Idan Raichel, 27, is a keyboard player, composer, arranger, producer and one of Israel’s most popular musicians. His first recording, “The Idan Raichel Project,” released in 2002, received Artist of the Year, Album of the Year and Song of the Year honors there.
His style blends American and Middle Eastern popular music with influences from music of the Ethiopian Jews; in fact, lyrics to several of the songs on this and his second recording are in Amharic, the Ethiopian Jews’ primary native language.
Milwaukee will have a chance to hear this new Israeli sound when Raichel, also called Reichel in this country, and a group of musicians give a concert, as “The Idan Raichel Project,” on Monday, Feb. 7, 7:30 p.m.
It will take place at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Union Ballroom, 2200 E. Kenwood Blvd.; and will be presented by the Hillel Foundation-Milwaukee and the Israel Center of the Milwaukee Jewish Federation.
Milwaukee will be one stop on a national tour, whose itinerary includes New York, Chicago, Detroit, Boston, Miami and Washington.
Alon Galron, Israel emissary to Milwaukee and director of the Israel Center, said he heard about plans for the tour through the Consulate General of Israel to the Midwest in Chicago and managed to get Milwaukee included, with the consulate’s financial assistance.
“There are many opportunities out there for Israeli groups coming over,” Galron said. “I’ve been looking for the right opportunity to do this for this community” with a group that “represents the best there is in Israel” and that would appeal to the Jewish community and beyond to students and others.
Raichel fit the bill. “I love his music,” said Galron, adding that others for whom he has played it have also liked it. Moreover, Raichel “is appealing not only for his music but for his background.”
Raichel became a musician because when he was a child, growing up in Kfar Saba, he discovered an accordion at his grandfather’s house. He credits that instrument with helping make him the kind of musician he is today.
“This instrument in every part of the world sounds different,” he said in a telephone interview from Israel. “This is how I discovered world music” and developed “an open mind for music of all over the world.”
Raichel added to his palette of “colors of the music” by playing keyboard for rock and pop groups when he was in junior high school, then studying jazz piano for three years during high school.
In the army, Raichel served as a musician, playing piano in a rock band that entertained the soldiers, and learning how to produce and arrange for singers.
After his service, he both worked as a freelance keyboard player for popular singers and as a music teacher at a boarding school in Netanya. Among those students were Ethiopian immigrants, and they helped him develop his interest in Ethiopian music.
By the time he was 22 or 23, he said, “I wanted to do an upgrade for my career.” So he thought he would make a demonstration recording, with other musicians he knew, of four songs — three of his own and one arrangement of an Ethiopian traditional song — and submit it to a recording company in the hope of being hired as an arranger and producer.
But at the Israeli label Helicon, Gadi Gidor, who is now Raichel’s manager, was so impressed that he asked Raichel for six more songs to release with the first four as an album. That was Raichel’s first surprise. The second was how successful and popular the resulting recording became.
Raichel has since performed his music throughout Israel and last March did one performance in New York and another in San Francisco to test whether American audiences might be receptive.
Then he received a call from Israel’s Foreign Ministry, which offered to help sponsor the group for a U.S. tour. “This was a really great compliment for us and we agreed,” Raichel said.
Amir Gissin, director of public affairs for the Foreign Ministry, was quoted in the Jan. 9 Jerusalem Post saying that the ministry was doing this “to try and widen the angle from which Americans look at Israel. We want young Americans — the leaders of the next generation — to see Israel beyond conflict.”
Admission to the concert is $12 general, $6 students in advance; $15 and $7.50 at the door, with two patron tickets available for $100. Advance tickets are available through the Hillel Foundation-Milwaukee, the Israel Center, and the Harry & Rose Samson Family Jewish Community Center. For more information, call 414-390-5705 or 414-961-2010.
Major sponsors of the performance include: The Lucy & Jack Rosenberg Philanthropic Fund and the Henry & Joan Kerns Philanthropic Fund of the Jewish Community Foundation, the endowment development program of the Milwaukee Jewish Federation; the UWM Milwaukee Students Association; the Consulate General of Israel to the Midwest; Debra and Moshe Katz; the American Jewish Committee-Milwaukee Chapter; and the UWM Union Sociocultural Programming Department.
Additional sponsors include: the B’nai B’rith Youth Organization; the JCC; the Kibbutz Langdon Foundation; the Milwaukee Jewish Day School; and the UWM Black Student Union.
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