Ben Shalev
By Ben Shalev
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The Schmooze Monday Music: Israeli Indie Scene Grows Up
Crossposted from Haaretz On Friday evening, in the children’s area of the Yaarot Menashe festival complex, you could hear a young mother calling her child, “Geva, come, the show is starting soon.” Since there aren’t many 5-year-olds named Geva, and because Geva is the name of one of the stars of the Israeli indie scene,…
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Music The Yemen Singer
Crossposted from Haaretz When singer Zion Golan entered the wedding hall in Yehud at 7:10 P.M., the atmosphere was sleepy. Hardly anyone was there, not even all the waiters; it would be another two hours before the rest of the guests arrived and the wedding ceremony began. Those who were present no doubt wondered what…
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The Schmooze Oscar Winning Composer Inspired by Silent Film
Crossposted from Haaretz Three days before he won an Oscar for the soundtrack he composed for the movie “The Artist,” Ludovic Bource sat in his studio in Paris and adapted one of the film’s songs for the accordion — the first instrument he played as a child. Speaking before the Oscar ceremony last Sunday, the…
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The Schmooze Monday Music: Balkan Beat Goes On
Crossposted from Haaretz The penultimate song on “Give,” Balkan Beat Box’s new album, is poignantly titled “Enemy in Economy.” This light and humorous song mocks the varying suspicions that Americans harbor toward non-Americans, and in effect takes a stand against xenophobia. “Enemy in Economy” ends with a sort of musical pan of the length of…
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The Schmooze Singer Yaffa Yarkoni Dies at 86
Crossposted from Haaretz Yaffa Yarkoni, one of Israel’s greatest and best-loved singers, passed away January 1 in Tel Aviv at the age of 86, following a battle with Alzheimer’s disease. Lyricist Avi Koren, a close friend of the singer’s for 45 years, recalled yesterday that Yarkoni, an Israel Prize laureate, once said to him: “Look…
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The Schmooze Keyboard Kings and Queens
Crossposted from Haaretz On paper, and sometimes in practice, there are several good reasons for not getting excited about the annual Tel Aviv Piano Festival. Among them are the festival’s formal and conservative nature, the way the problematic concept of hospitality is dealt with, the absence of a rhythmic component in most of the events,…
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The Schmooze Joined by Oud
Crossposted from Haaretz The closing performance of the Jerusalem Oud Festival, starring the singer Aynur Dogan, exemplified the festival’s beauty and necessity. Even in times when the word “flotilla” brought to mind pleasant connotations, Israeli music lovers did not have many opportunities to enjoy a leading Turkish singer. In recent times, marked by Israeli-Turkish hostility,…
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The Schmooze Preserving Indie Moments
Crossposted from Haaretz At the site of the festival there were billboards proclaiming “Indiemoment,” urging the thousands present to photograph what they were doing and what was going on around them at the same exact, predetermined times: 3:53 a.m. and 3:53 p.m. After the In-D-Negev Festival 2011 last week, the photos were sent to a…
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