words by Ehud Manor...
and Alphabeta
Alphabeta
Alphabeta were a group of Israeli singers who won the Eurovision Song Contest in 1978 with Izhar Cohen.The group consisted of Reuven Erez, Lisa Gold-Rubin, Nehama Shutan, Ester Tzuberi, and Itzhak Okev.The winning song was called A-Ba-Ni-Bi....
, with words by Ehud Manor
Ehud Manor
Ehud Manor was an Israeli songwriter, translator, and radio and TV personality.-Career:Manor began working for Israel radio in the 1960s, as a musical editor...
and music by Nurit Hirsh
Nurit Hirsh
Nurit Hirsh is an Israeli composer, arranger and conductor who has written over a thousand Hebrew songs. -Biography:Nurit Hirsh studied at the Academy of Music in Tel Aviv, majoring in piano. She also studied composition with Mordecai Seter, orchestration with Noam Sheriff and conducting with ...
, won first prize in the Eurovision Song Contest
Eurovision Song Contest
The Eurovision Song Contest is an annual competition held among active member countries of the European Broadcasting Union .Each member country submits a song to be performed on live television and then casts votes for the other countries' songs to determine the most popular song in the competition...
. Israel won first prize again the following year
Eurovision Song Contest 1979
The Eurovision Song Contest 1979 was the 24th Eurovision Song Contest and was held on 31 March 1979 in Jerusalem, Israel. The presenters were Daniel Pe'er and Yardena Arazi, and the event was staged at the International Convention Center. Representing Israel, Gali Atari and Milk and Honey were the...
with "Halleluyah" (lyrics: Shimrit Or, music: Kobi Oshrat, performed by Gali Atari
Gali Atari
Avigail "Gali" Atari is an Israeli actress and singer.-Career:She first appeared on the international scene in 1971, when she represented Israel at the World Popular Song Festival in Japan with the songs "All free" and "Give love away"...
and Milk and Honey
Milk and Honey (group)
Milk and Honey was an Israeli singing group consisting of Re'uven Gvitrz, Shmulik Bilu and Yehuda Tamir. The group performed with Gali Atari at the Eurovision Song Contest 1979, where they won with the song, "Hallelujah". Their track peaked in the UK Singles Chart at #5 in April 1979. They made...
), and a third time in 1998
Eurovision Song Contest 1998
The Eurovision Song Contest 1998 was the 43rd Eurovision Song Contest and was held on 9 May 1998 at the National Indoor Arena in Birmingham, United Kingdom. The presenters were Terry Wogan and Ulrika Jonsson...
, when the Israeli transsexual rock star Dana International
Dana International
Sharon Cohen , professionally known as Dana International is an Israeli pop singer of Yemenite Jewish ancestry. She has released eight albums and three additional compilation albums, positioning herself as one of Israel's most successful musical acts ever...
sang "Diva
Diva (song)
"Diva" was the winning song of the Eurovision Song Contest 1998 performed in Hebrew by Dana International representing Israel. The music was composed by Tzvika Pick, and the lyrics by Yoav Ginai. It totalled 172 points in the polling.The song became the last entry entirely in a language other than...
" (lyrics: Yoav Ginai, music: Svika Pick
Svika Pick
Svika Pick is an Israeli pop singer and composer.-Biography:Henrik Zvi Pick was born in Wrocław, Poland. He studied music at the Conservatory of Ramat Gan and started to perform at the age of 15.Pick was married to Israeli songwriter Mirit Shem-Or...
).
Although geographically not in Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
, Israel is within the European Broadcasting Area
European Broadcasting Area
The European Broadcasting Area is defined by the International Telecommunication Union as such:The western boundary of "Region 1" is a line drawn west of Iceland down the centre of the Atlantic Ocean....
and is a member of the European Broadcasting Union
European Broadcasting Union
The European Broadcasting Union is a confederation of 74 broadcasting organisations from 56 countries, and 49 associate broadcasters from a further 25...
, and can thus participate in the Eurovision Song Contest. Israel made its first appearance there in 1973
Eurovision Song Contest 1973
The Eurovision Song Contest 1973 was the eighteenth Eurovision Song Contest and was held in Luxembourg. The language rule forcing countries to enter songs sung in any of their national languages was dropped, so performers from some countries sang in English....
.
Early Israeli rock
From pre-1967 beginnings in marginal clubs in Tel Aviv, Israeli rock music has grown to a musical force worldwide. With hundreds of bands, dozens of clubs, and many star performers, Israeli rock has grown to be "the dominant music culture in Israel."The first successful rock group in Israel was "The Churchills
The Churchills
The Churchills was an Israeli band founded in 1965, active until the mid-1970s. It was a part of the rhythm bands scene that were active in Israel in the 1970s, especially in Ramla. The band played rock music in English, from psychedelic rock to hard rock...
", formed in 1967 by guitarists Haim Romano and Yitzhak Klepter. Singer Arik Einstein, a graduate of the Lehakot Tzva'iyot and a rising star in the Israeli music world, chose them as his backup group in 1969, and together they were the first group to offer a publicly acceptable rock sound.
In the 1970s, the Israeli rock idiom was developed by:
- Svika PickSvika PickSvika Pick is an Israeli pop singer and composer.-Biography:Henrik Zvi Pick was born in Wrocław, Poland. He studied music at the Conservatory of Ramat Gan and started to perform at the age of 15.Pick was married to Israeli songwriter Mirit Shem-Or...
, first Israeli rocker to appear in punk and glam-style outfits - Shmulik Kraus, Josie Katz and Arik Einstein who banded together to form the trio "Hahalonot HagvohimThe High WindowsThe High Windows was a 1960s Israeli pop group founded by Arik Einstein, Shmulik Kraus and Josie Katz.-History:Hahalonot HaGvohim trio was formed at the end of 1966. As composer and vocal arranger, Kraus was the group's moving spirit...
" (the High Windows). - KaveretKaveretKaveret , also known as Poogy , was an Israeli rock band in the mid-1970s that won much fame around the world for their often humorous songs and unique style of music. Their shows included many skits, among which are the Sipurey Poogy...
, with singer Gidi Gov and guitarist and composer Danny Sanderson. Kaveret, formed in 1972, was instant success. Songs from their album "Sippurei Poogy" (Stories of Poogy) are still played on Israeli radio today. - Shalom HanochShalom HanochShalom Hanoch is an Israeli rock singer, lyricist and composer.He is considered to be the father of Israeli rock and the most important artist of that area. His works have profoundly influenced Israeli rock and modern Israeli music...
, composer, guitarist and singer.Medley of songs from the album "Shablul" by Arik Einstein and Shalom Hanoch is from www.songs.co.il The album "Sof Onat Hatapuzim" (The end of the Orange Season), of his songs, was released in 1976. It had the hardest rock sound of any group yet, and is considered a landmark in Israeli rock history.
Progressive rock and folk
Alongside the development of Israeli rock music, the tradition of the folk style continued. Singers like Chava AlbersteinChava Alberstein
Chava Alberstein is an Israeli singer, lyricist, composer, and musical arranger.-Biography:Chava Alberstein, born in Szczecin, Poland, moved to Israel with her family in 1950. She grew up in Kiryat Haim....
, Yehoram Gaon
Yehoram Gaon
Yehoram Gaon is a Jewish Israeli singer, actor, director, producer, TV and radio host, and public figure...
and Naomi Shemer
Naomi Shemer
Naomi Shemer was a leading Israeli songwriter hailed as the "first lady of Israeli song and poetry."-Biography:Naomi Sapir was born on Kvutzat Kinneret, a kibbutz her parents had helped found, on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. In the 1950s she served in the Israeli Defense Force's Nahal...
continued to write and perform songs in the canonical "Land of Israel" style. Naomi Shemer's songs, including "Yerushalayim Shel Zahav" (Jerusalem of Gold), "Hoy Artsi Moladeti" (Oh my Land My Homeland, lyrics Shaul Tchernichovsky
Shaul Tchernichovsky
Shaul Tchernichovsky , was a Russian-born Hebrew poet. He is considered one of the great Hebrew poets, identified with nature poetry, and as a poet greatly influenced by the culture of ancient Greece.- Life :...
