Whitney Houston’s Israel connection
Filed under: A New Reality, coexistence, Entertainment, General, Israeliness, Life, Music, Pop Culture, Religion, Travel
Whitney Houston and Bobby Brown meet Ariel Sharon in 2003 in Jerusalem. (Reuters)
There’s been a soft spot for Houston in Israel ever since a visit she and her then-husband Bobby Brown made here in 2003, a stay that was at once endearing and surreal much like Houston in the last couple decades.
After Houston’s death, local media recalled the six-day visit, in which Houston and Brown met with the Black Hebrew community in Dimona, traveled to Eilat and the Galilee to a baptism spot and later met with then-prime minister Ariel Sharon, telling him that she felt at home in the country.
According to The Jerusalem Post’s account, Wearing bright red African clothing, Brown and Houston – who was then 39 – told Sharon they planned to come back and record a Christmas television special here – a promise she never fulfilled.
There were also reports that Houston was going to record an album with the Black Hebrews, who first settled in Israel in 1969 and became known for its gospel choirs and singing groups.
After Houston’s death, Ben Ammi Ben-Israel, the leader of the 2,500-strong Black Hebrews said on TV that he considered Houston his “spiritual daughter.” Ben-Israel said Houston was a source of pride for his community. He said he recently invited her back to Israel “to help her overcome her problem.”
However, that never took place either. And instead, all the Black Hebrews and the rest of Houston’s multitude of fans are left with is her rich catalogue of music and their memories of her.
Cat Power cancels TA show over Palestinian issue
Filed under: A New Reality, Business, coexistence, Entertainment, General, Life, Music, Pop Culture
Just days after Madonna announced that she’d be opening up her world tour in Israel and spending two weeks in Tel Aviv prior to the debut rehearsing with her massive support crew, her antithesis – both musically, philosophically, and now apparently politically – Cat Power – abruptly announced the cancellation of a show in Tel Aviv three days before it was scheduled to take place.
Power, one of the most respected indie rockers over the last 15 years, was scheduled to perform for the first time in Israel on Sunday night at Reading 3 in Tel Aviv. However, on Thursday, the singer, whose real name is Chan Marshall, posted a message on her Facebook account expressing a change of heart.
“Due to much confusion in my soul, playing for my Israeli fans w/such unrest between Israel and Palestine I can’t play, as I feel sick in my spirit. XX,” she wrote.
She also tweeted: “Music is healing and it is not humane if all cannot have the choice, the right, to attend,” apparently referring to Palestinians who would not be able to travel to Tel Aviv to see the show. The announcement came after Power had tweeted earlier in the week asking her fans to “find a show in Ramallah… for the people of Palestine”.
So what’s wrong with this picture? Does Cat Power actually think there are Palestinians in Ramallah – or anywhere else – who would come out to see her in concert? Even Paul McCartney and Leonard Cohen realized that there’s not enough of an audience for Western music among our neighbors, and they found other ways to show their solidarity for the plight of the innocent members of Palestinian society affected by the situation, whether you believe it’s caused by Israel or by their own leadership. McCartney visited a Palestinian music school and Cohen donated the proceeds from his concert to a fund for reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians.
With a little thought, Cat Power could have come up with something to ease her pained conscience. Ironically, as a friend pointed out on Facebook, the night before her decision to cancel, she performed in Turkey, the same day that Turkish troops killed 13 Kurdish rebels who have been fighting for autonomy in Turkey’s Kurdish-dominated southeast since 1984.
I guess Elton John wasn’t right when he defiantly roared from the stage at Ramat Gan Stadium in 2010 that musicians “don’t cherry pick our conscience” over where to perform. Cat Power seems to do it just fine.
Mozart vs. Madonna
Filed under: Art, Entertainment, General, Israeliness, Life, Music, Pop Culture
With news of Madonna‘s return visit to Israel, I cranked up the stereo with The Material Girl’s hits. I was not expecting the reactions my kids gave me.
My eldest son asked me what “that noise” was. My youngest son said “is that music?” Fortunately my daughter said nothing (which means she did not hate it).
Feeling defeat, I slid a ‘Mozart for the Young’ CD into the slot instead. The little ones started to dance – a sign they approved.
My mother – a great fan of classical music – would be delighted to know that her grandchildren in Israel prefer Mozart to Madonna, Bach to Blur.
Then again, I suppose I’m partially to blame.
You see, when we go to concerts with the kids we prefer a quality performance to the nonsense often served up to toddlers.
