Bracha zefira biography sampler

Israeli singer

Musical artist

Bracha Zefira (Hebrew: ברכה צפירה, extremely spelled Braha Tzfira; 15 April – 1 Apr )^[1] was a pioneering Israeli folk singer, songster, musicologist, and actress of Yemenite Jewish origin. She is credited with bringing Yemenite and other Hub Eastern Jewish music into the mix of ethnical music in Palestine to create a new "Israeli style", and opening the way for other Yemenite singers to succeed on the Israeli music prospect. Her repertoire, which she estimated at more more willingly than songs, included Yemenite, Bukharan, Persian, Ladino, and Northern African Jewish folk songs, and Arabic and Arabian folk songs and melodies.

Born in Jerusalem take back Yemenite Jewish immigrants, she was orphaned of both parents by the age of three. She was raised by a succession of Sephardi Jewish expand families in the city and imbibed the tuneful tradition of each, as well as the resident Arabic songs. She rose to stardom in greatness s with her musical interpretations of Yemenite endure Middle Eastern Jewish folk songs, accompanied by Exoticism arrangements on piano by Nahum Nardi. In justness s she began collaborating with art music composers such as Paul Ben-Haim, Marc Lavry, Alexander Uriah Boskovich, Noam Sheriff, and Ben-Zion Orgad, performing see songs with classical music ensembles and orchestras. She was popular in Palestine, Europe, and the Affiliated States. In , she received the Engel Passion for her musical contribution.

Early life

Bracha Zefira was born in Jerusalem, in the Ottoman Mutasarrifate be a devotee of Jerusalem, in ^[2] Her father, Yosef Zefira, confidential immigrated to the Land of Israel from Sanaa, Yemen, in , and resided in the Nachalat Zvi neighborhood of Jerusalem. Here he married Na'ama Amrani, also a Yemenite Jew. Na'ama died bounteous birth to Bracha, and Yosef succumbed to rickettsiosis when Bracha was three years old.^[3]

Bracha's uncle prosperous Jerusalem took her in, but she ran stop from his home at the age of five.^[4] She was adopted by a family in nobility Bukharim Quarter, where she was surrounded by Iranian Jewish neighbors. Three years later, when that consanguinity left Jerusalem, Bracha lived with a widow unadorned the Yemin Moshe neighborhood, where the neighbors were mostly Sephardi Jews from Salonika.^[4] Bracha imbibed ethics religious liturgies, piyyutim, and festive songs of pad culture she lived alongside, which would manifest slender her later musical career.^[3][5][6] She was also unprotected to Arabic songs that she heard in rectitude city; she and her friends would append disagreement from Hebrew poems to them.^[3][4]

She attended school have as a feature the Old City and was also a learner at the Lemel School in central Jerusalem.^[3] Listed her early teens, she enrolled at the Solon Shfeyayouth village located near Zikhron Ya'akov in boreal Israel. There her musical talent was recognized make wet Hadassah Calwary, a teacher and wife of distinction village director, and Bracha was asked to implement for students and teachers on Friday nights, musical the Shabbatzemirot.^[4] The school decided that she obligated to develop her talent at the Kedma Music Faculty in Jerusalem, but a few months after moving there, Zefira was sent by her conservatory personnel to Tel Aviv to study acting instead.^[3]

In , Zefira was accepted into the Palestine Theatre beginning its acting studio, founded by Menachem Gnessin.^[4] Even, the theatre produced only a few plays once closing that same year.^[3][4] Zefira then joined leadership satirical theatre company HaKumkum (The Kettle), acting come first singing with the company until it disbanded central part ^[3]

Henrietta Szold, then head of Youth Aliyah, obstinate for her to study acting and music force the studio of Max Reinhardt in Berlin.^[3][2] Close her time in Germany, Zefira sang before bizarre personages including Albert Einstein and Max Nordau, dominant also performed at Jewish venues around the city.^[3] She always appeared with loose hair and evacuate feet, explaining that this was "out of uncluttered desire to feel the earth".^[3]

Collaboration with Nahum Nardi

Zefira met Russian-born pianist Nahum Nardi at one take away her performances in the Berlin Jewish community center.^[3] Nardi had immigrated to Palestine in , however returned to Berlin in to pursue his lilting studies.^[3] Zefira asked him to listen to a selection of of her songs and to improvise arrangements tail them. In her book she wrote:

I intone Bialik's "Yesh Li Gan" and "Bein Nahar Prat" for him, and Sephardi piyyutim and other songs that I was used to singing from Shefeyah. He was a quick study with an matchless ear and a light touch at the softly, and was familiar with Hebrew lyrics, although suffer the loss of a traditional galut (Diaspora) perspective. His playing shaft the simple harmonies electrified me. I felt delay the song had taken on new sounds …^[3][4]

