Meet our Artist of the Week, the wonderful Ariella Edvy, headliner of our concert Celebrating Yemenite Singers on Thursday, December 5th at Yeshiva University Museum’s Center for Jewish History.
We loved chatting with Ariella about her musical journey and hearing about her love of Yemenite music.
MT: How did you get started as a singer?
Ariella: I was a gymnast, a dancer, and only then a singer. I was always fascinated by motion in space. As a kid, singing was extra special because it had words and not just music. I could react to my parents in a song, and they would respond with claps and smiles.
MT: What drew you to performing Yemenite music?
Ariella: It’s funny, the farther I am from home the more trills I make with my voice, which is something that comes out of the Yemenite tradition. It’s almost as if the farther I am the more I feel connected to my roots. It was a natural gravitation toward what I had lost as a child. My grandfather grew up in an Ashkenazi orphanage, so we didn’t have a lot of Yemenite culture in our home. We sang from the Israeli Hebrew songbook on Shabbat dinners. But somehow, these days, my dad in Israel has been listening to more Yemenite music than ever, and I am singing more Yemenite music than ever halfway across the world.
MT: What did you grow up listening to?
Ariella: I grew up listening to Guns and Roses, Shlomo Artzi, Achinoam Nini and Boaz Sharabi. I went to a Jethro Tull concert with my dad when they were in Israel, but I’ve never been to a Yemenite one.
Yemenite music is played at every wedding and every bar and bat mitzvah, so I always heard it on special occasions. As much as I wanted to disassociate myself from the style, I would always dance the Yemenite dances.
MT: Who do you consider to be a vocal influence on you?
Achinoam Nini is one of my first and lasting loves. My Ashkenazi mom introduced me to her and, actually, the first album I had of hers was in English. Evyatar Banai is also an influence. He’s more of an artist than a singer, but his singing had a big impact on me.
Other singers I admire are Jeff Buckley, Freddie Mercury, Nina Simon, Aretha Franklin, Billie Holiday, and many more…
MT: What’s special about Yemenite music that makes it different from what you usually sing?
Ariella: So much is different. Physically it requires a lot more energy than Jazz would. It almost requires my body to mimic a cry. Yemenite music originated from prayer, and that is how it feels really. Like a part of me is leading a service.
