Check Noa's Official Twitter at...

http://twitter.com/noathebird

Hello all,
As some of you may already know, Mira Awad and myself will be representing Israel in the upcoming Eurovision Song Contest.

Yesterday Mira , Gil Dor and myself had the pleasure of participating in a live broadcast from Jerusalem on Dutch Television covering the elections. It was a co-production between the Dutch Christian, Jewish and Muslim channels! Yes, those things can happen!! J

Here you can get a glimpse of what Mira and i sound like together  and the kind of message we convey.

(you can also see both of us removing our problematic in-ear monitors and singing with no help from technology....mind and heart over matter! J)

This beautiful song was written by Mira, and will appear on her extraordinary debut album, which will be out soon (it is not the song we will sing in the Eurovision song contest, which we can only perform in public after March 2nd)

Wishing us all friendship and peace even in difficult times as these are,

Much love
Achinoam
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TapJQzdojYc

from my grandmother as a child I listened to endless amazing singers, from Aharon Amram, Zion Golan, Shoshana Damari, Shlomo Dachyani and Miriam Tzafri to Avner Gadasi and Ofra Chaza. The beautiful melodies and wonderful voices touched me deeply and humbled me greatly, though none as much as grandma Rachel’s… she is number one, all 4 feet of her.

It was clear to me that a girl born in Israel and raised in New York, where the Yemenite songs faded and were replaced by Joni mitchell and Paul Simon, would have to find her own way to connect to that rich place called Root...

I meditated on the old Hebrew/Yemenite lyrics, full of love and longing, of dreams unfulfilled, of pain, heat, dust and wind. I wrote new English lyrics and music, and wrapped them around the old songs like a long coat in winter. I contemplated my family’s history, their harrowing journey from Yemen to Israel, my grandfather’s travels to Africa and beyond, finally uprooting the family to the US, my own decision to follow my heart and return to Israel, and from there, to again embrace the world on the wings of song, as a young woman and later, as a mother of 2.

This never ending search for identity, for clarity, for acceptance, for love: I tried to see it through my grandmother’s eyes, through my mother’s, through my own, through my daughter’s.

The result is before you: our new album "Genes and Jeans"  (www.noasmusic.com)

I want to acknowledge the one and only Gil Dor, my best friend and musical director, for his incredible, indefatigable work on this album. Toda Gili.

Achinoam Nini (Noa)

Welcome to Noa's Hope Corner, in this first chapter you can read a report about an event that took place a few days ago, by The Parents Circle, and amazing organization that Noa supports greatly. You can find some related pictures of the event at the pictures section.

At this time of the year with season changing, when day/light equal night/dark, when everybody memorizing the International Peace day (September 21st), on its following day when Muslims and Jewish all over the world are sharing sacred fasting day (Yom Kippur and the Holy Month of Ramadan) doing deep soul research and mind cleansing, I wish to share with you about our IPD ceremony. Forced by the Holidays we had preceded out celebration to the 20th evening. As a member of the Israeli-Palestinian forum of the Bereaved Families we had our common ceremony at TALITHA KUMI, an educational institute in Bet-Jallah, Palestine. Nearly 150 Israelis and Palestinians join together, once again at this time to create new tradition of the forum. The forum's IPD committee agreed to offer yearly Reconciliation Award and make the IPD its formal celebration. The award was given this year amongst the many nominees, to two groups, Palestinian and Israeli (www.theparentscircle.org) brave people who took action beyond any imagination to deepen reconciliation amongst the two struggle societies.

Prior to the ceremony a peace pole was planted on the institute's garden, dedicated to the wonderful work they are involve with, also for all those are knowing the peace which dwells in all hearts, tirelessly acting towards its absolute manifestation in this region and the entire world. In the present of the countries flags in the Middle East and after brief greetings, St. Francis Peace Prayer was read out loud in Hebrew and Arabic.

The event reached to its closing with the IFTAR, the Muslim tradition meal at the end of a day during the holly month of Ramadan.

This time it should work! Starting with one day, than choosing another day and one by one, day after day – peace prevails on earth!

Shana Tova, Ramadan Karim and Happy Holidays to all!

Dear friends,
First, thank you to all of you for the beautiful comments, and for your friendship. I really appreciate it. I am also very happy that this 'myspace' platform is a way to discover so much wonderful new music, and so many interesting people all over the place (sometimes, right under my nose! J) . It makes me wish I didn't actually need to SLEEP...and could just spend all night strolling through this magic human forest.. sadly, it doesn't work that way, and Enea is normally up at 6:30 (Ayehli too, but he slips into his playroom and builds weird Lego space-ships until we all wake up J) so Mamma's gotta be strong…

On a musical note, wanted to let you all know that we are doing a special project this summer called "noa sings jazz", where I will take a detour from the singer-songwriter path for a while and just perform jazz standards that I love, with Gil on guitar, Yaki Levi on drums and Yorai Oron on the bass. We will be doing one show in Israel, in Jerusalem, and the rest in Europe this summer. Check it out. J 2008 will have a new album and show, in the works as we speak.

If you all are interested in some nice new music, check out my sister Odeya! She is a great singer-songwriter, living in NY now, you can find her on our friends. Her songs are really beautiful.

That's it for now J

Much love

Noa