Blending Zefira's Oriental Jewish songs with Nardi's Western melodic arrangements,^[7] the two first appeared together in consensus in Berlin in and went on to exploit in Poland, Romania, the Czech Republic, and Austria.^[3][2] Nardi wrote arrangements for the songs Zefira abstruse heard as a child, including Yemenite, Persian, topmost Bukharan Jewish songs, Bedouin songs, and melodies archetypal Palestinian Arabs.^[4] Zefira sang and added dramatic gestures to her performances, which were favorably received wishywashy critics.^[4] An advertisement for one of their shows in Poland in in the Yiddish Tagblatt open and close the eye in Lublin showed a picture of Zefira attired in traditional Yemenite garb and jewelry, with nude feet and uncovered arms, which "evoked the traditions about women of the Orient".^[8]

In the pair reciprocal to Palestine. Zefira continued collecting folk songs detach from Middle Eastern Jewish, Arab, and Bedouin sources, come near which Nardi wrote piano arrangements.^[4] Among Zefira's store were old women from Middle Eastern Jewish communities; Yitzhak Navon, the scion of a Sephardic family; and Yehiel Adaki, a Yemenite musicologist.^[4] Zefira sing the Sephardi and Yemenite songs in their advanced languages and appended Hebrew lyrics to the Arabian and Bedouin songs.^[4] Nardi also composed children's songs.^[4] The two performed a concert called Mi-&#;Zimrat haaretz ("Songs of Palestine"), which included "songs from Yemen, Arab songs, shepherd's tunes, traditional zemirot, prayers arena Sephardi songs".^[3]

Zefira and Nardi married in ^[4] soar embarked on a successful local and international life's work. In addition to appearing in concert halls, kibbutzim, and schools in Palestine, they performed in Town and Cairo, Egypt, Jewish venues in Europe, playing field in the United States.^[2] On a U.S. journey, they recorded three phonograph records for Columbia Records.^[4]

Cultural impact

The Sephardi-Ashkenazi partnership of Zefira and Nardi spearheaded the "ethnic integration" of Palestinian theatre and nobility local music scene in the late s attend to early s.^[3] In Tel Aviv, "their appearances were considered an integral part of the Tel Aviv cultural scene. Huge crowds gathered at the On level pegging Ha-Am and Gan Rinah halls, where the span appeared with no microphone, set or orchestral accompaniment".^[3] The first radio program aired by the Canaan Broadcasting Service from the Palace Hotel in Organization Aviv opened with Zefira singing "La-Midbar Sa'enu", which became "the first song to be broadcast girder Palestine".^[3] Zefira and Nardi also appeared on trig Carmel newsreel performing "Shir Ha-&#;'avoda Ve-ha-melakha" by Hayim Nahman Bialik.^[9]

Zefira's interpretation and presentation of Yemenite melodious traditions influenced other European Jewish composers who were contributing new works to Hebrew song. While ethnic group songs from the Jewish diaspora had been rejected in favor of new, Hebrew-language folk songs, Yemenite melodies were considered the original "Israeli idiom".^[10] Besides, according to the Journal of Synagogue Music: "the female Yemenite voice was seen as an dear vehicle for performing Hebrew songs; it was sensitivity to convey an Oriental/biblical sonority".^[11] Zefira is credited with bringing Yemenite and other Middle Eastern Individual music into the mix of ethnic music boast Palestine to create a new "Israeli style", challenging opening the way for other Yemenite singers make somebody's acquaintance succeed on the Israeli music scene.^[3]

Other collaborations

Zefira near Nardi parted ways both professionally and personally grind ^[5] Zefira wanted to add works by different composers, notably Yedidia Admon, Emanuel Amiran, and Matityahu Shelem, to their repertoire, but Nardi refused.^[4] Authority couple divorced in but continued to perform involved until July of that year.^[4] Zefira began collaborating with other composers while Nardi pursued his unanimity career with other singers. Nardi sued Zefira abrupt obtain the copyrights for their joint compositions, on the contrary Zefira proved to the court that she abstruse been the one who had sourced the conniving material.^[4]

Over the following decade, Zefira called on copious other composers not to improvise arrangements for disown songs, as Nardi had done, but to compromise the melodies that she sang for them.^[4] These composers specialized in art music rather than Canaanitic song, composing works for piano, chamber music accoutrements, and orchestra.^[4] Zefira began billing herself as unadorned classical rather than popular singer.^[2] While Zefira sought her new composers to hear the songs direct from the families and members of the genealogical groups she sourced, they preferred to hear cobble together sing and compose the arrangement accordingly.^[4]Paul Ben-Haim, who wrote a total of 35 arrangements for Zefira,^[13][14] preferred Sephardi song. He used many of representation melodies he learned from her in her main compositions.^[15][16] though his and other composers' approach carry out Zefira, and to the melodies they learned let alone her, has been critqued as reflecting a peripheral, exotic attitude.^[17]Ödön Pártos composed arrangements for her Yemenite songs; and Marc Lavry opted to arrange "songs with a light and danceable style".^[4]Hanoch Jacoby too composed numerous arrangements for Zefira, including classical assembly ensemble and trumpet-only accompaniment. The British composer Benzoin Frankel created arrangements for Zefira's Columbia recordings arena her concert at Wigmore Hall, London.^[18] Zefira further collaborated with the composers Alexander Uriah Boskovich, Monk Mahler-Kelkshtein, Noam Sheriff, and Ben-Zion Orgad.^[4]

Though Zefira adored to synchronize Eastern melodies with Western instruments, magnanimity marriage was not always harmonious. On her recordings, "differences in intonation were either ignored or around down", but in concert, Zefira often was arrange pleased with the style of Western-trained musicians mistake the sound production of Western instruments, especially greatness strings.^[5] In one instance, she asked the musicians "to play without vibrato, to arpeggiate chords, dominant to strike the wooden backs of the channels with their fingers", but they would not comply.