), "Horshat HaEkaliptus" (The Eucalyptus Grove), have become icons in the patriotic repertoire. Much of her success, including "Yerushalaim Shel Zahav", was due to the song contests of the time.
Bridging the parallel developments of Israeli rock and the continuation of the Land of Israel tradition was a group of musicians who sought to create an authentic Israeli style that would incorporate elements of the new rock sound. These artists include Yehudit Ravitz
Yehudit Ravitz
Yehudit Ravitz is an Israeli singer-songwriter. She was born in Be'er Sheva, in southern Israel. As of 2010, she had released 20 albums and has been performing for nearly 20 years, also musically producing several albums for other musicians.-Music career:...
,Song sample "Lakahat Et Yadi BeYadeh" taken from http://www.songs.co.il. Yoni Rechter
Yoni Rechter
Yoni Rechter is an Israeli musician, composer, pianist, arranger and singer.-Biography:Yonatan Rechter was born in Tel Aviv, Israel. He was the son of Israeli architect Ya'akov Rechter and stepson of Israeli actress Hanna Meron. He attended Tichon Hadash high school...
, Shlomo Gronich
Shlomo Gronich
Shlomo Gronich is a male Israeli composer, singer, songwriter, arranger, and choir conductor.- Biography :Shlomo Gronich grew up in a musical family in Hadera. He holds a B.A. in Music Education from Tel Aviv Educational Academy, and a B.A. in Composition from the Mannes School of Music, New York...
, Matti Caspi
Matti Caspi
Matti Caspi is an Israeli composer, musician, singer, and lyricist. Born in 1949, he is regarded as one of Israel’s top musicians.His music style is difficult to classify. He is influenced by classical music, Brazilian and Latin music, Jazz, Rock and other genres. It is possible to hear all these...
, as well as rock pioneers Gidi Gov
Gidi Gov
Gidi Gov , is an Israeli singer, TV host, entertainer and actor.Gov is married to playwright Anat Gov, with whom he has three children.- Early life :...
, Danny Sanderson
Danny Sanderson
Danny Sanderson is an Israeli musician, singer-songwriter and guitarist.-History:In 1972, after a short and unsuccessful bout in London, Sanderson returned to Israel and founded, along with friends Alon Oleartchik, Ephraim Shamir, Gidi Gov, Meir Feningstein and later on Yoni Rechter and Yizkhak...
and Arik Einstein
Arik Einstein
Arik Einstein is an Israeli singer-songwriter.Einstein was a vocalist for Batzal Yarok , Shleeshiyat Gesher Hayarkon and Hahalonot Hagvohim . His collaboration with Shalom Hanoch and the Churchills planted the seeds for the first Israeli rock albums...
. Their style of progressive rock often adopted the lyrical ballad style of the canonical repertoire, and mixed traditional instruments—flute and recorder, darbuka, and acoustical guitar—with electric guitars, trap sets and synthesizers. Unlike typical hard rock, with its repetitive common-time rhythms and straightforward chord progressions, the songs of these artists were often complex rhythmically and harmonically. Matti Caspi's song "Noah", for example, has a Latin feel, with strong jazz-like offbeats, chromatic harmonic accompaniments, and words relating to the biblical story of Noah. David Broza
David Broza
David Broza is a multi-platinum Israeli singer-songwriter and guitarist.-Personal life:The son of an Israeli–British businessman and a folk singer, Broza was born in Haifa, Israel. He was raised and educated in England and Spain, where he was schooled at Runnymede College, in Madrid...
made flamenco
Flamenco
Flamenco is a genre of music and dance which has its foundation in Andalusian music and dance and in whose evolution Andalusian Gypsies played an important part....
style music popular in the late 70s and 80s.
Shalom Hanoch
Shalom Hanoch is an Israeli rock singer, lyricist and composer.He is considered to be the father of Israeli rock and the most important artist of that area. His works have profoundly influenced Israeli rock and modern Israeli music...
and Svika Pick
Svika Pick
Svika Pick is an Israeli pop singer and composer.-Biography:Henrik Zvi Pick was born in Wrocław, Poland. He studied music at the Conservatory of Ramat Gan and started to perform at the age of 15.Pick was married to Israeli songwriter Mirit Shem-Or...
, were clean-cut Israelis, mostly with neatly trimmed hair, who had served in the army and were exemplary citizens.
Aviv Gefen changed that. Starting his career at age 17, Gefen appeared on stage in drag and heavy makeup, bragged about his evasion of the draft, and sang about drugs, sex and alienation in a hard-rock style reminiscent of Punk Rock. His music struck a deep chord among Israeli youth. He also symbolised the break with the old traditions, though his Beatles and Pink Floyd influenced music was in no sharp contrast stylistically to that of his father, Yehonatan Geffen
Yehonatan Geffen
Yehonatan Geffen also known as Yonatan Gefen, is an Israeli author, poet, songwriter, journalist, and playwright.- Biography :...
, one of the leading lyricists of the day.
Aviv Gefen is still considered as one of Israel's biggest selling contemporary male artist today, though his style and early provocative appearance has dramatically mellowed in recent years.
Israeli pop and dance music
Ofra Haza
Ofra Haza was an Israeli singer of Yemeni origin, an actress and international recording artist....
(singer of "Im Nin'Alu
Im Nin'Alu
"Im Nin'alu" is a Hebrew poem by 17th-century Rabbi Shalom Shabazi that has been set to music and sung by Israeli singer Ofra Haza and others...
", from the album Shaday
Shaday
Shaday was a 1988 album by Ofra Haza, released after the international chart success of the single "Im Nin' Alu ." Like the follow-up "Galbi," it was originally included on the 1984 album Yemenite Songs, which consisted of traditional folk songs with lyrics coming from the poetry of 16th century...
[1988]), Berry Sakharof
Berry Sakharof
Berry Sakharof is an Israeli rock guitarist, songwriter and singer.-Biography:Sakharof was born in Izmir, Turkey in 1957. His family immigrated to Israel when he was 3 years old.-Start of career:...
,Sample of song "Raash Lavan" taken from www.songs.co.il often referred to as "The Prince of Israeli Rock"; Rami Fortis
Rami Fortis
Rami Fortis , often Fortis, is an Israeli rock singer.-Biography:Rami Fortis is of Iraqi and Italian origin. He served in the 1973 Yom Kippur war and was influenced by his experiences at the front. He began his musical career in 1975 as a lighting-man in the shows of Tamuz - one of Israel's...
, the groups "Efo HaYeled?" (Where is the Child?), "Ethnix
Ethnix
Ethnix is an Israeli pop-rock band. Their music is a mix of oriental and Western melodies. Ethnix is the oldest continuously-operating band in Israel, together since 1989. The band was formed out of two former groups, "Moskva", founded in 1984, and "Omanut VeHevra", created in 1987...
", "Teapacks
Teapacks
Teapacks was an Israeli band that formed in 1988 in the southern Israeli city of Sderot. Originally the band was named after the correction fluid Tipp-Ex, but the name was then changed so as not to infringe on the well-known brand....
", "Tislam", "Mashina
Mashina
Mashina are an Israeli pop rock band which was active from 1984 to 1995, and then again from 2003 to the present. The band is considered by many to be Israel's most important and influential rock band...
", "Zikney Tzfat" (The Elders of Safad), "Rockfour
Rockfour
Rockfour is a Psychedelic rock band, formed in 1988 in Holon, Israel. Most of their catalog is in English, and they regularly tour the United States.-Early years:...
", "HaMakhshefot" (The Witches), "Mofa Ha'arnavot Shel Dr. Kasper"(Dr. kasper's Rabbits Show) and Monica Sex
Monica Sex
Monica Sex is an Israeli rock band that is very popular among young fans and the contemporary music scene. Their music is generally characterized by its alternative rock sound and catchy lyrics, which led many of their songs to become radio hits and greatly recognizable in Israeli culture.One of...
.
Singers who mix rock and pop elements with the traditional songs of the Land of Israel are usually achieving tremendous popularity and considered as leading acts in Israeli music today, singers such as Rita
Rita Kleinstein
Rita Yahan-Farouz is an Iranian-born Israeli pop singer and actress.-Early life:Rita Yahan-Farouz was born in Tehran, Iran. Her family emigrated to Israel in 1970.-Musical and acting career:-1980s:...
