On March 4th our bands were practicing from 10 AM untill 5 PM with a lunch break in between. Motivated by a very sunny day and lovely scenery here in The Dr. Israel Goldstein Youth Village of HaNoar HaTzioni, we (the media team) went for a walk to visit all the bands.
When you enter the youth village and take a right turn – you find yourself in front of Luigi Einaudi Culture Center – the space where youth village’s musicians practice. Three of our bands are located in this building. On the ground floor there is a big stage where a band led by Sandro Felix, Portuguese musician, works throughout the day. His band consists out of 9 musicians from 5 countries.
Just a staircase away, on the first floor, the band of Slobodan Rekovic practices. This band – called “Disko Bobina” – is quite an uncommon group, as it was formed from one bass player, two vocalists, a rapper, DJ and Rekovic who is creating music with his computer and drum machine.
Another staircase away, on the top floor, is the third band – “Carlitos”, led by Valentina Nicolotti, an Italian singer.
When you walk out of the Music Center and go through a big park you get in front of an old bunker. It was redone to a practice room for musicians, and our fourth band plays in it. Their name is “Sun in the Bunker” because the bunker has no windows. As we posted in today’s Instagram story – on our freshly opened Instagram page – the band leader is Raul Roxo- trumpet player and percussionist from Portugal.
Besides Raul, another Portuguese is in the band – saxophone player Rui Machado. Another saxophonist in this band is Sharon Benayoun from Isreael. The drummer is Italian – Giorgio Vergano, while the bass guitar is played by Angelika Ignatova (Israel). In the band there are three amazing vocalist – Elisa Gambro (Italy), Andreu Volinsky (Isreael) and also German rapper Arne Lorenz. Finally, the piano player is Maarianna Tikich and she comes from Israel.
Like the other band, “Sun in the Bunker” has a task to create two songs. So far they are done with one song and finishing the second one. The first song is a mixture of hip hop, classic piano and some Balkan beats. On the other hand, the second song will combine Arabic melodies with African beats. We are looking forward to hear their songs. Go “Sun in the Bunker”!
Later in the evening we all enjoyed Shabbat dinner – in the beginning one of our hosts had a little speech, then a choir sang and in the end we had a toast. After meal, some of participants went to the city where they had an opportunity to get familiar with Shabbat celebration in Jerusalem, which is an experience like no other. They visited The Church of the Holey Sepulcher and The Kotel (The Western Wall) where they were able to write their prayers on the piece of paper and stick it in. This place had an amazing energy so they spent the major part of the night over there. Check out the amazing photos of our photographer Emanuele bellow.
Music For Human Rights 
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