In Conversation with
Avital Raz
June 2008
A little background:
Avital Raz quoting a review I read about her says
she ‘came from a religious American family in
Jerusalem.’
Avital herself started singing at the age off eight
In a children choir and by the time she got to
Fifteen, she had started singing solos with major
Israeli Orchestras.
By the time she got to twenty, Avital moved
To Varnasit, India on the threshold of a promising
Career in Opera to study Drupjad, the oldest
Form of Hindustani music with Prof. Ritwik Sanyal.
Avital’s time in India this review informed me consisted of
pre-dawn chanting, bathing in the Ganges, Hindi and Sanskrit
lessons ,many a variety of dysentery, obsessions with
ayurvedic cooking, painfully drawn out international love sagas,
moments of utter bliss, being too stoned to move,
two broken legs, a sprained ankle and a rabid dog attack,
involvement with various cults, touching feet of
nd of actual people, being awfully alone and little by little,
as her inhibitions melted, finally finding the nerve to write
her own music.
After 10 years, she then returned to Israel singing her own
synthesis between east and west and has concluded work
recently on her first album ‘Strange Love Songs’.
According to the review I read it describes her album as a ‘guerrilla
revoluation inside a tiny antique music box, a cabaret put on in
the chamber of the heart.’
Setting Sun wise, I discovered her ages ago when I emailed
Her after listening to her music after listening to friends of
Another artist I emailed earlier in the year after reading her
Influences which were listed as ‘ Peter, Paul and
Mary, Joan Baez, Simon and Garfunkel, Emma Kirby
Leonard Cohen with Indian acts such as Kumar Gandarva,
Malini Rajurkar, Jasraj as well as King Creosote,
Kimya Dawson, Josephine Foster to name a few
And spellbound by what I hear.
Avital emailed me quite quickly and the interview
Followed through shortly after.
For more information on Avital – please go to
Her myspace.com which is:
http://www.myspace.com/avitalraz
Thanks to Avital for all of her hard work with
This interview. I really, really enjoyed it!
Cheers
Andy N
Setting Sun:
What's happening at the moment and how are things?
Avital Raz:
It's 8am on a Saturday morning. I'm in the midst of the busiest week
I've had since coming back from India, nearly two years back.
Three concerts, many rehearsals and recordings. In an hour I have to
leave to travel to the far north of Israel to perform at a poetry festival. Most of these
performances lately are of a project I'm involved with, which includes
an actress and a lecturer on the middle ages. I've composed songs by
Hebrew poets
from the 12th century in Spain.
Setting Sun:
Next, can you tell us a little bit about the
history of your music –
what started you off etc?
Avital Raz:
I started out In a children's choir at the age of eight. We rehearsed
6 days a week and used to travel to Europe for festivals. Our
conductor was a very strict Holocaust survivor who fancied
modelling us on famous boy's choirs in Germany and Austria in
which there were many penalties and punishments.
In those years, I would say I was more involved with the
choir than with my family. At the age of thirteen, by now
obsessed with becoming a soloist, I started having private voice
lessons. By fifteen I sang my first major solo with the Haifa
Symphony Orchestra and till today it remains one of my
happiest memories of feeling that everything in the universe is in
it's correct place... :)
At seventeen I started a B/mus degree at the Rubin
academy in Jerusalem in singing and later on in
composition as well.
During my academy years I was regarded as somewhat
of a prodigy, I was making more money from singing than
I do now and slowly feeling more and more like a circus
animal.
I sang a lot of early music, a lot of avant-garde modern
compositions, and my teacher was trying to get me to sing
more and more opera. At age twenty I first travelled to India,
came home with a cheap sitar and many cassettes and spent
about a year deciding that Indian classical music is the most beautiful
thing there is.
So at twenty to the dismay of many, I decided to leave opera and
Israel and go study in Varanasi (India). I stayed there for six years
studying Druphad, the oldest form of north-Indian classical song
with Prof. Ritwik Sanyal.
Setting Sun:
What are your influences and what are you listening to
at the
moment?
Avital Raz:
My influences are the Folk music that my American parents used to
listen to while growing up in Jerusalem. Namely Peter, Paul and
Mary, Joan Baez, Simon and Garfunkel... The classical music we
sang in the choir. The one singer I absolutely adored was
Emma Kirkby. Throughout highschool I listened mostly to
Leonard Cohen like many depressed Israeli teenagers. These
days a lot of Indian classical-Kumar Gandarva, Malini Rajurkar,
Jasraj... and I've been trying to get to know more modern stuff –
King Creosote, Kimya Dawson, Josephine Foster to name a few.
Setting Sun:
I can see from your forthcoming shows on your myspace
page
That you play concerts on a regular basis. How do these
differ
From your recordings for example on your myspace page –
Is their one you prefer over the other?
Avital Raz:
I've worked with the same musicians for a few years, especially
my producer, Itzik Yona, who plays guitar on most of my
recordings. These days I'm trying to work with various
artists and we go for a less polished and more experimental
sound.
Setting Sun:
I have being really enjoying your songs on myspace page
In particular ‘Beautiful’ – can you tell us a little bit
about
This song etc?
Avital Raz:
The Song "Beautiful" was written after a sour breakup
with a Goddess worshiping french so-called monk. Apparently
upon reading the lyrics, he developed severe neck pains...
Kali is an Indian Goddess who came forth from the third eye
of Goddess Durga during her nine days of fighting evil
demons. As her fighting proceeded, she became exceedingly
angry and on the eighth day, Kali emerged. The name Kali comes
from Kal which means time and Kala, which means black –
she is the destroyer Goddess. Though her initial purpose was
good, she is often out of control, therefore Lord Shiva, her lover,
lies down in her stamping path and her foot stops on his heart.
That is how you see the two of them in Kali temples throughout
India, Kali with her bloody garland of skulls and Shiva lying
beneath her, staring up at her in ecstasy.
I also brought a little quote from Song of Songs-"black and beautiful".
My family was orthodox during my early childhood.
Setting Sun:
What's next for you? Do you have any more gigs lined up,
maybe recordings?
Avital Raz:
I'm now recording a new album, which will be called "Sweeter than
Candy", and we're going to try out the new songs live in Tel Aviv a
couple of times this month.
Setting Sun;
A few more lighter questions to finish off
with… I see you are from
Israel?
What is the music scene like over there at the moment?
Have you seen any good concerts recently?
Avital Raz:
The music scene in Israel is quite difficult. Many good artists and not
too many people who go out to hear them. We have our own version
of American Idol which seem to take the space of most people's
cultural-musical needs...
A few good concerts I've heard recently are of Asaf Avidan –
a young Israeli male who sounds like Janis Joplin - he's great and sings
in English. I also like Albert Sofer, a folk singer in Hebrew who has
never so far left the country and touches me deeply.
Setting Sun:
What would be your dream job if you were not doing
music?
Avital Raz:
My dream job would have something to do with comparative
religion, academia, I guess.
Setting Sun:
What would you like to be doing when you are 60?
Avital Raz:
I would like to be living in the south west of England with two
big old English shepherds and basically doing what I'm doing
now but with less stress.
Setting Sun:
stly, what will you be doing when you are 60?
God only knows...