, Shlomo Artzi, Achinoam Nini
Achinoam Nini
Achinoam Nini , also known by her professional name, Noa, is a leading Israeli international concert and recording artist.-Career:...
, Ivri Lider
Ivri Lider
Ivri Lider is an Israeli pop rock singer-songwriter. He is one of the biggest-selling contemporary artists in Israeli music, and has won the Male Singer of the Year honor from major Israeli national and local radio stations since entering the Israeli music scene in the late 1990s...
, Aviv Gefen, Dana Berger, Evyatar Banai, Harel Skaat
Harel Skaat
Harel Skaat is an Israeli singer and songwriter. He represented Israel in the Eurovision Song Contest 2010 with the song "Milim" ....
, Ninet Tayeb, Shiri Maimon
Shiri Maimon
Shiri Maimon is an Israeli pop/R&B singer, TV show host and actress, who rose to fame as the runner-up in the TV show Kokhav Nolad. She represented Israel in the Eurovision Song Contest 2005.-Early life:...
, Dana International
Dana International
Sharon Cohen , professionally known as Dana International is an Israeli pop singer of Yemenite Jewish ancestry. She has released eight albums and three additional compilation albums, positioning herself as one of Israel's most successful musical acts ever...
, Sharon Haziz, Mika Karni Roni Duani, David D'or
David D'Or
David D'Or is an Israeli singer, composer, and songwriter. A countertenor with a vocal range of more than four octaves, he is a three-time winner of the Israeli "Singer of the Year" and "Best Vocal Performer" awards. He was also chosen to represent Israel in the 2004 Eurovision Song Contest, at...
, Metropolin and many more. Most of these artists also like to mix some elements of electronic sounds of Dance music, so you can find style influences of pop icons such as Madonna
Madonna (entertainer)
Madonna is an American singer-songwriter, actress and entrepreneur. Born in Bay City, Michigan, she moved to New York City in 1977 to pursue a career in modern dance. After performing in the music groups Breakfast Club and Emmy, she released her debut album in 1983...
and Kylie Minogue
Kylie Minogue
Kylie Ann Minogue, OBE - often known simply as Kylie - is an Australian singer, recording artist, songwriter, and actress. After beginning her career as a child actress on Australian television, she achieved recognition through her role in the television soap opera Neighbours, before commencing...
in Israeli music as well.
Israeli world music
Yisrael BorochovYisrael Borochov
Yisrael Borochov , is an Israeli musician, composer, and arranger.-Biography:Borochov was born in Tel Aviv, and raised in Tiberias. He is a self-taught musician who plays the fretless bass guitar, double bass, the dulcimer, jumbush, and percussion...
works in the genres of world and Middle Eastern music in Israel, imbuing Israeli music with Arabic and Bedouin influences. He also runs the East West House, where some of the country's youngest talents come to play their esoteric ethnic music in the eclectic and mixed Jewish and Arabic environment of Jaffa
Jaffa
Jaffa is an ancient port city believed to be one of the oldest in the world. Jaffa was incorporated with Tel Aviv creating the city of Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel. Jaffa is famous for its association with the biblical story of the prophet Jonah.-Etymology:...
.
Psychedelic trance, electronic and house music
Psychedelic trancePsychedelic trance
Psychedelic trance, psytrance or just psy is a form of electronic music characterized by hypnotic arrangements of synthetic rhythms and complex layered melodies created by high tempo riffs. It appeared in the mainstream in 1995 as with reporting of the trend of Goa trance. The genre offers variety...
is popular in Israel, and some Israeli trance artists have gained international recognition, among them Alien Project
Alien Project
Alien Project is the psychedelic trance artist Ari Linker from Tel Aviv, Israel. He has been DJing and producing music since 1994, and his sound has evolved into a recognizably upbeat psytrance sound....
, Astrix
Astrix
Astrix is a Psychedelic trance DJ and producer specialising in the sub-genre of Full On Psychedelic Trance....
, Astral Projection, Maor Levi, and Infected Mushroom
Infected Mushroom
Infected Mushroom is an Israeli psychedelic trance DJ act and electronic group originally formed in late 1997 as a duo by producers Erez Eisen and Amit Duvdevani in Haifa...
. Offer Nissim
Offer Nissim
Offer Nissim is a popular Israeli DJ and producer. He was born in 1964 in Tel Aviv, Israel.Nissim produces house music in mostly tribal, hard and progressive styles, including exclusive tracks featuring female vocalists and Meital De Razon...
is one of the most internationally acclaimed contemporary house music producers.
Rap and hip hop
Israel has developed its own brand of rapRapping
Rapping refers to "spoken or chanted rhyming lyrics". The art form can be broken down into different components, as in the book How to Rap where it is separated into “content”, “flow” , and “delivery”...
and hip hop
Hip hop
Hip hop is a form of musical expression and artistic culture that originated in African-American and Latino communities during the 1970s in New York City, specifically the Bronx. DJ Afrika Bambaataa outlined the four pillars of hip hop culture: MCing, DJing, breaking and graffiti writing...
with groups such as Hadag Nahash
Hadag Nahash
Hadag Nahash is an Israeli hip hop/funk band, founded in 1996 in Jerusalem. The band is known for its leftist political statements in many of its songs.- Name and symbols :...
, Subliminal
Subliminal (rapper)
Ya'akov "Kobi" Shimoni , generally known by his stage name Subliminal , is an Israeli hip hop artist and music producer.-Background:...
, Sagol 59
Sagol 59
Sagol 59 is a Jerusalem-based hip-hop MC. Raised on a Kibbutz in Israel, Khen Rotem took the name Sagol 59, or “purple 59,” from his personal Kibbutz laundry bag tag. After his required 3 year stint in the Israeli Defense Forces, Sagol turned to music, beginning his career in blues, funk and rock...
and Kele 6 performing Israeli hip hop
Israeli hip hop
-History:Although Native Hebrew hip hop gained popularity only during the 1990s, stemming from global influences, traces of it could been found during the mid 1980s. Yair Nitzani, then a member of the Israeli rock group, "Tislam", released an old school hip hop parody album under the name "Hashem...
.
Heavy Metal
Israel has a small underground metal scene, as shown in the documentary Global MetalGlobal Metal
Global Metal is a 2008 documentary film directed by Scot McFadyen and Canadian anthropologist Sam Dunn. It is a followup to their successful 2005 documentary, Metal: A Headbanger's Journey. The film's international premiere took place at the Bergen International Film Festival on October 17th 2007...
. Though some heavy metal in Israel is seen as Satanic, Orphaned Land
Orphaned Land
Orphaned Land is an Israeli progressive metal band, formed in 1991, that combines Death/doom, Jewish and Arabic influences.- History :In 1992, the band changed its name from the original Resurrection to Orphaned Land....
and Melechesh
Melechesh
Melechesh is a Assyrian-Armenian black metal band that originated in Jerusalem. Ashmedi started the band as a solo project in 1993. In the following year, guitarist Moloch and drummer Lord Curse were added to the line-up...
have overcome controversy and become well known in the extreme metal underground.
Classical music
After 1967, classical composers in Israel continued their quest for an Israeli identity in art music. Some Israeli composers have chosen explicitly Jewish or Middle Eastern materials for their compositions.- Betty Olivero uses melodies and modes from her Sephardic Jewish background, building layers of overtones and pantonal harmonies on top of them, so the effect is at the same time very dissonant yet clearly familiar. Despite its modernity, her music has a distinctly Sephardic and tonal character. An example is "Achot Ketana", based on a 13th century Sephardic prayer, and quoting from a Bach chaconne.
- Tsippi Fleischer sets classical poetry in Arabic, Ugarith, and other languages to contemporary music. She uses many features of Arabic music in her compositions, including the use of maqamat, with complex microtonic intonation, combined with traditional Arabic, Western classical and modern instrumentation. An example is "The Goddess Anath", based on scripts in Ugarith, a composition in multimedia for woman's voice, violin, piano, percussion and dancer.
