Four teenage ‘wonders’ impacted by Oct. 7 sing emotional vocals at Israel Festival
First of ‘The Music People’ shows opens in Negev, as annual event held between Jerusalem and the south in show of support for region; singers include granddaughter of murdered hostage
Jessica Steinberg, The Times of Israel's culture and lifestyles editor, covers the Sabra scene from south to north and back to the center
A group of teenage musicians performed a tender kind of vocal magic Thursday night, pairing with headlining Israeli performers in The Music People. This post-October 7 project is part of this year’s Israel Festival.
The annual festival, usually entirely held in Jerusalem, is being hosted in the Negev as well this year, as a show of support for the region which suffered tremendous losses as a result of the October 7 Hamas attack.
“It’s our first time having the Israel Festival outside Jerusalem,” said Eyal Sher, the festival director, briefly introducing the show. With a show of hands, Sher asked how many in the audience were locals and how many were from outside the area, with the audience split in about half.
Sher said they had sold out the first show, and added a second one, this first performance held at 5:30 p.m., and the audience was filled with young families and high school friends of the young singers, a busload of them driven in from the Dead Sea area where many residents were evacuated to after October 7.
“We came here to identify with and in solidarity with the south,” said Sher. “We hope this gives some sliver of hope.”
This show, which will also be performed in Jerusalem on September 18, was held in the auditorium of Kibbutz Dorot, a ten-minute ride from Sderot and a community that was evacuated for four months after October 7, but wasn’t destroyed during the onslaught, the terrorists pushed back by the community’s emergency squad.
The four young women, Talia Dancyg, Yaara Cohen, Imri Sharif and Agam Jeremy Bitton, shared the stage throughout most of the nearly two-hour performance, each performing a song they had written and recorded over the last months.
They were also joined by four different well-known performers, Alon Eder, Alma Gov, Marina Maximilian and Karolina, as well Tom Guedj on cello, Adi Rennert on keyboard and others onstage.
(At the September 18 performance, guitarist and vocalist Berry Sakharof will replace Marina Maximilian, and will be joined on drums by Tuval Haim, the percussionist whose brother, Yotam Haim, was taken hostage from Kibbutz Kfar Aza and accidentally slain by IDF troops on December 15.)
Each of the young performers was expertly paired with one of the professionals, the work of Yuval Shafrir and Chaim Shemesh, the veteran producers who first put together the project in the weeks after October 7.
Shafrir, a percussionist, performed as well on Thursday evening, briefly introducing “the four wonders,” as well as his fellow musicians and partners in the endeavor.
It all made for an emotional, heartbreaking show that brought the audience to tears more than once, in between bouts of singing along softly to the familiar 1970s Israeli tunes performed for some of the duets.
And throughout, the teenage audience members, scattered throughout the audience, sang along softly with the young women onstage, clearly familiar with the songs composed and recorded by their friends.
The four young women, all teenagers, were deeply affected by the Hamas onslaught in different ways: Talia Dancyg is mourning her grandfather, Alex Dancyg, 75, taken hostage from Kibbutz Nir Oz and then killed in captivity in Gaza. She is a prominent voice in calls for a hostage deal.
Yaara Cohen, 16, is a young singer who evacuated with her family from Moshav Ein Habesor in the south, and who lost her beloved music teacher Shlomo Mathias on October 7, killed along with his wife while shielding their teenage son. Imri Sharif, 17, left her home in Kibbutz Gesher HaZiv in Western Galilee with her family in October and has been living in Tel Aviv.
Agam Jeremy Bitton, 18, is from Moshav Gilat in the western Negev and her family decided to stay and support their community, which sustained its own losses.
Each of the four brought their voice, skills and touch to the show, introducing themselves briefly before performing their composed song and then dueting with their headlining performer.
Sharif smiled shyly up at Alon Eder for their solo before all five sang together. Cohen, who already performed her haunting song, “Grapefruit Tree,” about her beloved music teacher at the National Library earlier this year with Sakharov, had bonded with Alma Gov and the two hugged several times on stage.
Bitton, who brings a decidedly jazzy tempo to her work, brought down the house during her duet with Maximilian, the Russian-Israeli, classically trained pianist and jazz vocalist who smiled broadly throughout at Bitton.
It was clear that Dancyg, smiling publicly for what seemed like the first time in months after the anguish over the captivity and then death of her grandfather, was thrilled to be onstage with Karolina, lead singer of Habanot Nechama, with whom she shares a similar reggae-soul style.
“Teach me to be a little bit like Talia,’ said Karolina, smiling at Dancyg, who appeared on stage with her acoustic guitar, brown wavy hair hanging down her back, dressed in a black t-shirt stamped with the words, “Bring Them Home,” referring to the remaining 101 hostages held by terrorists in Gaza.
While the audience was transported by the sounds and words of the young singers, the October 7 losses and images of the hostages were present throughout the performance, mentioned by those onstage, and visible in the banners, placards, and signs posted along the roads and communities of this battered region.
The third performance of The Music People will take place in Jerusalem, on September 18, tickets are available online.
For other Israel Festival events in the Negev and Jerusalem, see the festival website.
Stop in and see the “Windless” exhibit where artist Yaniv Shenzer created musical wind instruments from remnants of rockets fired at Israel. It was first exhibited in Sderot’s Adama dance studio and will be moved to the Jerusalem Theater, September 26-27.