My two older children (twins aged 4.5) adore Magical Sounds at the Israeli Opera. Actress Nitza Shaul introduces little ones to the lives of the great composers in a sort of combination play-concert-opera. She is mesmerizing, captivating and interesting.
My kids role-play the classical masters long after we see the shows.
Nitza Shaul dedicates a performance to Armenian composer Aram Khachaturian. (Photo: Yossi Tsevker)
After hosting Bach, Mozart and Beethoven in her studio, Shaul is set to launch a production dedicated to Armenian composer Aram Khachaturian (March 6-8), in the theme of Purim, at the Israeli Opera in Tel Aviv.
The Israel Stage Orchestra (ISO) is another adult-oriented company that has taken it upon itself to attract the future generation of classical music lovers.
In its current production, The Four Seasons and One Sheep (Feb. 18, 21), the ISO tells the story of Italian composer Antonio Vivaldi with a twist.
The music takes center stage but the ISO adds a story of a sheep to the production which helps the young audience identify the different seasons in the music based on what the sheep encounters. At first my children were a bit frightened by the sheep’s Commedia Dell’Arte theater mask but soon got used to it.
To “put the higher arts in first place, one has to make an effort, and to combine them,” ISO musical director Roni Porat said in the past. “I have no problem with the audience being entertained a little along the way, if the goal is listening to good music.”
The Four Seasons and One Sheep at the ISO.
Indeed, my children liked watching the sheep’s antics on stage but when we came home they were imitating the violinists.
I know there’s nothing wrong with raising classical music devotees, but I wouldn’t mind if they’d let me listen to my music as well.
From Material Girl to Zionist
Filed under: A New Reality, coexistence, Entertainment, General, Israeliness, Life, Music, Pop Culture
Madonna performing in Tel Aviv in 2009 with an Israeli flag draped over her.
The Material Girl, who provided a spectacle-filled half time show for attendees and viewers of the Super Bowl on Sunday night, scored her own Hebrew touchdown this week when she announced that her mega-tour to promote her new album MDNA would kick off on May 29 at Ramat Gan Stadium.
In a press conference, Israeli promoter Shuki Weiss disclosed that the 54-year-old cultural icon will arrive in Israel two weeks before the concert, accompanied by an entourage of more than 300 people, to carry out intensive rehearsals for the show.
And since debuts of world tours of someone of Madonna’s caliber are international news events, hundreds of foreign entertainment journalists are expected to descend on the country.
This provides an amazing PR opportunity for Israel to gain worldwide exposure for a news event that has nothing to do with the things we’re usually in the news for: Iran, Palestinians, Hezbollah, separate seating for men and women, or any other of the issues that the foreign media tends to focus on when Israel is the topic.
How cool is it that instead of more of the same, this time we’re going to be seen hand in hand with the world debut of Madonna’s show that is going to travel to over 50 other cities in the world and probably one of the biggest-grossing tours of the year. While it may be a coincidence that the tour is starting in Israel, Madonna’s past indicates that she’s developed a real affinity for the country and its people ever since she performed here for the first time in 1999 at Hayarkon Park.
Since then, she’s returned a number of times for event as the Kabbala Center in Tel Aviv, and in September, 2009, she closed her Sticky & Sweet tour back at Hayarkon Park with two shows.
“It isn’t even a regular visit anymore when she comes,” Weiss said at the press conference on Tuesday. “It’s as if she is the process of making aliya.”
What he probably meant was that Madonna likely feels comfortable with the country and its lifestyle to the extent that she decided to use it as a base for two weeks ahead of the tour’s opening.
“Every time I come here, I get so supercharged with energy,” she said onstage in 2009. “I truly believe that Israel is the energy center of the world. And I also believe that if we can all live together in harmony in this place, then we can live in peace all over the world.”
By choosing to open her tour here and bringing the world’s focus to our small country, Madonna is doing a great service in promoting the above ideals and spreading the word that what we have here is indeed the energy center of the world, and proving that in addition to whatever other monikors that she’s had hoisted upon her, there’s one more that fits her to a T: Zionist.
Nostalgia Sunday – Kol Israel archive open to all
Filed under: Art, education, Entertainment, General, History and Culture, Israeliness, Music, Nostalgia Sunday, Pop Culture, Technology
As the child of a folksinger, it was more than exciting to read that the archive of American ethno-musicologist Alan Lomax has finally be digitized and 17,000 music tracks made accessible online through the Association for Cultural Equity (ACE). Lomax’s research, books and investigative sprit were evident on my parents’ bookshelves and record collection. As the child of an Israeli folksinger, it was equally exciting to hear that the Kol Israel (Voice of Israel) music collection has also been digitized and made publicly accessible. Israeli folk songs were, of course, a part of daily life.