- Andre Hajdu, an immigrant from Hungary, has arranged Hassidic tunes for jazz ensemble.
- Mark Kopytman, a Russian immigrant, has composed symphonic and chamber works based on Jewish themes. An example is his composition "Memory" for string orchestra, which recalls the klezmer music of Eastern Europe.
Yehezkel Braun
-Biography:From the age of two, Braun, was brought up in Mandate Palestine in close contact with Jewish and East-Mediterranean traditional music. The influence of this background is clearly felt in his compositions....
, and Zvi Avni, have also used Jewish and Israeli themes in their compositions. A new generation of composers includes Yitzhak Yedid
Yitzhak Yedid
Yitzhak Yedid is an Israeli Australian composer of classical music and jazz pianist.-Biography:Yitzhak Yedid was born on September 29, 1971 in Jerusalem, Israel. His family immigrated from Syria. He studied at the Rubin Academy of Music and the New England Conservatory in Boston with Ran Blake...
, Lior Navok
Lior Navok
Lior Navok is an Israeli classical composer and conductor. He was born in Tel Aviv. His music has been performed in the United States, Europe, Israel, and Mexico by orchestras and ensembles including the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, and the Tanglewood Festival...
, Gilad Hochman
Gilad Hochman
Gilad Hochman is an Israeli classical music composer.Gilad Hochman was born to an Odessa native father and a Paris native mother and currently resides in Berlin, Germany. Hochman began his musical life at the age of 6, studying the piano...
.
In addition to the Israel Philharmonic, a number of other Israeli orchestras have achieved renown. These include the Jerusalem Broadcast Orchestra, which is supported by the state radio and television authority; the Rishon LeZion Orchestra, and the Camerata Orchestra. One of the motivations for creating these orchestras was to provide employment for Russian immigrant musicians, who arrived in Israel with a high professional level but could not find jobs in their field.
The New Israel Opera Company was founded in 1985. This was the first successful attempt to establish a permanent repertory opera, after a series of failed attempts starting in the 1940s In 1995, the Opera moved into a permanent home in the Golda Center in Tel Aviv.
Israel has produced some of the world's leading performers and conductors. These include pianist and conductor Daniel Barenboim
Daniel Barenboim
Daniel Barenboim, KBE is an Argentinian-Israeli pianist and conductor. He has served as music director of several major symphonic and operatic orchestras and made numerous recordings....
, and a large number of violinists, among them Itzhak Perlman
Itzhak Perlman
Itzhak Perlman is an Israeli-born violinist, conductor, and instructor of master classes. He is regarded as one of the pre-eminent violinists of the 20th and early-21st centuries.-Early life:...
, Pinchas Zukerman
Pinchas Zukerman
Pinchas Zukerman is a world-renowned violinist, violist, and conductor. He is considered one of the greatest violinists of the 20th and 21st centuries, and his ongoing 45-year career has seen him perform with the world's best-known orchestras and record over 100 works...
, Gil Shaham
Gil Shaham
-Biography:Gil Shaham was born in Urbana, Illinois, while his parents, Israeli scientists, were on an academic fellowship at the University of Illinois. His father Jacob was an astrophysicist, and his mother, Meira Diskin, was a cytogeneticist. His sister is the pianist Orli Shaham. He is a...
, Ivry Gitlis
Ivry Gitlis
Ivry Gitlis is an Israeli violinist and UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador. He has performed with the world's top orchestras , and many of his recordings are considered classics.-Life:Born in Haifa, Mandate Palestine to Jewish immigrants from Russia,...
, Gil Shohat and Shlomo Mintz
Shlomo Mintz
Shlomo Mintz is an Israeli violin virtuoso, violist and conductor. He regularly appears with orchestras and conductors on the international scene and is heard in recitals and chamber music concerts around the world.- Awards :...
.
The Jerusalem Quartet is a string quartet that has achieved international acclaim. Other leading chamber groups include the Jerusalem Trio, the Tel Aviv Soloists, the Carmel Quartet
Carmel Quartet
The Carmel Quartet is a string quartet from Israel. The quartet performs frequently in Israel and abroad. It has debuted a number of new Israeli compositions, including the string quartet by Yehezkel Braun.The quartet was founded in 1999...
and the Aviv Quartet.
Mizrahi music
Israeli immigrant communities from Arab countries have over the last 50 years created a blended musical style that combines Turkish, Greek, Arabic, and Israeli elements. As opposed to the New Hebrew Style, which was the conscious creation of Eastern European immigrants trying to define their new Israeli identity, the Muzika Mizrahit style is truly spontaneous and indigenous. Initially met with hostility by the mainstream cultural institutions of Israel, it has now become a major force in Israeli culture.The Muzika Mizrahit movement started in the 1950s with homegrown performers in the ethnic neighborhoods of Israel — the predominantly Yemenite "Kerem Hatemanim
Kerem Hatemanim
Kerem HaTeimanim is a neighbourhood in the center of Tel Aviv, Israel. Its English translation is literally 'Vineyard of the Yemenites'. Its population is estimated at around 80,000, the majority of whom being Yemenite Jews. It is adjacent to the Carmel Market and Allenby Street, and is close to...
" neighborhood of Tel Aviv, Moroccan neighborhoods and neighborhoods of Iranian and Iraqi immigrants — who played at weddings and other events. They performed songs in Hebrew, but in a predominantly Arabic style, on traditional instruments — the Oud
Oud
The oud is a pear-shaped stringed instrument commonly used in North African and Middle Eastern music. The modern oud and the European lute both descend from a common ancestor via diverging paths...
, the Kanun, and the darbuka. Jo Amar and Filfel al-Masry, were two early proponents of Moroccan and Egyptian extraction. In the 1960s, they added acoustic guitar and electric guitar, and their sound became more eclectic. Vocalists typically decorated their singing with melisma
Melisma
Melisma, in music, is the singing of a single syllable of text while moving between several different notes in succession. Music sung in this style is referred to as melismatic, as opposed to syllabic, where each syllable of text is matched to a single note.-History:Music of ancient cultures used...
and other oriental-style ornaments, and delivery was often nasal or guttural in character. Intonation was typically Western, however; singers did not use the quartertone scales typical of Arabic music.
Medieval Hebrew
Medieval Hebrew has many features that distinguish it from older forms of Hebrew. These affect grammar, syntax, sentence structure, and also include a wide variety of new lexical items, which are usually based on older forms....
poets. Later they added texts by Israeli poets, and began writing original lyrics as well. An example is the song "Hanale Hitbalbela" (Hannale was confused), sung by Yizhar Cohen. The lyrics are by the modern Hebrew poet and lyricist Natan Alterman, to a traditional tune.
In the 1970s and early 1980s, a few of these performers began distributing their songs on cassette tapes. The tapes were an instant hit. They were sold in kiosk
Kiosk
Kiosk is a small, separated garden pavilion open on some or all sides. Kiosks were common in Persia, India, Pakistan, and in the Ottoman Empire from the 13th century onward...
s in the rundown shopping area around the Tel Aviv bus station, and the music became known derogatorily as "Muzikat Kassetot", cassette music, or "Bus station music". Performers during this period included Shimi Tavori
Shimi Tavori
Shimi Tavori is an acclaimed Israeli singer. He performs in Hebrew and French.-Biography:Shimi Tavori was born to a Yemenite Jewish family in Ness Ziona, Israel....
, Zehava Ben
Zehava Ben
Zehava Ben is one of the most popular Israeli female vocalists in the Mizrahi music genre; the Middle Eastern-style of singing rising from Israel's Mizrahi Jewish population, dominating Israeli music in the 1990s and popular ever since.-Early life:...
Sample of Zehava Ben's song "Pashut VeAmiti" taken from www.songs.co.il. and Zohar Argov
Zohar Argov
Zohar Argov was a popular Israeli singer and a distinctive voice in the Mizrahi music scene.- Background :The most serious hurdle on the way to stardom was Argov's socioeconomic background. He was born in Rishon LeZion, and grew up in a poor family, the eldest of ten children...
, whose song "HaPerah BeGani" (the Flower in my Garden) became a major hit. Argov, a controversial character who died in 1987 by suicide while in jail, became known as the "King of Muzika Mizrahit"; he became a folk hero, and a movie was made of his life.
