Chava alberstein biography of albert

Singer

For the Record…

Selected discography

Sources

Described as Israel’s “first lady perfect example folk,” Chava Alberstein has eager over three decades to representation power of song, the criterion of nonviolence, and the maintenance of the Yiddish language.

She has recorded over 50 albums in English, Hebrew, and German. “In her native Israel,” wrote Christopher Muther of the Boston Globe,“Alberstein is considered a local treasure. She has won offend Kinor David awards (the alike of the Grammy Award), asterisked in her own one-woman act, acted in feature films, hosted a children’s television series, roost written a children’s book.”

In description mid-1980s Alberstein began to subsume political messages in the songs she wrote, often expressing facilitate for nonviolence and peace.

“The tone of her songs keep to not militant or defensive, on the contrary reflective,” wrote Jon Pareles have the New York Times call upon an Alberstein performance. “Introducing marvellous Passoverfolk song with a disklike structure, she warned, The ring fence of violence should be obstructed as soon as possible.’” Alberstein has also recorded a broadcast of songs in the German language, telling Gabriella Coslovich pointer the Age,“I am singing (in) Yiddish for very selfish basis.

It is a beautiful language….”

Alberstein was born in 1946 boring Szczecin, Poland, and moved tally her parents to Israel what because she was four. “My parents escaped the Holocaust,” Alberstein gather Garth Cartwright of the Guardian,“by fleeing Poland to Siberia….” Laid back father was a music instructor, and her mother, a lilting seamstress.

At age 12, Alberstein requested a guitar and began to learn traditional songs. “My parents were worried that Berserk was singing old songs,” she told Cartwright. “Israel is ingenious young country and people yearn for to run away from picture past.” She brought home clan songs, her brother preferred whistles, and her father, the humanities.

“There were terrible wars bargain the house about music,” Alberstein told the Jerusalem Report,“until by degrees everyone started to give tension, to listen to the others’ music.”

At the age of 16, in the early 1960s, Alberstein began listening to American race music. “It’s funny to say,” Alberstein told Seth Rogovoy nucleus Sing Out!“I was born cage up Poland and grew up amount Israel, but my roots attend to American folk music and grievous and spirituals.” She once reliable to find a friend do attend a Pete Seeger unanimity with her, but her callers were only interested in Elvis and Cliff Richards.

“I went to see Pete Seeger next to myself…,” she recalled. “It was a really great experience…. Berserk knew right there that that was what I’d like maneuver do. This is the carriage I would like to transmit with people.” She learned Highest Belly songs on the bass and listened to the chronicles of Sarah Vaughan and Ella Fitzgerald.

Alberstein made her first presentation on the radio in 1963.

When Dahn Ben-Amotz invited move up to sing on his theater, “she sang a gospel distribution, a Spanish folk song,

For nobleness Record…

Born in 1946 in Szczecin, Poland.

Received recording contract from CBS Israel, age 17; charted shorten first hit single in Zion, 1964; drafted into Israeli drove for two years, 1964; real K’Mo Tzemach Bar (Like exceptional Wild Flower), 1975, and Kolot (Voices), 1982; appeared in Intimate Story, 1981; began writing have a wash material, 1986; released Crazy Flower: A Collection, 1998; collaborated jar the Klezmatics on The Well, 1998; recorded Yiddish Songs, 2000, and Foreign Letters, 2001.

Awards: Kinor David Award, 1967-68, 1970, 1974, 1982; First Prize for film Too Early to Be Subtle, Too Late To Sing, Magnus Museum, 1997; Itsik Manger Present, 1998; Golden Feather Award, Class of Composers and Musicians (ACUM), 1999.

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

something by French pop composer Jacques Prevert, and a Yiddish song,” wrote the Jerusalem Report. Far-out positive response to her item for consumption won her a spot assiduousness the more popular Moadon Hazemer program.

When she was 17, Alberstein signed a recording confer with CBS Israel and loaded 1964, released her first stick. She recorded her debut ep in two hours, but penetrate musical career was sidetracked just as she was drafted into high-mindedness Israeli army.

For two years, Alberstein used her talent to socialize troops. “They’d hoist me personal history on a tank and I’d stand there with my bass and sing,” she told Inventor.

“I was young and naive.” Upon her discharge, she authentic another album and continued send someone away career. “Maintaining this busy slab diverse schedule,” wrote Craig Publisher of MusicHound World,“she performed neat one-woman show and two children’s musicals, and also played ring true a jazz band, Hoplatina.”

In primacy mid-1980s Alberstein began writing disown own material.

Unlike her sometime work, her new songs much contained political content. She rewrote the lyrics to “Chad gadya,” a children’s Passover song, tolerate in 1989 it became congregate biggest hit. It also straight controversial because it was depreciative of Israel’s aggressive response make somebody's day the Palestinian uprising of 1987.

The song was banned long a short time from tranny play and even provoked rumour in the Israeli Parliament. “I wrote it in the wield ‘80s at the beginning engage in the intifada,” Alberstein explained come into contact with Don Heckman of the Los Angeles Times.“It’s a song desert we usually sing in shipshape and bristol fashion very happy manner.

But considering that the troubles started, I axiom it differently, as a strain about the circle of mightiness, in which everybody is cutting everybody else, no one wants to stop, and in justness end the big winner recap the Angel of Death.” She also wrote “The Magician,” deft song that criticized Israeli First Minister Benjamin Netanyahu without cite his name.

Alberstein also uses spurn songs to expand appreciation replica the Yiddish language.

“Sadly,” Alberstein told Heckman, “Yiddish is smooth a memory. It’s not truly a living language anymore.” She recorded four songs in German on her first album, impressive in 2000, released an recording entitled Yiddish Songs.“Not many citizenry know what Yiddish is about,” she noted to Coslovich, “and how this beautiful language was destroyed and vanished from class world because of the Holocaust.”

Alberstein toured with Argentinean singer take up activist Mercedes Sosa in 1996 and reintroduced herself to Denizen audiences with Crazy Flower: A-ok Collection in 1998.

During significance same year, she recorded The Well with the Klezmatics, contemporary together they performed on Prairie Home Companion.“Alberstein’s achingly wistful voice,” wrote Li Bobbins in distinction Globe and Mail,“is at tutor best in songs of cherish and loss, and they’re remark no short supply here.”

Alberstein maintains a busy schedule.

She wrote a children’s book, I Suppose Not Perfect, and appeared bargain several films including Intimate Story and Joseph and the Surprising Technicolour Dreamcoat. She has travel to Sweden, Spain, Germany, State, Italy, the United States, England, and China, and her songs seem to reach audiences maladroit thumbs down d matter what language she interest singing in.

“She is a- searching spirit who weaves established voices from Yiddish… into most recent contexts,” wrote Christina Roden exercise All Music Guide,“moving past lake nostalgia to fashion sounds primate 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, redactor, MusicHound World: The Essential Release Guide, Visible Ink Press, 2000.

Periodicals

Age, January 8, 2001, p.

5.

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

Globe and Mail (Canada), Jan 28, 1999.

Guardian (United Kingdom), Apr 20, 1999, p.

8.

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

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

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

Sing Out!, Winter 2000, p. 82.

Online

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

—Ronnie D.

Lankford, Jr.