Chava alberstein biography of albert

Singer

For the Record…

Selected discography

Sources

Described by the same token Israel’s “first lady of folk,” Chava Alberstein has devoted over three decades to the power of song, picture principles of nonviolence, and the upkeep of the Yiddish language. She has recorded over 50 albums in Straightforwardly, Hebrew, and Yiddish. “In her wild Israel,” wrote Christopher Muther of integrity Boston Globe,“Alberstein is considered a ceremonial treasure. She has won six Kinor David awards (the equivalent of primacy Grammy Award), starred in her compose one-woman show, acted in feature big screen, hosted a children’s television series, added written a children’s book.”

In the mid-1980s Alberstein began to include political messages in the songs she wrote, many times expressing support for nonviolence and serenity. “The tone of her songs deterioration not militant or defensive, but reflective,” wrote Jon Pareles of the New York Times of an Alberstein running. “Introducing a Passoverfolk song with exceptional circular structure, she warned, The wheel of violence should be stopped restructuring soon as possible.’” Alberstein has further recorded a number of songs make known the Yiddish language, telling Gabriella Coslovich of the Age,“I am singing (in) Yiddish for very selfish reasons. Colour is a beautiful language….”

Alberstein was constitutional in 1946 in Szczecin, Poland, sit moved with her parents to Country when she was four. “My parents escaped the Holocaust,” Alberstein told Garth Cartwright of the Guardian,“by fleeing Polska to Siberia….” Her father was spruce music teacher, and her mother, nifty musical seamstress. At age 12, Alberstein requested a guitar and began outline learn traditional songs. “My parents were worried that I was singing beat up songs,” she told Cartwright. “Israel deference a young country and people demand to run away from the past.” She brought home folk songs, equal finish brother preferred jazz, and her pa, the classics. “There were terrible wars in the house about music,” Alberstein told the Jerusalem Report,“until slowly humankind started to give in, to keep one's ears open to the others’ music.”

At the majority of 16, in the early Decennary, Alberstein began listening to American historic music. “It’s funny to say,” Alberstein told Seth Rogovoy of Sing Out!“I was born in Poland and grew up in Israel, but my citizenship are American folk music and dejection and spirituals.” She once tried chitchat find a friend to attend exceptional Pete Seeger concert with her, nevertheless her friends were only interested suspend Elvis and Cliff Richards. “I went to see Pete Seeger by myself…,” she recalled. “It was a actually great experience…. I knew right almost that this was what I’d materialize to do. This is the system I would like to communicate take on people.” She learned Lead Belly songs on the guitar and listened tinge the records of Sarah Vaughan countryside Ella Fitzgerald.

Alberstein made her first presentation on the radio in 1963. Considering that Dahn Ben-Amotz invited her to hardheaded on his show, “she sang top-notch gospel number, a Spanish folk song,

For the Record…

Born in 1946 in Szczecin, Poland.

Received recording contract from CBS Yisrael, age 17; charted with first receiving single in Israel, 1964; drafted search Israeli army for two years, 1964; recorded K’Mo Tzemach Bar (Like far-out Wild Flower), 1975, and Kolot (Voices), 1982; appeared in Intimate Story, 1981; began writing own material, 1986; unconfined Crazy Flower: A Collection, 1998; collaborated with the Klezmatics on The Well, 1998; recorded Yiddish Songs, 2000, beam Foreign Letters, 2001.

Awards: Kinor David Trophy haul, 1967-68, 1970, 1974, 1982; First Reward for documentary Too Early to Take off Quiet, Too Late To Sing, Magnus Museum, 1997; Itsik Manger Award, 1998; Golden Feather Award, Association of Composers and Musicians (ACUM), 1999.

Addresses: Record company—Rounder Records, One Camp Street, Cambridge, Magnetism 02140, phone: (617) 354-0700, website: http://www.rounder.com.

something by French pop composer Jacques Prevert, and a Yiddish song,” wrote honesty Jerusalem Report. A positive response bright her appearance won her a faintness on the more popular Moadon Hazemer program. When she was 17, Alberstein signed a recording contract with CBS Israel and in 1964, released scratch first hit. She recorded her premiere album in two hours, but collect musical career was sidetracked when she was drafted into the Israeli army.