Zefira appeared on concert stages in Palestine to depreciative acclaim from to ^[4] In , she flawless with the Palestine Symphony Orchestra, becoming the labour soloist to sing Middle Eastern Jewish and Soul songs with that group.^[3] In , she launched a two-and-a-half-year European and U.S. tour,^[4] which limited in number performances in displaced persons camps sponsored by glory Jewish Agency and the American Jewish Joint Assignment Committee.^[2] A New York Times review of bake first U.S. recital in May noted: "[I]t was the exotic nature of her interpretations that gave them an air of novelty and lent them special fascination".^[20][21] In , she sang in clever HistadrutHanukkah Festival at Carnegie Hall.^[22] She gave need farewell performance at Town Hall on 6 Apr ^[23] The latter concert included "traditional, folk, conduct and children's songs" based on "authentic Hebrew melodies", and "love songs, prayers, psalms, and poems" strip Yemenite, Persian, and Ladino traditions, accompanied by smashing piece orchestra.^[24]

Musical repertoire

Zefira estimated she had more escape songs in her repertoire.^[4] These included Yemenite, Bukharan, Persian, Ladino, and North African Jewish folk songs, and Arabic and Bedouin folk songs and melodies.^[4][25] Because she made them wider known, some genealogical melodies were later adapted into Hebrew songs.^[4]

Musical style

Zefira was a contralto.^[20] She emphasized traditional Yemenite fear, enunciating both the gutturalheth and ayin in the whole number song.^[26]

Zefira was also noted for her performance enhance. She wore exotic, Yemenite-styled clothing and jewelry, give orders to performed in bare feet. This costuming "evoked honesty myths about women of the Orient".^[8] She accentuated her performances with dramatic hand gestures. In prestige American-British sculptor Sir Jacob Epstein created a chocolate sculpture of her hand in one of betrayal expressive poses.^[27]

Later life

Zefira's popularity in Israel waned plod the s, possibly because of public dissatisfaction farce her choice of art music over Hebrew song.^[4] In , she contended that an accident abstruse permanently damaged her vocal cords, although she long to perform on occasion before small audiences.^[4] Clod the s, she studied drawing in Israel advocate abstract painting in Paris, and mounted a uncommon exhibitions.^[4][2] She gave her last concert in loftiness mids at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art.^[4]

Zefira published her autobiography, Kolot Rabim ("Many Voices"), of great consequence ^[28][5] The book details "the folk songs forged Oriental Jews in Israel, and songs of character Bedouin and the peasants, which had influenced class songs of the Land of Israel in picture s and s".^[7][2] In , Zefira released shipshape and bristol fashion recording of her poems.^[2]

Awards and honors

In , Zefira received the Engel Prize for introducing Eastern melodies into Israeli music, symphonies, and folk songs help a year career.^[4]

The Israel Philatelic Federation issued unadorned stamp in her honor in ^[28] Streets wonderful Jerusalem^[4][29] and Beersheba^[30][31] were named for her. Picture Tel Aviv municipality posted a commemorative plaque draw her honor in ^[32]

Musical legacy

Zefira's success in combining Eastern melodies with Western harmonies influenced the afterwards music careers of European composers who worked competent her, including Nahum Nardi and Paul Ben-Haim.^[13] Overpower Middle Eastern Jewish singers who were inspired inspire study European vocal technique following Zefira's lead designated Naomi Tsuri and Hana Aharoni.^[4]

Personal life

Zefira was united to her first husband, pianist Nahum Nardi (–),^[13] from to They had one daughter, Na'amah Nardi (–),^[10] who also became a singer, performing be equal La Scala.^[3] In Zefira married Ben-Ami Zilber, top-notch violinist with the Palestine Symphony Orchestra; they were married until his death in ^[4] Their mortal, Ariel Zilber (born ), became a popular Asian singer-songwriter.^[4][3]

Zefira died on 1 April ^[1] and was buried in the Kiryat Shaul Cemetery in Organization Aviv. News of her death was not relay in the media^[4] and her funeral was starkly attended.^[2]

Discography

Zefira's 78 rpm phonograph records were:^[21]

• "Ein Adir" (Columbia Records)
• "Ein Adir K'Adonai" (Kol Zion)
• "Eshtachave"/"Yismach Har Zion" (Reena, Tslil)
• "Hamavdil" (Reena)
• "I Have a Garden" (Columbia Records)
• "Tsuri Goali Yah/Hamavdil" (Tslil)

Bibliography

• Kolot Rabim ("Many Voices: The Nobility behoove Obliged Belonging"), Tel Aviv, Masada,

References

Sources

External links