Teens from evacuated communities to perform with music stars at Israel Festival
Young artists will record and perform their own songs with musicians including Berry Sakharof and Karolina, as part of Music People project
Jessica Steinberg, The Times of Israel's culture and lifestyles editor, covers the Sabra scene from south to north and back to the center
At the upcoming Israel Festival in September, several teenage singers will perform their own songs accompanied by leading Israeli musicians including Berry Sakharof and Karolina, at an event titled “The Music People.”
The event is named for a grassroots music project that producer Yuval Shafrir started in the weeks after the Hamas attack of October 7, as he and other music industry professionals sought to support young musicians whose lives and homes were decimated on that day.
The professional experience has been a heady one during an uncertain time for the teens, some of whom hail from southern and northern communities evacuated since October 7. One is the granddaughter of a hostage eventually found to have been killed in Gaza captivity.
But what unites them is their musical talent, discovered and developed during their adolescence and sustaining them now.
“This group of kids — I call them kids — they’re very talented,” said Shafrir, 61, an Israeli drummer and music producer who put together The Music People project back in October.
Music and the making of it has helped these young people tackle the last 10 months, said Shafrir.
“There’s a generation of musicians from the periphery, not from Tel Aviv, and they live in the Israel of the past, they listen to Yoni Rechter and the music they love is from the 1970s, and it’s very pure and unique,” he said.
Drummer and producer Shafrir used to drum with Rechter and Arik Einstein back in the day. He has been performing with Sakharov and Rami Fortis for more than 30 years and more recently has done so with Gidi Gov. He also produced the award-winning soundtrack for the 1997 film “Afula Express,” among other milestones in his decades-long career.
For the last 10 months, however, he’s been the guiding hand behind The Music People, started in the weeks after the Hamas attack of October 7, as he and other music industry professionals sought to support young musicians whose lives and homes were decimated on that day.
“We tried to understand how to deal with it,” said Shafrir. “My own kids are around the same age, and it’s a generation that had the coronavirus four years ago and now this. They’ve lost this stage in their lives.”
Shafrir and Chaim Shemesh, another music producer, launched The Music People, contacting music education coordinators in the north and south, educators who manage the music courses for high school students, and conservatories in the affected regions.
They eventually reached these four young women, who had already shown their musical skills and talents.
One is Yaara Cohen, 16, 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.
Another is Talia Dancyg, 18, a singer-songwriter whose grandfather, Alex Dancyg, was taken hostage to Gaza and killed in captivity.
Her song, “Dragon of War,” was written in the first 100 days after her grandfather was taken hostage, with the refrain: “And every day that passes / You are missing more / And every day that passes / It’s more dangerous.”
They also discovered singer and pianist Imri Sharif, 17, who left her home in Kibbutz Gesher HaZiv in the Western Galilee with her family in October and has been living in Tel Aviv. She wrote her song, “Buried,” with her grandfather, Aaron Sharif.
The fourth participant is Agam Jeremy Bitton, 18, from Moshav Gilat in the western Negev. She didn’t evacuate after October 7, as her family decided to stay and support their community, which sustained its own losses.
Shafrir quickly created a first workshop, meeting with the singers in Tel Aviv and going on to produce the songs with the help of other musicians, using their studio spaces.
Some of the young singers were accompanied by the bands they performed with back home, including one particular young drummer who lived through the October 7 massacre on Kibbutz Nir Oz, but who “still shines,” said Shafrir.
They worked quickly, said Shafrir, who has produced two rounds of the workshop so far with six young musicians, five of whom will perform in the Israel Festival.
It’s an exciting experience for the young musicians, he said, describing the ability to offer them professional music production and live performances as a kind of gift during the worst times of their short lives.
“To be a 15-year-old from a moshav in the south and then perform at the National Library with Berry [Sakharov], it’s realizing all their musical dreams,” said Shafrir, referring to a performance by Cohen in May and to the upcoming Israel Festival.
And yet, said Shafrir, it comes during 10 months of sorrow and despair in their family’s and community’s lives.
“Now we’re a bit like a family,” said Shafrir, who met the young musicians’ parents after releasing an EP of their songs. “The workshop will continue to be another home for them, not to earn money but to envelop them.”