Despite the obvious popularity of this music, the state radio eschewed Muzika Mizrahit almost entirely. "The educational and cultural establishment made every effort to separate the second generation of eastern immigrants from this music, by intense socialization in schools and in the media", wrote the social researcher Sami Shalom Chetrit.
The penetration of Muzika Mizrahit into the Israeli establishment was the result of pressure by Mizrahi composers and producers such as Avihu Medina
Avihu Medina
Avihu Medina is an Israeli composer, arranger, songwriter, and singer of Mediterranean Israeli music.-Biography:Medina is the third son of Aaron and Leah Medina. His mother's family immigrated in 1906 and she was born in Jerusalem, and his father immigrated to Israel from Yemen in 1939 when it was...
, the overwhelming, undeniable popularity of the style, and the gradual adoption of elements of Muzika Mizrahit by mainstream artists. Yardena Arazi
Yardena Arazi
Yardena Arazi is an Israeli singer and entertainer.-Biography:Yardena Arazi was born on Kibbutz Kabri and grew up in Haifa. Arazi is the daughter of Jewish immigrants from France and Germany. She joined the Beit Rothschild group at 16 and became its lead vocalist. She did her military service in...
, one of Israel's most popular stars, made a recording in 1989 called "Dimion Mizrahi" (Eastern Imagination), and included original materials and some canonic Israeli songs. Also, some performers started developing a fusion style of Muzika Mizrahit, Israeli, Greek, rock, and other styles. These included Ehud Banai
Ehud Banai
-Early life:Banai, of Persian Jewish and Afghan Jewish descent, was born in Jerusalem to the actor Yaakov Banai, the eldest of the Banai siblings, and moved to Givataim at the age of four.-Music career:...
, Yehuda Poliker
Yehuda Poliker
Yehuda Poliker is an Israeli singer, songwriter, musician, and painter.-Early life:Poliker was born in Kiryat Haim, a suburb of Haifa, Israel to a Greek Jewish family. Poliker is the son of Holocaust survivors deported to Auschwitz from Salonika, Greece.-Music career:Poliker's music combines rock...
, and Shlomo Bar
Shlomo Bar
Shlomo Bar is an Israeli musician, composer, and social activist. He is a pioneer of ethnic music in Israel.- Biography :Born in Rabat, Morocco, in 1943, Bar emigrated to Israel a few years later. He learnt how to play the darbuka and other ethnic percussion instruments, performing in various small...
, whose group "HaBrera HaTivit" (The Natural Choice, or the Natural Selection) incorporated Sitar
Sitar
The 'Tablaman' is a plucked stringed instrument predominantly used in Hindustani classical music, where it has been ubiquitous since the Middle Ages...
s, tabla
Tabla
The tabla is a popular Indian percussion instrument used in Hindustani classical music and in popular and devotional music of the Indian subcontinent. The instrument consists of a pair of hand drums of contrasting sizes and timbres...
, and other Indian
Indian musical instruments
Indian musical instruments can be broadly classified into four categories, mainly classical, western and folk. See Carnatic music and Hindustani music. The instruments are further sub-classified into the type based on the science behind the same....
instruments to create a new, "World
World music
World music is a term with widely varying definitions, often encompassing music which is primarily identified as another genre. This is evidenced by world music definitions such as "all of the music in the world" or "somebody else's local music"...
" style.
The acceptance of Muzika Mizrahit, over the 1990s, parallels the social struggle of Israelis of Mizrahi origin to achieve social and cultural acceptance. "Today, the popular Muzika Mizrahit has begun to erase the differences from rock music, and we can see not a few artists turning into mainstream... This move to the mainstream culture includes cultural assimilation", writes literary researcher and critic Mati Shmuelof.
Hassidic and Orthodox Jewish music
The Orthodox Jewish community of Israel, and its parallel community in the United States, have developed a unique form of Hassidic rock, which has become popular throughout the young orthodox community. This musical form combines the sonorities, instrumentation and rhythms of rock music with melodies which are in a klezmer style, and words taken mostly from religious texts. This rather anomalous combination is produced, performed and broadcast in nearly complete segregation from secular Israeli music. It is never heard on secular radio stations, or in secular public performances. It is broadcast on religious radio stations and played at religious events.One of the pioneers of Hassidic rock was the "singing rabbi," Shlomo Carlebach
Shlomo Carlebach
Shlomo Carlebach , known as Reb Shlomo to his followers, was a Jewish rabbi, religious teacher, composer, and singer who was known as "The Singing Rabbi" during his lifetime...
, who developed a large following in New York in the 1960s, singing religious songs in a folk style reminiscent of Peter, Paul and Mary
Peter, Paul and Mary
Peter, Paul and Mary were an American folk-singing trio whose nearly 50-year career began with their rise to become a paradigm for 1960s folk music. The trio was composed of Peter Yarrow, Paul Stookey and Mary Travers...
. Israeli Hassidic rock performers include the group "Reva LeSheva" and singers Adi Ran
Adi Ran
Adi Ran is an Israeli singer, musician, lyricist and composer who innovated a new music genre called Hasidic Underground . He is a Na Nach Breslover...
and Naftali Abramson. Because of an halakhic
Halakha
Halakha — also transliterated Halocho , or Halacha — is the collective body of Jewish law, including biblical law and later talmudic and rabbinic law, as well as customs and traditions.Judaism classically draws no distinction in its laws between religious and ostensibly non-religious life; Jewish...
restriction on women singing to mixed audiences, there are no women in Hassidic rock groups. Concerts will usually be gender segregated.
While the style is embraced enthusiastically by the religious Zionist
Religious Zionism
Religious Zionism is an ideology that combines Zionism and Jewish religious faith...
movement, including Gush Emunim
Gush Emunim
Gush Emunim was an Israeli messianic and political movement committed to establishing Jewish settlements in the West Bank. While not formally established as an organization until 1974 in the wake of the Yom Kippur War, Gush Emunim sprang out of the conquests of the Six-Day War in 1967, encouraging...
, it is not without its opponents within the Haredi
Haredi Judaism
Haredi or Charedi/Chareidi Judaism is the most conservative form of Orthodox Judaism, often referred to as ultra-Orthodox. A follower of Haredi Judaism is called a Haredi ....
community. Some Haredi rabbis have "a hard time with someone screaming out `Yes, there's the Holy One, blessed be He' at the top of his lungs all of a sudden", says Kobi Sela, religious music critic.
Israeli Arab music
The ArabArab
Arab people, also known as Arabs , are a panethnicity primarily living in the Arab world, which is located in Western Asia and North Africa. They are identified as such on one or more of genealogical, linguistic, or cultural grounds, with tribal affiliations, and intra-tribal relationships playing...
community in Israel, comprising 20 percent of Israel's permanent population at the end of 2007, has developed its own unique forms of musical expression.
Until the early 1990s, little original music was produced by this community and the focus was on the great stars of the Arab world – Umm Kulthum, Fairuz
Fairuz
Nouhad Wadi Haddad , famously known as Fairuz is a Lebanese singer who is widely considered to be the most famous living singer in the Arab world and one of the best known of all time...
, Farid al-Atrash
Farid al-Atrash
Farid al-Atrash, or in French spelling Farid El-Atrache, was a Syrian-Egyptian composer, singer, virtuoso oud player, and actor. Having immigrated to Egypt in childhood, Farid embarked on a highly successful career spanning more than four decades — recording 500 songs and starring in 31 movies...
, and others. Original local music did not achieve popularity or wide distribution among the local population until the 1980s. For the most part, local performers at weddings and other events played music written in Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
, Lebanon
Lebanon
Lebanon , officially the Republic of LebanonRepublic of Lebanon is the most common term used by Lebanese government agencies. The term Lebanese Republic, a literal translation of the official Arabic and French names that is not used in today's world. Arabic is the most common language spoken among...
, and Syria
Syria
Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....
.