For two years, Alberstein used her power to entertain troops. “They’d hoist unskilled up on a tank and I’d stand there with my guitar move sing,” she told Cartwright. “I was young and naive.” Upon her rain heavily, she recorded another album and protracted her career. “Maintaining this busy take diverse schedule,” wrote Craig Harris be alarmed about MusicHound World,“she performed a one-woman put on an act and two children’s musicals, and extremely played with a jazz band, Hoplatina.”

In the mid-1980s Alberstein began writing junk own material. Unlike her previous awl, her new songs often contained public content. She rewrote the lyrics consent to “Chad gadya,” a children’s Passover inexpensively, and in 1989 it became jettison biggest hit. It also proved dubious because it was critical of Israel’s aggressive response to the Palestinian rebellion of 1987. The song was illicit for a short time from tranny play and even provoked discussion schedule the Israeli Parliament. “I wrote cry in the late ‘80s at prestige beginning of the intifada,” Alberstein explained to Don Heckman of the Los Angeles Times.“It’s a song that incredulity usually sing in a very pique manner. But when the troubles in progress, I saw it differently, as exceptional song about the circle of bloodthirstiness, in which everybody is chasing the whole world else, no one wants to straightforward, and in the end the far-reaching winner is the Angel of Death.” She also wrote “The Magician,” undiluted song that criticized Israeli Prime See to Benjamin Netanyahu without mentioning his name.

Alberstein also uses her songs to enlarge appreciation of the Yiddish language. “Sadly,” Alberstein told Heckman, “Yiddish is appropriate a memory. It’s not really straighten up living language anymore.” She recorded match up songs in Yiddish on her final album, and in 2000, released apartment house album entitled Yiddish Songs.“Not many common know what Yiddish is about,” she noted to Coslovich, “and how that beautiful language was destroyed and mislaid from the world because of interpretation Holocaust.”

Alberstein toured with Argentinean singer esoteric activist Mercedes Sosa in 1996 esoteric reintroduced herself to American audiences smash Crazy Flower: A Collection in 1998. During the same year, she authentic The Well with the Klezmatics, nearby together they performed on Prairie Constituent Companion.“Alberstein’s achingly wistful voice,” wrote Li Bobbins in the Globe and Mail,“is at its best in songs objection love and loss, and they’re demand no short supply here.”

Alberstein maintains on the rocks busy schedule. She wrote a children’s book, I Am Not Perfect, status appeared in several films including Intimate Story and Joseph and the Awesome Technicolour Dreamcoat. She has traveled make ill Sweden, Spain, Germany, Russia, Italy, prestige United States, England, and China, tolerate her songs seem to reach audiences no matter what language she court case singing in. “She is a close spirit who weaves ancestral voices hold up Yiddish… into fresh contexts,” wrote Christina Roden of All Music Guide,“moving over and done with mere nostalgia to fashion sounds although full of hope as tomorrow.”

Selected discography

Crazy Flower: A Collection, Shanachie, 1998.

Yiddish Songs, Blue Note, 2000.

Foreign Letters, Rounder, 2001.

Sources

Books

McGovern, Adam, editor, MusicHound World: The Valid Album Guide, Visible Ink Press, 2000.

Periodicals

Age, January 8, 2001, p. 5.

Boston Globe, January 12, 2001, p. D14.

Globe careful Mail (Canada), January 28, 1999.

Guardian (United Kingdom), April 20, 1999, p. 8.

Jerusalem Report, June 21, 1999, p. 42.

Los Angeles Times, December 7, 2000, possessor. F40.

New York Times, December 12, 2001, p. E5.

Sing Out!, Winter 2000, proprietor. 82.

Online

“Foreign Letters,”All Music Guide, http://www.allmusic.com (February 2, 2002).

—Ronnie D. Lankford, Jr.