“Being from Israel represents soulfulness and a long history of struggle, which I always try to capture with my music,” Miri Ben-Ari says.
Feted by First Lady Michelle Obama at the White House, violinist Ben-Ari is in great demand by some of today's biggest pop stars. But she's also a philanthropist.
"People love the fact that I am from Israel," says Grammy-winning Israeli hip-hop violinist Miri Ben-Ari. "Being from Israel represents soulfulness and a long history of struggle, which I always try to capture with my music."
Now living in New York, Ben-Ari performs across the globe, most recently putting in an appearance at the White House at the invitation of First Lady Michelle Obama. In July, she'll take the stage at China's first-ever Miss Universe pageant, which is expected to enjoy blockbuster ratings.
The 32-year-old musician's unusual fusion of classical style with jazz, R&B and hip-hop has not only earned her a Grammy Award for her contribution to Kanye West's 2004 hit song "Jesus Walks," but also the first-ever Israel Award from the Fellowship of Israel and Black America on the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in 2008 for her "Symphony of Brotherhood," in which she set the late human rights leader's famous "I have a dream" speech to music. This song was the first instrumental single ever to hit Billboard's R&B/hip-hop charts.
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"I am proud to represent Israel and my Jewish roots," she tells ISRAEL21c.
From army musician to solo albums
The former jazz violinist started training in classical violin as a five-year-old in Tel Aviv -- one of her teachers was the legendary Isaac Stern -- and served as a musician in the educational unit of the Israel Defense Forces before seeking her fortune in America. She arrived there with her violin, no money, and speaking virtually no English.
"My dream was to come to New York and go to college to study jazz," she tells ISRAEL21c, "but I dropped out of college after only two semesters and became the artist that I am today by practicing a lot, listening to others and performing on stage."
She burst onto the American hip-hop scene in a 2001 collaboration with urban music trailblazer Wyclef Jean. Since then, Ben-Ari's unique talents have been in great demand by artists such as Alicia Keys, Jay-Z, Erykah Badu, Patti Labelle, Wynton Marsalis, Maroon 5, Janet Jackson, Brandy and Britney Spears.
Ben-Ari performed for Israel's 60th anniversary at New York's famous Apollo Theater and starred in Reebok's "I Am What I Am" global print and TV advertising campaign (see video below) and VH1's major 2006 New York benefit for music education, Save the Music.
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She also recorded on her own, starting with "Sahara" (1999) and moving on to "Temple of Beautiful" (2003) and "Live at the Blue Note" (2004). In 2005, she signed on with Universal Records to do "The Hip Hop Violinist," followed by the 2008 "The Hip Hop Violinist II."
Ahead of a summer tour and a new release, Ben-Ari is soliciting designs for a new cover and website logo via Creative Invite. The as-yet-unnamed CD will include her composition "10 Commandments," which was part of her original score for the May 25 Manhattan premiere of the Israeli Neta Dance Company's 25th anniversary show.
"I personally feel that this coming album will have the best music that I've ever recorded," says Ben-Ari. "We are currently getting ready to shoot the next video and I am very much looking forward to it."
Granddaughter of Holocaust survivors
Not content merely to perform, Ben-Ari donates countless hours to philanthropic pursuits. If you ask her which is most important to her, she'll immediately answer that it's Gedenk ("Remember" in Yiddish), a non-profit organization she co-founded in 2006 to promote genocide awareness among American youth.
One of Gedenk's projects is a public service announcement depicting how ordinary people can become victims of hate crimes. It was aired thousands of times by TV channels such as FOX, NBC, ABC and CVS.
"My grandparents on my father's side lost almost their entire family in the Holocaust and this cause is very personal and meaningful to me," says Ben-Ari, who won the American Society for Yad Vashem's 2011 Young Leadership Associates Remembrance Award.
She appeared with Sting and Elton John at the recent Breast Cancer Research Foundation's Hot Pink Party in Boston and was invited by designer Donna Karan to play at the star-studded June 13 Wayúu Tayá Fundraising Gala Event in New York to benefit indigenous children from different countries.
But she singles out the White House experience as one of her most inspiring. She was invited by the president's wife in March as one of 22 "Remarkable Women" in a Women's History Month celebration and session with schoolchildren. The group included notable women such as the actress Hilary Swank, Olympic skater Michelle Kwan, astronaut Ellen Ochoa, Brigadier General Dana Born, former US ambassador to Hungary Nancy Brinker and A&E Television Networks president and CEO Abbe Raven.
"This event and also talking to the many students who participated inspired me to keep growing as an artist and as a person," Ben-Ari says.
http://www.israel21c.org/people/miri-ben-ari-hip-hop-violinist-and-humanitarian
Miri Ben-Ari (Hebrew: מירי בן-ארי) (born December 4, 1978 in Tel Aviv, Israel) is an Israeli violinist, who currently resides in the United States.
The daughter of classical musicians, Ben-Ari grew up playing classical music. She started training at age 5 and at age 12, she was presented with a violin by Isaac Stern. During her mandatory Israeli military service, she was chosen to play for the Israeli Army String Quartet. During her stint in the Israeli military, she heard an album by Charlie Parker and immediately fell in love with jazz; she later said "My soul was sold." Following her service, she moved from Israel to New York in 1993 in hopes of using her classical training on stage and attended Mannes College of Music, but was expelled after two semesters due to poor attendance caused by Ben-Ari playing gigs to pay the rent.
She released her first solo CD Sahara in 1999.
Her persistence earned her an appearance on BET's 106 & Park; the viewer response netted her a return visit a few weeks later. Her performances caught the eye of jay-Z, who invited her to play as one of the headliners of New York radio station Hot 97's annual Summer Jam concert in 2001, where she netted a standing ovation. Around the same time, a mutual friend introduced Ben-Ari to Wyclef Jean, who invited her to perform with him at his Carnegie Hall show, the first by a hip-hop artist at the venue.
In 2003, she released her second CD Temple of Beautiful, and followed that up with a live CD the following year entitled Live at the Blue Note.
She won a Grammy Award for Best Rap Song in 2005 as one of the co-writers of Kayne West's Jesus Walks. In 2005, she released her fourth CD and first to focus on hip-hop style, entitled The Hip-Hop Violinist. As part of the promotion for it, she was part of Reebok's "I Am What I Am" global advertising campaign; Reebok was also part of the video for the first single from the CD, "We Gonna Win".
In 2009, she release Symphony of Brotherhood, an instrumental track featuring Martin Luther King's I Have a Dream speech. It became the first instrumental single ever to hit Billboard R&B/hip-hop charts, where it reached number 2.
Ben-Ari was invited to the White House by Michelle Obama in March 2011 as part of a Women's History Month celebration, and she has been invited to perform at the 2011 Miss Universe China pageant.
In 2006, she co-founded Gedenk (Yiddish for "remember"), an organization dedicated to promoting education about the Holocaust in the United States.