With the onset of the 21st century, local stars emerged, among them the internationally acclaimed oud
Oud
The oud is a pear-shaped stringed instrument commonly used in North African and Middle Eastern music. The modern oud and the European lute both descend from a common ancestor via diverging paths...
and violin virtuoso Taiseer Elias, singer Amal Murkus
Amal Murkus
Amal Murkus is a Palestinian Christian singer living in Israel. Her post-modern music style has a variety of Mediterranean influences. Her first album, Amal, was released in 1998, and her second, Shauq, in 2004...
,Video interview and song taken from http://www.freemuse.org/sw589.asp. and brothers Samir and Wissam Joubran
Wissam Joubran
Wissam Hatem Joubran is a Palestinian composer, oud virtuoso, and master lute maker. He is a member of the group Le Trio Joubran.-Biography:Joubran was born in Nazareth in the Galilee...
. Israeli Arab musicians have achieved fame beyond Israel's borders: Elias and Murkus frequently play to audiences in Europe and America, and oud player Darwish Darwish (Prof. Elias's student) was awarded first prize in the all-Arab oud contest in Egypt in 2003.
Living as an Arab minority within Israel has been an influence on Israeli Arabs, which is reflected in their music. Israeli Arab musicians are in the forefront of the quest to define their emerging identity. Lyrics deal with issues of identity, conflict, remembrance and peace. For example, Kamilya Joubran's song "Ghareeba", a setting of a poem by Khalil Gibran
Khalil Gibran
Khalil Gibran Jubrān Khalīl Jubrān,Jibrān Khalīl Jibrān, or Jibrān Xalīl Jibrān; Arabic , January 6, 1883 – April 10, 1931) also known as Kahlil Gibran, was a Lebanese American artist, poet, and writer...
, deals with a sense of isolation and loneliness felt by the Arab Palestinian woman:Song sample is from Kamilya Jubran – Ghareeba
Several groups have emerged, such as Elias's Bustan Avraham, The Olive Leaves, and Shlomo Gronich's Israeli-Palestinian ensemble in which Jews and Palestinians perform together, creating a fusion style of music. Joint musical bands such as Zimrat Yah, Shams Tishrin, Blues Job, and Sahar, appear all over Israel, particularly in the Galilee
Galilee
Galilee , is a large region in northern Israel which overlaps with much of the administrative North District of the country. Traditionally divided into Upper Galilee , Lower Galilee , and Western Galilee , extending from Dan to the north, at the base of Mount Hermon, along Mount Lebanon to the...
.The Olive Leaves gave a successful concert tour in Jordan in 1995, with lead singer Shoham Eynav (Jewish) singing songs in both Hebrew and Arabic.
Israeli Arabs have also branched out into other musical styles. Palestinian hip-hop artist Tamer Nafar, founder of the rap group DAM, became an independent rap star after a politically charged dispute with Israeli rapper Subliminal. His music expresses the frustration and alienation that many Israeli-Palestinians feel. The rock music of Basam Beromi, singer of the group "Khalas" (Enough!), protests against the strictures of traditional Arab society. The song "What have we come to?", for example, tells the story of a young girl in love, whose family murders her for violating strict traditional codes of courtship
Honor killing
An honor killing or honour killing is the homicide of a member of a family or social group by other members, due to the belief of the perpetrators that the victim has brought dishonor upon the family or community...
. London-trained guitarist Michel Sajrawy combines jazz, rock, and gypsy with classical Arab music.
While music education for Israeli Arabs is less developed, there has been a steady growth of opportunities in this sector. The Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance
Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance
The Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance , founded in 1958 as the Rubin Academy of Music, is located on the Givat Ram campus of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.-History:...
has an advanced degree program, headed by Taiseer Elias, in Arabic music. In 2007, the first precollege conservatory for the Arab-speaking population opened in Shfaram.
Iraqi Jewish music
The Iraqi Jews who immigrated to Israel in the early 1950s have preserved their own musical tradition. In the first half of the 20th century, almost all professional instrumental musicians in Iraq were Jewish. They played in the Imperial Orchestra, in the Baghdad radio orchestra, and in the nightclubs of Baghdad. Leading performers included composer and Oud player Ezra Aharon, violinist Salih Al-Kuwaiti and his brother, oud player Dawud Al-Kuwaiti, composer Salim Al'Nur, singer Salima PashaSalima Pasha
Salima Mourad or Salima Murad was a well known Iraqi Jewish singer and was highly respected both in the Arab world and Israel....
, and others. Between 1949 and 1950, almost all these professional musicians fled Iraq for Israel. The Israel Broadcasting Authority (IBA) Arabic Orchestra was instrumental in sustaining their musical traditions in Israel.
Many of these musicians were forced to seek employment outside the music business, but they continued to perform in the community. "Our musical tradition continues", said Suad Bazun, singer and daughter to a family of leading Iraqi musicians. "Today the grandchildren and the great-grandchildren continue to fill their homes with the songs of Iraq."
Yiddish and Ladino music
Yiddish and Ladino are enjoying a revivalRoots revival
A roots revival is a trend which includes young performers popularizing the traditional musical styles of their ancestors. Often, roots revivals include an addition of newly-composed songs with socially and politically aware lyrics, as well as a general modernization of the folk sound.After an...
in Israel. A number of private language institutes and universities offer programs in these languages, which were the spoken languages of Jews of the Diaspora. A Yiddish theater group, the YiddishShpiel, in Tel Aviv, offers popular musical shows. Several leading Israeli artists have recorded songs in these languages, including an album in Ladino by Yehoram Gaon
Yehoram Gaon
Yehoram Gaon is a Jewish Israeli singer, actor, director, producer, TV and radio host, and public figure...
, and an album in Yiddish by Chava Alberstein
Chava Alberstein
Chava Alberstein is an Israeli singer, lyricist, composer, and musical arranger.-Biography:Chava Alberstein, born in Szczecin, Poland, moved to Israel with her family in 1950. She grew up in Kiryat Haim....
."Shirei Am BeYiddish" (1977), produced by NMC. Song sample is from www.songs.co.il
Also, a number of new anthologies of Yiddish songs have been compiled, including a seven-volume anthology edited by Sinai Leichter, published by the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
Music of migrant workers
In 2006, there were an estimated 165,000 migrant workerMigrant worker
The term migrant worker has different official meanings and connotations in different parts of the world. The United Nations' definition is broad, including any people working outside of their home country...
s in Israel. They come from the Philippines, Thailand, India, China, Africa, Eastern Europe, and elsewhere. Each community of migrant workers has its own musical culture. A visitor to the neighborhood of the Central bus station in Tel Aviv will hear strains of popular music from Addis Ababa, Bangkok, and Manila. Foreign workers also have their local popular music groups, that perform at parties and on holidays.
Internationally acclaimed Israeli singers
- Etti AnkriEtti AnkriEsther "Etti" Ankri is an Israeli singer-songwriter. She is a former Female Singer of the Year in Israel, and has also performed in the United States, England, and India. Ankri has been called a "rock genius", the "poet of Israeli spirituality," and "the contemporary voice of.....
– a singer-songwriterSinger-songwriterSinger-songwriters are musicians who write, compose and sing their own musical material including lyrics and melodies. As opposed to contemporary popular music singers who write their own songs, the term singer-songwriter describes a distinct form of artistry, closely associated with the...
, and former Female Singer of the Year in Israel, has also performed in the United States, England, and India. Ankri has been called a "rock genius", a "poet of Israeli spirituality," and "the contemporary voice of... Israel." - Keren AnnKeren AnnKeren Ann Zeidel is a singer-songwriter-composer-producer and engineer based largely in Paris, Tel Aviv and New York City. She plays guitar, piano and clarinet, engineers and writes choir and musical arrangements.-Life and career:...
– performs in France. - Mike BrantMike BrantMike Brant was an Israeli pop star who achieved fame after moving to France. His most successful hit was "Laisse-moi t'aimer"...
- David D'OrDavid D'OrDavid D'Or is an Israeli singer, composer, and songwriter. A countertenor with a vocal range of more than four octaves, he is a three-time winner of the Israeli "Singer of the Year" and "Best Vocal Performer" awards. He was also chosen to represent Israel in the 2004 Eurovision Song Contest, at...