“Technology has caught up to the imagination of Lomax,” and his vision of a “global jukebox”, wrote the New York Times of the newly opened ACE storehouse of audio treasure. Locally, the same is true. Only a few weeks ago, Israeli nostalgia repository Nostal.co.il launched an online radio station of old Israeli songs. Late last summer, we reported on Shapam’s collection of old radio ad spots. And now, the largest collection of Israeli music from pre-State to recent times, has been made available to the general public.
The Kol Israel preservation project was conducted by the National Sound Archives which is part of the Music Department at the Israel National Library. The Archives has the world’s largest collection of ethnographic and commercial recordings of Israeli and Jewish music. The online collection is available both via the National Sound Archive and through the Israel Broadcasting Authority website.
In a radio interview on Friday, Dr. Gila Flam, Head of the Music Department and National Sound Archive, described the volume of the Kol Israel project. In 1983, 6,300 phonograph records belonging to Kol Israel to the National Library. The majority were recordings of radio broadcasts as well as commercial recordings. Flam noted that these were rare acetate master records produced specifically for radio broadcast.
An additional 20,000 records containing a variety of materials were transferred in 2002 of which approximately 5,000 were selected for cataloging and preservation.
Most of these records contain broadcasts from the 1950s and include many unique recordings, chiefly in the field of Israeli music. The labels, which were photographed and cataloged, contain relevant information, such as the name of the artist, production date, etc. There are speeches, such as Israeli Ambassador to the US Abba Eban’s speech on Israel’s 9th Day of Independence, holiday songs like Tu b’Shvat (a dolorous ditty but included here in honor of the upcoming holiday), Im Nin’alu performed by Yemenite immigrants (the song was later made famous in a dance-trance version by the late great Ofra Haza), and of course, no Israeli musicological collection would be complete without accordion renditions of folk dances like Simi Yadech b’Yadi (Put your hand in mine) and Hora Agadati.
There are curiosities as well, such as Arik Lavie’s HaSela HaAdom (The Red Rock) which is labeled quite plainly: “This record is forbidden from broadcast”. The reason for the banning? The song, which described a midnight trip across the border into what was once enemy territory, to visit Jordan’s legendary Petra, had apparently inspired many young people to make similar treks to their peril. And so, Israel Radio bore the national responsibility to quash the trend.
The Legacy Heritage Fund, which provided funding for the digitization project, states, “Because of their impaired physical state, the records cannot be played at all, even for research purposes. The majority are made of acetate and are considered to be at risk because of chemical processes which could cause them to disintegrate at any moment. According to the research and directives of the International Association of Sound and Audiovisual Archives (IASA), these materials should be transferred to digital format immediately in order to preserve their content.”
“As part of this project the Kol Israel recordings, among others, are being transferred from analog to digital format. The Sound Archive includes studios equipped with instruments for optimal playback of old records and conversion to digital formats. After undergoing a cleaning and fixing process, the original materials are converted to both WAV files, for preservation, and MP3 files, to enable access. The preservation process is compliant with the IASA standards.”
Each month, dozens of new audio files will be added. The complete Kol Israel collection is currently being digitized and is scheduled to be uploaded by the end of 2012.
The library has also compiled collections of songs for ease of listening, such as a Nostalgic Hebrew Songs compilation.
The Music Department and National Sound Archive at the National Library welcomes public contributions and additions to the collections and knowledge database on any subject relating to Jewish or Israeli music and are happy to receive songs, recordings, manuscripts and any other material relevant to this field of study.
BTW: The ACE collection has almost no Jewish/Israeli content (Lomax researched the US, Great Britain, Ireland, the Caribbean, Italy, and Spain) but there is a radio show from 1948 that features part of this song, Dance the Hora: “Don’t be sad now, little one, little one / I command you to be happy / All our lives are sorrowful, sorrowful / Come forget your fears and troubles / Let’s have rhythm, let’s have dancing / Bring the music, bring the wine / Let the old and young clasp hands now / dance the hora /” etc. etc. It isn’t much of a folk song — or a song, for that matter — but the lyrics, sung in accented English to the accompaniment of an accordion (what else?) gives some insight as to the Jewish condition in that important year.
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