|
|
April 29, 2005
Yom Ha'atzmaut music
May 11 concert will celebrate Israel and Ehud Manor.
CYNTHIA RAMSAY
Israeli singer and TV personality Yardena Arazi will join Hanan
Yovel and Shira Yovel at the B.C. Jewish community's Yom Ha'atzmaut
celebration at the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts next month.
Originally, musician and lyricist Ehud Manor and his son, Yehudah,
were scheduled to perform with the Yovels. Sadly, Ehud Manor died
suddenly of a heart attack two and a half weeks ago.
"It is very difficult," said Hanan Yovel of Manor's passing.
"He was not only my partner for the show. What we are like
– I told his wife this morning, 'After you, I am the only one
who has so many hours together with him, for 23 years.' For 23 years,
we are travelling around the world, sharing rooms, and beds sometimes,
in hotels. And, you know, the [closeness], after his wife, I'm the
second, so it's very difficult."
Arazi has also performed with Manor and he wrote "many songs
[for her] and, for me, more than many," said Yovel, who lauded
Manor's skill as a lyricist: "When he did write songs for me,
he had the talent to understand what I meant to say and cannot do
by myself."
About Arazi, Yovel acknowledged that, on tour, it is nice not only
to have a very fine artist with you, but also a friend. The friendship
is very important on stage, he said.
"Yardena and I co-operated in a song festival in 1973,"
he explained. "Since then, we are together and last year, we
had a tour, Yardena, Ehud Manor and me, in the United States and
in Toronto also."
Yovel described Arazi as "a great star in Israel, for many
years, and now she's also a TV star. She has, twice a week, a morning
show on the commercial TV."
Yovel also shared with the Bulletin the pride he has in his
daughter, Shira, who rounds out the group.
"It is such a pleasure to be with [my] daughter, Shira,"
he said. "She's a great musician in my opinion ... [in] my
objective opinion."
Yovel has been singing with his daughter since she was 16 years
old. Now 23, Shira Yovel has travelled with her dad and Manor around
the United States, Australia and other places. She has her own music
career in Israel, as well as just having completed her second year
of law school.
"But she is a musician," said Yovel, noting that she's
played piano for 12 years, studied in the conservatory and was the
commander of her musical troupe in the army, among other accomplishments.
Yovel also began his music career in the army.
"After this entertainment troupe in the army, the Nahal troupe,
I was taken by a singer to America," he told the Bulletin.
"I was very, very young. I left at 21 years old, when I arrived
[in] America.
"To reach America at that time was much harder than to reach
the moon today," he joked. "Believe me. We didn't have
television in Israel yet. We had everything only in our imagination
and to all of a sudden land in America and to see all the American
cars, the American buildings and, on the second night, to see Ella
Fitzgerald at the Americana hotel in New York, it was [amazing]."
After this year in the United States, Yovel returned to Israel and
was in a few groups that were very successful in Israel, such as
the Shlosharim Trio.
"But, in 1972, I said to myself, 'enough.' Because, every time
you make a new group, it's like a marriage. You have to give up
[certain things].... I said 'enough,' so, since 1972, I started
my solo career.
"I didn't think of myself as a solo singer or a composer,"
he continued. "I didn't have a choice. I had to support my
family.... So I started to work. Like a baby who puts [down] his
one foot and doesn't fall, so he tries another foot and, all of
a sudden, he knows how to walk.
"The success came very soon, and then I started to record my
own material and, in '74, I had my first two albums. All of a sudden,
I had two albums. It was covered all over Israel and it was a big
success. Since then, you know, it's history."
Yovel now has 20 albums to his credit. He has composed hundreds
of songs, many of which are Israeli classics. He's been to Vancouver
a few times and has family here.
"We'll try to touch [on] everything," he said of the upcoming
concert at the Chan Centre. "First, we are coming for Yom Ha'atzmaut.
We have to represent the state of Israel on Yom Ha'atzmaut. We'll
do a big part in memory to Ehud Manor, of course. We loved him so
much and we could not ignore his death."
The Yom Ha'atzmaut concert takes place May 11, at 7:30 p.m. Tickets
are available from the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver at
604-257-5100 (www.jfgv.com)
and from Ticketmaster, 604-280-3311 (www.ticketmaster.ca).
^TOP
|
|
