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Noa: “Bach is the best builder of bridges” Noa and Pasión Vega, a polyphony of the Mediterranean

Achinoam Nini, used to listen from very small to the music of Bach was a heady, mathematical, very complex. The biggest nightmare imaginable for any qualified interpreter of classical music. But the first time that his piano teacher was Russian and put the Minuet Johann Sebastian at the lectern, he learned that his crush with the genius would probably be eternal. Now Noa, your artistic name, satisfy that debt of gratitude with Letters to Bach, his work more atypical and unexpectedly, 11 versions of so many other classical scores to which she has given voice and letter under the supervision of, be amazed, Quincy Jones. “I’m not a scholar of baroque music, but I wanted to face the challenge from the love and without prejudice. The stigmata are the biggest problem of our time”, says this israeli blood yemeni, which premieres next Wednesday at the Teatro Circo Price in Madrid your disk “baroque”.

a long time Ago that Noa learned to listen more to your instinct that the environment. At the beginning of the decade of the nineties, when it made its debut at the international level with a self-titled album produced by Pat Metheny, the guitarist of Missouri offered him a teaching more valuable even than a melody: “A good review will allow you to be happy for five minutes. Get into the habit of that anger before a bad review will not last more than five other…”. From that, we lost the fear of the vertigo. “I never do a disk similar to the previous one. I now work in a very free and crazy, improvisation radical, which may be surprising to some. But it is a kind of covenant that I have reached with my viewers. I offer The life is beautiful, Ave Maria, the great successes that you don’t want to miss. To change, I invite you to move without fear in my adventures less known”.

So it will be in its long-awaited visit to madrid day 15. Celebrates 30 years on the boards and has confirmed that it will be “very special friends” at the time of review some of their successes; in particular, the non-combustible Ana Belén, the flamenco singer, flamenco Marina Heredia and the ubiquitous and virtuoso violinist Ara Malikian. And, in between, his newest adventure and heterodox. Because in that Letters to Bach converge somehow your shed popular and the exploratory.

“Some of these melodies,” he writes, “are successful and omnipresent. We have heard from children in the cinema, on the radio, to as ringtones for your mobile phone. I wanted to connect them with the TWENTY-first century. Without fanfare or vibratos. I feel more close to, say, Joan Baez that of Maria Callas. And with lyrics and themes that you’d like to own Johann Sebastian, because they connect with the real spirit of our times, not with the raves, or electronic music…”.

The climate change, the israeli-palestinian conflict or the uncertainty of the passion of love (hear No, baby, reading in the key of scat jazz of the popular Badinerie) live in these adaptations libérrimas. But none feel so proud of Noa as of Oh, mama dear, where the Invention number 13 becomes in a letter to his daughter’s quinceañera (the singer has two other children, 19 and 10), a young girl so fascinated by Instagram and the culture of the selfi as with so many other million members of her generation. “They are more intelligent than us and have all the facilities,” says the vocalist, “but you need to love to understand that the self is not the only thing nor the most important. And I marvel to see how a music so old you can capture the spirit of these problems of the present time.”

Noah, however, is optimistic to extreme, almost reckless. Not only is of the opinion that “the most wonderful things have not been invented yet”, but hopes to see them “if before that people immature that now governs the world, not just by destroying it”. She would have liked to celebrate his 50th birthday, the past month of June, “with the end of a half century of israeli occupation in the palestinian territory”. But it is comforting to now be a part of the festival Inverfest to reconnect with the people in madrid, one of the best that has been understood since the first day. And you feel lucky as a woman “rich in experiences, much better than rich in money.” “When I became known with the first album”, he reveals, “my record label offered me songs odious, with which, according to them, they would get a huge success. But success is a big lie. Today not full stadiums, but theaters with beautiful people who appreciate the beauty”.

From that position of integrity, ensures that the artists most humble and generous that he has never known you are, the more reasons they would have for the pride. “Metheny is one of them. Stevie Wonder, another. We were invited to a television tribute in Los Angeles, and we prepared 15 songs of yours. He preferred to interpret a mine, Child of man, and stay in the background, playing the harmonica”. And the third is Quincy Jones, responsible for (among thousands of achievements) of the recording of Thriller and other albums very famous, Michael Jackson, and unexpected executive producer of this Letters to Bach.

“Quincy is a great activist, like me. We met in the Hall of Fame, and I suggested that we work together. His level of perfectionism is supreme, so every time my guitarist, Gil Dor, and I sent a recording to Los Angeles, we was shaking the whole body. But he ended up giving us his blessing…”. Like the French pianist David Fray, one of the best performers of world of Bach and admitted admirer of this work. “We are passing such nice things,” says Noa, “my singing teacher, Hanna Hacoen, attend their 90 years to see the premiere of the project in Tel Aviv. And thanked me as well: ‘I don’t believe in God, Noa, but I believe in Bach”.