Israeli singer Noa makes music and peace

By Avigayil Kadesh

“The Chinese love Israel more than any other people I have ever met,” says Ahinoam Nini, the international concert and recording artist known outside of Israel by her stage name, Noa. She posted daily blog entries about her experiences on tour in China with her Israeli-Arab singing partner, Mira Awad, in May.

The two women, who promote peaceful initiatives on and off stage, are well traveled but had never been to the Far East.

“The Chinese admire Jewish wisdom and perseverance, and see themselves as ‘the Jews of Asia.’ The message of peace Mira and I convey is agreeable to them, of course, but I must say, it is the music itself that moves them to tears, not the politics. We seem to evoke the deepest emotions in so many people here. It is a great honor.”

Noa is scheduled to perform June 9 and 11, during the Israel Festival, with the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra. She’ll depart for a concert tour of Spain in July.

‘I never perform a song I am not completely in love with’

An official United Nations goodwill ambassador, Noa has performed at venues ranging from the Vatican to Carnegie Hall to Oslo, entertaining the likes of former US President Bill Clinton, the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and the Pope. In 2009, she and Awad sang the Hebrew-Arabic-English ballad “There Must be Another Way” at the Eurovision Song Contest in Moscow.

“I’ve never had big, major hits,” Noa says. “I’m a performance artist who’s good at concerts, and I have a loyal, large fan base. I’m more interested in quality and originality than popularity.”

Though she is long established in Israeli culture – she performed at the 1995 Tel Aviv peace rally minutes before Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated – her following is strongest in Spain, Italy and France, where Geffen Records aggressively marketed her albums toward the start of her nearly 20-year career.

This year, she’s released two new albums: “Noapolis,” a sampling of Neapolitan songs performed with her longtime musical director-guitarist, Gil Dor, Zohar Fresco and Italy’s Solis String Quartet; and “Eretz Shir: The Israeli Songbook,” a collection of classic Hebrew songs recorded with Dor to the accompaniment of the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra.

“If you notice, I do not make albums at whirlwind pace, to say the least,” Noa says in flawless English, having lived in New York for most of her childhood. “I take my time, and will never perform a song I am not completely in love with.”

Last spring, she embarked on a multi-city North American concert tour just two months after giving birth to her third child, whom she brought along. She and her husband, physician Asher Barak, also have 10- and seven-year-old children they are raising in a beachfront kibbutz house. “I take my kids on tour often, and when I don't I suffer quite a lot,” she says.

Return to Israel launches a career

Born in 1969 to Israeli-Yeminite parents, Noa’s parents left Tel Aviv for the Bronx when she was a preschooler. They never melted into the American pot. “We were Israeli in our home, our food, our mentality and in high school I started looking for my own identity through understanding more about where I came from,” she says.

She met Barak, then a medical student, during a teenage trip back home, and informed her parents that she wasn’t returning to New York – not even to finish high school. So at 16, she entered a Jerusalem boarding school, concentrating on her interest in musical performance. She served in the Israel Defense Forces’ entertainment corps for two years and then enrolled in the Rimon School of Jazz and Contemporary Music in the Tel Aviv suburb of Ramat Hasharon.

It was here that she met Dor, who started out as her teacher. And Dor, in turn, introduced her to American jazz great Pat Metheny, “one of the most brilliant musicians and wonderful people I have ever met.”

Metheny was so impressed with Noa and Dor’s performance at an Israeli jazz festival that he brought them to the attention of Geffen music executives.

“There is no end to how much [Pat] has contributed to my career and my life,” says Noa, cognizant of the fact that she may not have attracted his attention had she stayed in New York.

What she did pick up in the Big Apple was a love of English literature and poetry. Some of the songs she’s written and recorded put Hebrew poetry to music, while others are created in her head in English. In 1995, Noa composed “Beautiful That Way,” the theme song for the Oscar-winning film “Life is Beautiful.” It was later translated into 10 languages.

Twin passions for parenting and peace

It would be hard to say which focus occupies more of Noa’s consciousness: family or furthering peace. She is close with her parents, who eventually followed her back to Israel.

“In the end, there’s nothing in the same hemisphere as family,” she says, admitting that balancing career and child-rearing is no easy task.

“I get a lot of help and support from my wonderful husband and my parents, who are just amazing,” she says. “I have made many compromises, but it’s worth it. As a song I once wrote goes, ‘Life is just a balancing act,’ and I am doing my best. I consider myself very, very lucky to have such a beautiful family.”

At the same time, she is constantly looking for ways to actualize the famous Edmund Burke quotation, "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."

“I believe in that with all my heart,” says Noa. “And I believe in peace. I am a singer and have the privilege of holding a key to many people's hearts. When those hearts are opened, I do my part: Beyond entertaining, I supply food for thought, I try to inspire and evoke dialogue, contemplation and emotion.

“Music has the power of elevating us to a higher level, where we can find common emotional ground. It is there that we see how useless all the hatred and violence are -- and what beautiful doors we can open with communication and compassion.”