– A countertenorCountertenorA countertenor is a male singing voice whose vocal range is equivalent to that of a contralto, mezzo-soprano, or a soprano, usually through use of falsetto, or far more rarely than normal, modal voice. A pre-pubescent male who has this ability is called a treble...
, he has been Israel's Singer of the Year, and Israel's representative in the Eurovision Song ContestEurovision Song ContestThe Eurovision Song Contest is an annual competition held among active member countries of the European Broadcasting Union .Each member country submits a song to be performed on live television and then casts votes for the other countries' songs to determine the most popular song in the competition...
. By February 2008, nine of his albums had gone platinum. D'Or performs a wide variety of music, including pop, rock, dance musicDance musicDance music is music composed specifically to facilitate or accompany dancing. It can be either a whole musical piece or part of a larger musical arrangement...
, world musicWorld musicWorld music is a term with widely varying definitions, often encompassing music which is primarily identified as another genre. This is evidenced by world music definitions such as "all of the music in the world" or "somebody else's local music"...
, Israeli folk songs, classicalClassical musicClassical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 11th century to present times...
, operaOperaOpera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
, baroqueBaroqueThe Baroque is a period and the style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, literature, dance, and music...
ariaAriaAn aria in music was originally any expressive melody, usually, but not always, performed by a singer. The term is now used almost exclusively to describe a self-contained piece for one voice usually with orchestral accompaniment...
s in the original Italian, klezmerKlezmerKlezmer is a musical tradition of the Ashkenazic Jews of Eastern Europe. Played by professional musicians called klezmorim, the genre originally consisted largely of dance tunes and instrumental display pieces for weddings and other celebrations...
, holy music, ancient chantChantChant is the rhythmic speaking or singing of words or sounds, often primarily on one or two pitches called reciting tones. Chants may range from a simple melody involving a limited set of notes to highly complex musical structures Chant (from French chanter) is the rhythmic speaking or singing...
s, and YemenYemenThe Republic of Yemen , commonly known as Yemen , is a country located in the Middle East, occupying the southwestern to southern end of the Arabian Peninsula. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to the north, the Red Sea to the west, and Oman to the east....
ite prayers. He has performed throughout Europe, Asia, and the US. - Ofra HazaOfra HazaOfra Haza was an Israeli singer of Yemeni origin, an actress and international recording artist....
– Apart from her success in Israel, Haza was well known in Europe and North America in the 1980s and 1990s for her unique blend of Yemenite music and electronic dance sounds. She represented Israel in the 'Eurovision Song Contest' in 1983, and won second place with "Chai" (Alive). Haza collaborated with Iggy PopIggy PopIggy Pop is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and actor. Though considered an innovator of punk rock, Pop's music has encompassed a number of styles over the years, including pop, metal, jazz and blues...
, Paula AbdulPaula AbdulPaula Julie Abdul is an American singer-songwriter, dancer, choreographer, actress and television personality.In the 1980s, Abdul rose from cheerleader for the Los Angeles Lakers to highly sought-after choreographer at the height of the music video era before scoring a string of pop music-R&B hits...
, Sarah BrightmanSarah BrightmanSarah Brightman is an English classical crossover soprano, actress, songwriter and dancer. She is famous for possessing a vocal range of over 3 octaves and singing in the whistle register...
, and others. She played Yocheved in the Oscar-winning animation movie "The Prince Of Egypt," and sang a song, "Deliver Us." - Dana InternationalDana InternationalSharon Cohen , professionally known as Dana International is an Israeli pop singer of Yemenite Jewish ancestry. She has released eight albums and three additional compilation albums, positioning herself as one of Israel's most successful musical acts ever...
– She achieved fame in Europe and North America, and became a gay icon after winning the "Eurovision Song Contest" in 1998 with her song "Diva". - IshtarIshtar (singer)Ishtar is an Israeli-born pop singer who performs in Arabic, Hebrew, Bulgarian, French, Spanish, and English...
– (born Eti ZachIshtar (singer)Ishtar is an Israeli-born pop singer who performs in Arabic, Hebrew, Bulgarian, French, Spanish, and English...
), vocalist of the French dance music group AlabinaAlabinaAlabina is a French-based group that performs a mix of world music: Middle Eastern, Arabic, French, Hebrew, and Spanish Gypsy music. Alabina consists of lead singer Ishtar, who does the female vocals, and the band Los Niños de Sara, who provide male vocals and music.Although the name of the group...
. - Yael NaïmYael NaimYael Naïm , is a French-Israeli singer-songwriter. She rose to fame in 2008 in the US after her hit single "New Soul" was used by Apple in an advertising campaign for its MacBook Air. The song peaked at #7 on the Billboard Hot 100.-Biography:Yael Naïm was born in Paris, France to Tunisian Jewish...
– Her song "New Soul" was used by the Apple computer company in an advertising campaign. She was the first Israeli solo artist to have a top 10 hit in the United States. The song peaked at # 7 on the Billboard Hot 100Billboard Hot 100The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...
. - Achinoam NiniAchinoam NiniAchinoam Nini , also known by her professional name, Noa, is a leading Israeli international concert and recording artist.-Career:...
– Known outside of Israel as NoaAchinoam NiniAchinoam Nini , also known by her professional name, Noa, is a leading Israeli international concert and recording artist.-Career:...
, Nini sings in many languages and styles, but her signature sound is a mix of traditional Yemenite and modern Israeli music. - Gene SimmonsGene SimmonsGene Simmons is an Israeli-American entrepreneur, singer-songwriter, actor, and rock bassist. Known as "The Demon", he is the bassist/vocalist of Kiss, a hard rock band he co-founded in the early 1970s.-Early life:...
of KissKISS (band)Kiss is an American rock band formed in New York City in January 1973. Well-known for its members' face paint and flamboyant stage outfits, the group rose to prominence in the mid to late 1970s on the basis of their elaborate live performances, which featured fire breathing, blood spitting,...
, the popular American band from the 1970s, was born in HaifaHaifaHaifa is the largest city in northern Israel, and the third-largest city in the country, with a population of over 268,000. Another 300,000 people live in towns directly adjacent to the city including the cities of the Krayot, as well as, Tirat Carmel, Daliyat al-Karmel and Nesher...
.
Music education
Israel offers myriad opportunities to study music, from early childhood through adulthood. Music education in Israel enjoys considerable government support, a vestige from the pre-state days when musicmaking was seen as a tool for teaching Hebrew to new immigrants and for building a national ethos.The Israel Ministry of Education supports 41 music conservatories throughout the country. Conservatories offer programs for all ages. One of the most notable of these is the Stricker Conservatory of Tel Aviv, which, besides offering lessons and courses, sponsors a number of concert series and master classes by visiting artists.
A number of institutions of higher education offer degrees in music and musicology. In addition to the two music academies in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, both Tel Aviv University
Tel Aviv University
Tel Aviv University is a public university located in Ramat Aviv, Tel Aviv, Israel. With nearly 30,000 students, TAU is Israel's largest university.-History:...
and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem ; ; abbreviated HUJI) is Israel's second-oldest university, after the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. The Hebrew University has three campuses in Jerusalem and one in Rehovot. The world's largest Jewish studies library is located on its Edmond J...
offer advanced degrees in musicology. The Hebrew University is also home to the Jewish Music Research Center. Bar-Ilan University
Bar-Ilan University
Bar-Ilan University is a university in Ramat Gan of the Tel Aviv District, Israel.Established in 1955, Bar Ilan is now Israel's second-largest academic institution. It has nearly 26,800 students and 1,350 faculty members...
has BA, MA and PhD programs in musicology and a program in music therapy; in 2007, its Safed College opened a three-year program in ethnic music including Klezmer, Hassidic, Western and Eastern music styles. Levinsky College offers a teaching certificate of a BA degree in music education.
Music education does not end with degree programs. Israel offers numerous opportunities for adult musicians to continue learning and performing, even if they do not pursue this as a career. There are two organizations for amateur chamber music players — The Israel Chamber Music Club, for string players, and Yanshuf for wind players. There are more than 20 community orchestras scattered throughout Israel for amateur musicians.
