Yonatan Razel – insert — יונתן רזאל – ראיון /

[Music] I actually grew up in a musical family but besides that we were Levites also Levites is the were the tribe that played music in the temple but this came basically from my grandfather's My Father's Side grandfather's side he was My Cello teacher he was a [Music] musician it was a very musical home we all um studied music and as child my brothers my sister just like you do anything else you wake up in the morning and you practice it wasn't even a thing I had to choose it was just part of me waking up and listening to shinsky and Beethoven and Mozart music mus in the in you know in the [Music] house and when I was 15 I started going to study conducting in the university in Jerusalem ruin Academy and I basically started a career as a [Music] conductor I went to the Army in the middle and uh started getting prizes as a Symphony conductor I studied composing Symphony orchestrating and then I went uh started traveling the world conducting and giving [Music] concert I was pretty good at it Al as a Pianist as a composer um same time I was also I heard a lot of popular music a lot of uh jazz music rock and roll music uh that's my mother's side more the American side [Music] but uh after the Army I I went to I was accepted to Cambridge University in in in England to do my master's degree in composition and I felt uh something was [Music] wrong basically I just think I I didn't know who I was you know I didn't know what I wanted [Music] I felt I was like on a train to somewhere where I didn't even choose where I was going to uh everything was going very well but I felt you know I'm not here you know knock knock where are you did you want this did you sh and I was doing music from very young I was thank God very talented in it so I was like pushed over from you know this to this and I never really sat down and said or even felt and somewhere about me there was like a almost like a child saying one second one second you're going into this career you didn't really choose [Music] this I felt I wanted to to to you know to touch people more I think at that point I stopped my music career at all I said that's it I want to be something else and I went uh I went down south in Israel to be a Shepherd I stopped uh everything I did I was working on the fields with animals and I felt I need to connect to to God and and learn learn about myself I went to like a therapy where I tried to I felt I needed to find who I was before I go to the next step in my life and all those years when I stopped and I was a Shepherd I went to Yeshiva to start learning and I met a rabbi that I I started learning on a regular basis and asking you know you know why am I doing this should I you know and uh pretty much in the middle of all that took a few years I met my wife and um and we started building our life [Music] together I would say that you know obviously there's another part of me a big part of me which is a husband and father which I try to spend a lot of time doing I'm not one of those artists who you know never sees his children I'm home every day a few hours playing with my kids playing music with my kids it's very big big part of me is you know being being there actually now that I'm here in South Africa it's one of the times in the past year or two that I left for so long which is a week which is devastatingly long for my family you know children sometimes we as adults we forget forget where we came from we forget our history but as a child it says also in P every generation you have to remember we came out of Egypt and then many many years later when my father sang I was crying and came home and composed the music maybe for that little child I was I felt very connected to Hashem as a child I spoke and I prayed and I was a very spiritual child like in a shocking way even you would say I wanted to keep sh to be observant my family became religious observant when I was about five or [Music] six it was a long procedure um that my family went through and slowly let say in the course of when I was let's say four 5 years old till when I was about 12 those seven eight years my family became religious says that all the our four mothers Rael RKA Sarah they all very it says in the Torah that they were very beautiful so he says why do they say that they're very beautiful we don't need to know that they were very beautiful he says because their beauty their inner beauty was shining out it wasn't only inner it wasn't only external beauty it was inner beauty and so he says that when M at the end of the days there'll be a connection again between internal beauty and external beauty and I felt that I had to try to connect [Music] him I didn't think of myself as a singer at all I didn't uh I mean I knew a lot of Woodstock kind of music and Sparty music and and growing up in music schools I heard a lot of jazz but I was more like a conductor composer but then I you know getting close to myself started composing songs and looking back at those years I'm trying to think what happened [Music] I really felt that I wanted to use in a sense the vessels the instruments of the classical music the knowledge the craftsmanship you would say of the classical music and using it into my and blending it into my music [Music] my music I don't really know how to how to describe it you know it's hard to describe music it's like describing a sunset or something but uh um I feel that I I I I didn't refute or run away from classical music my music used a lot of strings a lot of CounterPoint a lot of the knowledge that I acquired when I learned music I'm just maybe using a different [Music] language I think the classic music gives you a certain kind of wisdom many many techniques that help you build uh beautiful Musical and melodic [Music] structure and uh the orchestration using the instruments the symphony instruments all those things the the knowledge of Harmony uh all these things are are very deep in my in my in my brain and my heart actually and when I compose a song that it all Flows [Music] In it's not only the layers of music but it's also theemotion they put into it the the craftsmanship of building the [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] structures my music I think is part of a group of musicians that are trying to combine Jewish music with with with regular popular music sometimes classical [Applause] ethnical you know something like schom carach or or just Israeli music or even popular folk music which is more like simple straight to the heart kind of music I'm the kind of artist or let's say musician that works hard work very very hard I don't just like it came to me you know it's I'm not like that I sit you know with the piano or with the guitar or just sing and I work a [Music] lot the moment when it comes I never know when it'll come you know it could be it's just it's usually in the course of working and playing around with harmonies and Melodies and ideas suddenly something will be like almost like take me you know it's more like just the playing with the with with the material of music and and the combining that with idea like a spiritual idea or emotional feeling those you know making a loaf of bread playing around and suddenly you're like where did this come from and you know if you be far away in the corner of the sky I will come I will come one by one when I composed music which is so to speak secular which I have some songs like that which you're talking about emotions or relationships or you know just nature or life itself I feel that you know God's in there I will one by some songs are more like prayer kind of liturgic kind of you know searching for connection with with you know with Beyond with God songs and some are more like just songs about you know emotion or about just with things that I'm going through in life you [Music] know you know I'm a researching soul I think I'm trying to combine many things at first it's my search for closeness to to God to asem my life I'm searching to be you know more true more pure a better Jew a better person [Music] I don't view music as a as being an artist or be having a career rather I try to utilize music first of all maybe as expressing myself but more to touch people you know to to connect [Music] ultimately at the end of the day I I see myself as a certain kind of you know messenger of of of living as a full life as a as an observant Jew try to make you know a Synergy of you know worshiping of Hashem and doing art in this generation is is a very big uh dream for me and I'm trying to be you know a window into that world [Music] i' rather people go home and say wow I was touched I you know rather than wow it was a great show and it was technical people go home in a quiet space and say to their wife or husband you know I I went through something really good for me that's kind of my dream [Music] [Applause] [Music]