Yoni Rechter, an award-winning musician known for being the soundtrack of Israeli childhoods, comes to The Vilna for a concert and conversation with theater translator Eli Bijaoui and journalist Romy Neumark.
What is the role of cultural figures in Israeli society? How have Israeli arts and culture changed in the year following October 7? Don’t miss an intimate conversation among these three luminaries and enjoy the music that tells the story.
A light reception and time to mingle with the artists and your fellow arts lovers will follow.
Co-sponsored by: Combined Jewish Philanthropies, the Consulate General of Israel to New England, EL AL Israel Airlines and Studio Israel (Hadassah-Brandeis Institute, Jewish Arts Collaborative, Schusterman Center for Israel Studies and The Vilna Shul).
Meet the Artists
Composer, pianist, singer and arranger, Yoni Rechter has made a major contribution to Israeli music in a career spanning more than 40 years, and is considered among Israel’s most important musicians. In the dozens of songs that Yoni composed, he created a wide variety of styles, incorporating numerous influences, from Sixties pop (mostly Beatles) to Jazz, Israeli to classical, east and west, into a fascinating personal statement.
Rechter always composes with originality, great sensitivity to text, and for the best performers. He is considered the mark of quality and integrity in Israeli music.
For over two decades, Romy Neumark has been a trusted anchor in the high-pressure world of Israeli live news, commanding the airwaves at the renowned Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation (KAN). She not only created and hosted the daily "Night News" and a weekly radio interview show, but also used her platform to champion social change through creative uses of Hebrew, promoting gender equality, diversity, and inclusivity. This dedication earned her the prestigious Nieman Fellowship for journalism at Harvard University (2023).
Now, Romy brings her expertise to the US as a Hebrew lecturer at Harvard University. Her unique perspective, shaped by years of navigating the nuances of Israeli news and fostering dialogue, allows her to connect audiences through a captivating blend of journalism and culture.
Eli Bijaoui is Israel's most dominant, varied and esteemed theater translator in the last 20 years with nearly 100 classics, modern plays and musicals translated from both English and French into Hebrew for Israel's repertory theaters. Including Molière’s Tartuffe and Miser; Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet and Othello; Kushner’s Angels in America, Icke’s 1984 and Oedipus, Sartre’s Huis Clos; Mamma Mia, Cabaret, West Side Story and Sondheim's Passion.
Eli is known for his artistic skills, working with different layers of the Hebrew language to create a rich and fluent dialogue. His constant awareness of social injustice; racism, discrimination, minorities rights influence not only the way he chooses projects, but especially the way he communicates their main themes in the elaborated Israeli reality.
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