Music and politics
Israel is a country deeply riven by political differences, and music has often become associated with different political factions. Gush EmunimGush Emunim
Gush Emunim was an Israeli messianic and political movement committed to establishing Jewish settlements in the West Bank. While not formally established as an organization until 1974 in the wake of the Yom Kippur War, Gush Emunim sprang out of the conquests of the Six-Day War in 1967, encouraging...
supporters have taken a repertoire of old religious songs and invested them with political meaning. An example is the song "Utsu Etsu VeTufar" (They gave counsel but their counsel was violated). The song signifies the ultimate rightness of those steadfast in their beliefs, suggesting the rightness of Gush Emunim
Gush Emunim
Gush Emunim was an Israeli messianic and political movement committed to establishing Jewish settlements in the West Bank. While not formally established as an organization until 1974 in the wake of the Yom Kippur War, Gush Emunim sprang out of the conquests of the Six-Day War in 1967, encouraging...
's struggle against anti-settlement policy by the government.
In 1967 war, Israel annexed Arab neighborhoods surrounding Jerusalem, a move widely supported at the time, but which has engendered controversy since. A few weeks before the war, Naomi Shemer wrote Jerusalem of Gold, sung by Shuli Natan
Shuli Natan
Shuli Natan is an Israeli singer best known for singing Jerusalem of Gold , written by Naomi Shemer. It was immensely popular right after the Six-Day War, and made her world-famous. It is still very popular in Israel and in Jewish communities worldwide.-Music career:Her recent albums feature...
, extolling the beauties of Jerusalem.Song sample, sung by Shuli Natan, taken from www.songs.co.il That song, and others by Naomi Shemer have become associated with those in Israel who believe that Israel has no obligation to forgo territories occupied in 1967.
In February 1994, Kach supporter Baruch Goldstein
Baruch Goldstein
Baruch Kopel Goldstein was an American-born Jewish Israeli physician and mass murderer who perpetrated the 1994 Cave of the Patriarchs massacre in the city of Hebron, killing 29 Palestinian Muslim worshipers and wounding another 125....
massacred 29 Arab worshipers in the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron
Hebron
Hebron , is located in the southern West Bank, south of Jerusalem. Nestled in the Judean Mountains, it lies 930 meters above sea level. It is the largest city in the West Bank and home to around 165,000 Palestinians, and over 500 Jewish settlers concentrated in and around the old quarter...
. While the act was universally condemned by the Israeli establishment, some extremists praised it. After the massacre, members of the utra-right Kach
Kach and Kahane Chai
Kach was a far-right political party in Israel. Founded by Rabbi Meir Kahane in the early 1970s, and following his Jewish nationalist ideology , the party entered the Knesset in 1984 after several electoral failures...
movement adopted "Barukh HaGever", a song often played at Jewish weddings with its own line dance, because the Hebrew title can be interpreted as "Blessed be the Man" or "Baruch the Hero."
Minutes before Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was murdered
Assassination of Yitzhak Rabin
The assassination of Yitzhak Rabin took place on November 4, 1995 at 21:30, at the end of a rally in support of the Oslo Accords at the Kings of Israel Square in Tel Aviv...
at a political rally in November 1995, Israeli folk singer Miri Aloni sang the Israeli pop song Shir Lashalom
Shir LaShalom
right|thumb|The blood-stained sheet of Shir LaShalom lyrics that Yitzhak Rabin was reading from at the time of his assassination.Shir LaShalom is a popular Israeli song that has come to be an anthem of the Israeli peace camp. The song was first written in 1969. The lyrics were by Yaakov Rotblit...
(Song for Peace). This song, originally written in 1969 and performed extensively by the Lahaqot Tsvayiot at the time, has become one of the anthems of the Israeli peace camp.
During the Arab uprising known as the First Intifada
First Intifada
The First Intifada was a Palestinian uprising against the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian Territories. The uprising began in the Jabalia refugee camp and quickly spread throughout Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem....
, Israeli singer Si Heyman sang Yorim VeBokhim (Shoot and Weep), written by Shalom Hanoch, to protest Israeli policy in the territories. This song was banned briefly by the state-run radio, but later became popular.
Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd were an English rock band that achieved worldwide success with their progressive and psychedelic rock music. Their work is marked by the use of philosophical lyrics, sonic experimentation, innovative album art, and elaborate live shows. Pink Floyd are one of the most commercially...
's Another Brick in the Wall
Another Brick in the Wall
"Another Brick in the Wall" is the title of three songs set to variations of the same basic theme, on Pink Floyd's 1979 rock opera, The Wall, subtitled Part 1 , Part 2 , and Part 3...
is used as a protest song by many opponents of Israel's barrier in the West Bank, which is now half finished. The lyrics have been adapted to: "We don't need no occupation. We don't need no racist wall."
Since the onset of the Oslo Process and, more recently, Israel's unilateral disengagement plan
Israel's unilateral disengagement plan
Israel's unilateral disengagement plan , also known as the "Disengagement plan", "Gaza expulsion plan", and "Hitnatkut", was a proposal by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, adopted by the government on June 6, 2004 and enacted in August 2005, to evict all Israelis from the Gaza Strip and from...
, protest songs became a major avenue for opposition activists to express sentiments. Songs protesting these policies were written and performed by Israeli musicians, such as Ariel Zilber
Ariel Zilber
Ariel Zilber is an Israeli singer-songwriter and composer. He is considered one of the most prominent musicians and singer-songwriters in Israeli music, known for his highly literate lyrics and for his simple yet profound style.Zilber became a Baal Tshuva following the 2005 disengagement from...
, Shalom Flisser, Aharon Razel, Eli Bar-Yahalom, Yuri Lipmanovich, Ari Ben-Yam, and many others.
See also
- HatikvahHatikvah"Hatikvah" is the national anthem of Israel. The anthem was written by Naphtali Herz Imber, a secular Galician Jew from Zolochiv , who moved to the Land of Israel in the early 1880s....
- Jewish musicJewish musicJewish music is the music and melodies of the Jewish People which have evolved over time throughout the long course of Jewish History. In some instances Jewish Music is of a religious nature, spiritual songs and refrains are common in Jewish Services throughout the world, while other times, it is...
- Israel Philharmonic Orchestra FoundationIsrael Philharmonic Orchestra FoundationThe Israel Philharmonic Orchestra Foundation is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing financial support to the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra...
- List of Israeli musical artists
- List of Jewish musicians
- List of music festivals in Israel
- List of songs about Jerusalem
External links
- BBC Radio 3 Audio (60 minutes): Mount Tabor and the Sea of Galilee. Accessed November 25, 2010.
- BBC Radio 3 Audio (60 minutes): The Dead Sea Festival and Sephardic song. Accessed November 25, 2010.
- BBC Radio 3 Audio (60 minutes): Nazareth, the oud, and Dalal Abu Amana. Accessed November 25, 2010.
- BBC Radio 3 Audio (60 minutes): Jerusalem International Oud Festival 2008 – Part 1. Accessed November 25, 2010.
- BBC Radio 3 Audio (60 minutes): Jerusalem International Oud Festival 2008 – Part 2. Accessed November 25, 2010.
- BBC Radio 3 Audio (60 minutes): In Jerusalem: Dalal Abu Amneh and The Yonah Ensemble. Accessed November 25, 2010.
- MusicPage.co.il The Israeli Music Portal (Hebrew)
- TorahAndIsrael has links to well-known Israeli songs on YouTube, with links to their lyrics in Hebrew and English
- The Israel Music Institute and the Israel Composers League are the two unions for Israeli composers. Sites offer musical biographies and sheet music.
- http://שירלהורדה.com/ The Leading Alternative Hebrew Music Portal
- Tavim.net (Hebrew site) – Chords and Sheet Music for Israeli Songs
- Nostalgia (Hebrew site) – history of Israeli song with downloads of historic recordings in the public domain
- SongNet- lyrics of Israeli songs
- http://www.youtunes.co.il/YouTunes – lyrics and clips of Israeli songs
- HebrewSongs.com
- Musica-Israeli.tk
- Punkrock.co.il- Web E-zine dedictaed to Israeli Punk Rock.
- Oded Zehavi,Wandering sands and roots, Eretz Acheret Magazine
- Free Israeli Music From YouTube.