Avishai my brother always says to the audience, 'If you weren't here, it would just be a rehearsal.' So it's important to me to acknowledge and engage them. I know that they are there for me, and I'm humbled by that.
I could never really figure out why people would live in a kibbutz. I'm such a city girl.
My father knew classical music very well. Driving in the car, listening to the radio, he could name every composer, every movement, what piece it was. I was fascinated by the way he recognized who wrote what.
With cab drivers, I always say I'm from Brazil. I don't say I'm from Israel. It's happened more than once that someone is blaming me for the government's policy. And I say, 'Listen, I live here. I'm a musician. I don't call the shots.'
I think maybe the only time I think of being a woman... is being on the road and making sure my musicians are fed and they sleep. 'Are you OK? Do you need some water? Are you hungry? Can I get you a cookie?' I'm not sure all the men bandleaders do that.
There's always this joke that I say in Israel: people don't really have discussions; they just try to convince the other people that they are wrong or they are right - they just try to impose their opinion on the others. Sometimes I think it's easier to avoid talking about things and just make music.
I'm working really hard to get the clarinet out of that hole, that Benny Goodman thing.
The clarinet chose me more than I chose the clarinet.
The best part about living in New York is that you are able to play with different people in different styles in the same week. It's really part of who I am as a musical person. I try to incorporate everything that I encounter.
When I got into high school, clarinet was not really in fashion. Everybody had electric bands.
My parents never said to me, 'Why don't you go and get a real profession?' And that really helped.
Influences at home, including classical music, were not all specifically jazz, but the family radio was always on... So there was always some connection to American culture, to American music.
My father had lived in the States in the 1960s for a while and came to love American Songbook material. Even today, he sometimes recognizes singers that I never even heard of, which is beautiful and inspiring.
Boston was incredible. I had some of the best experiences of my life there at Berklee because I met a bunch of other people who were at the exact same stage in life and interest as me. There were American and international students all wrapped up in the Berklee environment, where you basically did nothing but music 24/7.
My initial training was on the keyboard - mainly the great American songbook. In junior high, during the day, I was a classical clarinetist, but after school, I played New Orleans jazz and big-band music.
I focused on the saxophone ever since high school. It wasn't until my album 'Poetica,' which I recorded in 2006, that I went back to the clarinet. It felt like it was waiting for me!
I prefer to solve conflict with kindness. That's my first approach. If that doesn't work, there's always the alternative. I'm from Israel. I can tell a person what I think if I have to!
I'm helping people think the clarinet is cool.
Israel is a mishmash of other cultures. It's like New Orleans; it's a meltdown of other cultures.
I like to listen to African music; I like to listen to Brazilian music that's not just Choro. I love to listen to Radiohead, I like to listen to James Brown - any music.
