{"id":9980,"date":"2015-01-09T00:12:50","date_gmt":"2015-01-09T08:12:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=9980"},"modified":"2015-01-08T11:32:17","modified_gmt":"2015-01-08T19:32:17","slug":"music-is-the-poetry-of-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2015\/01\/09\/music-is-the-poetry-of-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Music is the poetry of life"},"content":{"rendered":"

Local jazz musician Ayelet Rose Gottlieb happily juggles music and babies. \u201cYou have to have music, right? Music is life. It\u2019s a necessity. And you have to have kids.\u201d Gottlieb just released her fourth album, Roadsides<\/em>, and her adorable six-month-old twins, a boy and a girl, don\u2019t slow her down one bit.<\/p>\n

\"photo<\/a>
Ayelet Rose Gottlieb plays songs from her new album Jan. 16. (photo from Ayelet Rose Gottlieb)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The music for all the songs on Roadsides <\/em>was written by Gottlieb, with lyrics from work by various Israeli and Palestinian poets. \u201cThis project accumulated for a long time,\u201d she told the Independent<\/em>. \u201cThere\u2019s lots of pain in Israel now, and nationalism is growing. It\u2019s hard for me. Israel is my country. My mother\u2019s family has lived there for 20 generations. All that time, there was a cultural interchange between Palestinians and Jews. It\u2019s almost gone now.\u201d<\/p>\n

She feels that Israel today is missing a bridge between cultures, the connection that was flourishing even in her grandfather\u2019s days. \u201cPeople of all backgrounds love this land. I believe that it is possible to elevate beyond the hurts of the past decades. We should try to restart the intercultural conversation. The poets I chose for the songs on this album represent such diversity: Israeli and Palestinian, young and old, male and female, Ashkenazi and Mizrahi. In a way, my album is a political statement, that of humanity. We can all coexist in Israel and the more we learn about each other, the more we talk, the better people we are.\u201d<\/p>\n

She recalled being a student in Jerusalem at a high school for the arts. \u201cI started writing songs and performing when I was 17. For 10 years, I performed with Arnie Lawrence, the famous American jazz saxophone player. He lived in Israel in the last years of his life, and he became my teacher of jazz. He shaped my thinking. We often performed with Palestinian musicians, both in Israel and Palestine. Music is an international language. With music, you can communicate with anyone. But it was easier then \u2013 there was no wall.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some of the songs on Roadsides<\/em> are light and quirky, while others are poignant, driven by emotions. All of them are in Hebrew, either originals or translations from Arabic. \u201cWhen I compose songs, the text should trigger something inside me,\u201d she explained of her approach. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t have to be poetry. It could be a piece of prose, as long as it says something important. The quality of the text is paramount.\u201d<\/p>\n

Occasionally, she uses her own lyrics, though not often. She has songs set to passages of artist Wassily Kandinsky\u2019s book on art and Martin Luther King Jr.\u2019s famous speech. Kandinsky, in particular, fascinated her as a subject, as she used to paint as well as compose. \u201cI don\u2019t do it anymore,\u201d she confessed. \u201cBut I hear colors. Certain colors resonate with certain notes. It\u2019s a personal interpretation, of course, when you set music to painting or paint to the music.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gottlieb\u2019s songs are multifaceted, flowing around their listeners in audio waves, implying pictures and palettes, even if one doesn\u2019t understand the Hebrew. No surprise then that she has fans all over North America. But her heart belongs to Israel, she said. \u201cI fly to Israel a couple times each year, to perform and to connect with my family.\u201d She also records in a New York studio, as a solo performer and as part of the quartet Mycale.<\/p>\n

Musical collaborations increase her audience but also broaden her expressive facilities and add to her musical toolbox. She recorded one of the songs on Roadsides<\/em> as a duet with Israeli pop star Alon Olearchik. Others, she wrote with particular musicians in mind.<\/p>\n

Gottlieb also teaches composition, vocals and improvisation. In Israel, she taught at colleges. Here, she gives private lessons and workshops. \u201cI enjoy working with children and adults, but I prefer adults, mature people who know what they want…. I learn a lot when I teach. Sometimes, I would explain a point to my students, and it would clarify the concept for me too. Students often surprise me. They do something unexpected, and I\u2019d see a new perspective, realize a new way of doing things.\u201d<\/p>\n

Moving every few years has also helped to keep her creativity fresh. \u201cWe lived in New Zealand for a while, in New York and in the U.K.,\u201d she explained. \u201cCompared with New York, where there are many different cultures, Vancouver has a smaller music scene, fewer people to play for, fewer opportunities and venues. I\u2019m still looking for my language here. Resonating with the place and the community is important, but it\u2019s an interesting exploration and a wonderful place to raise babies.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for any parent, her children are an integral part of her life, and she plans to incorporate her music into their upbringing. \u201cI dream of having house concerts at our place when the kids are a bit older. They should be exposed to music and art early. Art is playful. To be an artist, you have to keep some of the child in you alive.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gottlieb\u2019s Roadsides<\/em> CD release is Jan. 16 at the China Cloud on Main Street. To learn more, visit ayeletrose.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Olga Livshin<\/strong> is a Vancouver freelance writer. She can be reached at olgagodim@gmail.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Local jazz musician Ayelet Rose Gottlieb happily juggles music and babies. \u201cYou have to have music, right? Music is life. It\u2019s a necessity. And you have to have kids.\u201d Gottlieb just released her fourth album, Roadsides, and her adorable six-month-old twins, a boy and a girl, don\u2019t slow her down one bit. The music for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[788],"tags":[2875,2877,2876],"class_list":["post-9980","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music","tag-ayelet-rose-gottlieb","tag-china-cloud","tag-roadsides"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9980","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9980"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9980\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9980"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9980"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9980"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}