Idan Raichel

[4] Raichel played in the Israel Defense Forces army band at the age of 18, performing covers of Israeli and Western pop hits at military bases around the country.[8] He began working on a demo recording in Kfar Saba and invited other singers and musicians to collaborate with him to create a new synthesis of sounds and styles.[11] This collaboration became a platform for the emergence of ethnic singers such as Cabra Casay, an Ethiopian Jew born in a refugee camp in Sudan, and Ravid Kahalani, from the band Yemen Blues, who explores his Yemenite roots.It includes guest appearances by Portuguese fado star Ana Moura, Palestinian-Israeli singer Mira Awad, German countertenor Andreas Scholl, Colombia's Marta Gómez, Vieux Farka Touré, and some of Israel's up-and-coming artists.In September 2014, Alicia Keys invited Raichel and Palestinian singer and qanun player Ali Amr to join her on stage at the Global Citizen Festival in New York's Central Park to perform her song "We Are Here".He also toured extensively, including December 2015 shows in Japan with the Project,[22] a series of concerts in Germany with Andreas Scholl,[23] and an appearance at the Jazz a la Villette festival in Paris with The Touré-Raichel Collective in September 2015.Toure was invited to Israel to perform at the Tel Aviv Opera House with Raichel in 2010, and this led to the formation of The Touré-Raichel Collective, a collaboration of Malian and Israeli musicians.[28] In September 2014, The Touré-Raichel Collective released their second album, The Paris Session, with Daby Touré on bass, Israeli trumpeter Niv Toar, Malian singer Seckouba Diabate, and others.This ten-day festival featured a blend of music, food, and art alongside a few special appearances by The Idan Raichel Project in their new lineup.Within the framework of the festival, there was a culinary area under the direction of chef Yuval Ben Neriah, an exhibition of photographs by Ziv Koren, and a stage for performances by musicians such as SHIRAN, Di Gasen Trio, Quarter to Africa, Yossi Fine, and others.Along with guest musicians from Japan, Bulgaria, Ethiopia, Cuba, and India, And If You Will Come to Me features duets with Nigerien guitar player Bombino, Cuban Grammy nominee Danay Suarez, Israeli stars Berry Sakharof and Zehava Ben, and a new studio track with the reunited Idan Raichel Project.[25] While the majority of his songs are in Hebrew, a few are entirely in Arabic, while others include small passages in Amharic, by male and female voices, setting traditional-sounding tunes to modern music.[38][39] On 6 June 2016, Raichel was awarded an honorary fellowship at the Israel Museum: "Idan's creative commitment to cross-cultural connections very much reflects the museum's own commitment to the singular power that is achieved by recognizing the ways that all things connect across time and geography, merging local and universal cultural strains to achieve global expression".On 7 July 2016, Raichel received a special citation from B'nai B'rith International: "The international musical cooperations that Raichel has created throughout his career have turned him into a cultural ambassador for millions of fans, representing a world full of hope in which musical collaborations remove boundaries between people coming from different backgrounds and cultures".[45][46] In this context, Raichel wrote, "I really don't care how 'George' extracted information",[46] adding that "instead of receiving a medal of valor, he must now defend his name."[47] In 2013, Raichel expressed his view that Israeli artists have a duty to play an active role in public relations for the Jewish state.[45][48] In December 2015, the musician took part in "Let's Speak More Music", a UN project called "United Pianos", in which eleven renowned pianists from all across the globe collaborated to play Sergei Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf.