Hirsch, Nurit

Nurit Hirsch was born in Tel Aviv in 1942 in the family of Hillel and Leah Hirsch ^[1] ; her father was a violinist and opera singer. From childhood, Nurit was engaged in classical music in the piano class; She also loved to visit the synagogue with her grandfather, where she listened to the chazzans . While still at school, she earned as an accompanist pianist in performances by Israeli opera singers and in the classes of a ballet studio. After graduating from Tel Aviv Ironi Alef High School ^[2] , she served in the army , where she was a member of the ensemble of tank troops ^[3] .

At the end of her military service, Hirsch continued to work as an accompanist ^[1] (her collaboration with the Hamam Theater, which began in these years, lasted seven years ^[2] ). In 1964-1966, she studied piano, composition and orchestration at the Jerusalem in Jerusalem ^[4] and at that time was seriously engaged in composing music. In 1965, the disk of the Sarida trio was released, on which, among others, were recorded the songs of Hirsch “Im lobster leh” (“If I Tell You,” written at the age of 17) and “Pera ha-lilah” (“Flower lilacs "). In the same year, the program of the trio “Gesher ha-Yarkon” included the Hirsch song “Khula kahalom” (“Blue as a Dream”) ^[3] . The following year, “Perakh Halilah” became a hit performed by Hava Alberstein ^[1] . On Alberstein's first album, released in 1967, another Hirsch song was recorded - Makhela Aliza (The Merry Choir) ^[3] .

At the same time, Hirsch began collaboration with songwriters Yoram Takharlev and Ehud Manor , with whom Hirsch already created the hit "Bashana ha-baa" ("Next Year") in 1968 ^[3] . In 1969, Hirsch’s song “Ose Shalom Bi-Meromav” (“Creating the World in Heaven”) won third place at the first Hasidic music festival, and the song “Ba-derekh Khazar” (“On the Way Back”) to Manor’s words won the song contest Radio of Israel. Her songs “Love of Teresa di Mon” to the words of Leah Goldberg in 1970 and “Zion, ha-lo were silent” (“Zion, really you won’t ask”) to the words of Yehuda Halevi in 1972 ^[1] achieved similar success. Since 1971, Hirsch songs have received awards at international festivals in Greece, Chile, Japan and other countries ^[4] . In 1973, when Israeli performers first participated in the Eurovision song contest , Hirsch’s song “Hey Sham” (“Somewhere Out There”) was performed to the words of Ehud Manor, who finished fourth, and four years later their song “ A-Ba NBC ”performed by Ishar Cohen and Alphabeta brought Israel the first victory in this competition ^[1] . Both times, the Eurovision Orchestra was conducted by Hirsch herself ^[2] . Children's songs Nurit Hirsch (mainly written in collaboration with Takharlev) performed by Shuli Hyun , Tzipi Shavit , Shlomo Nitsana and Yardena Arazi repeatedly won prizes at competitions of the 1970s and 1980s ^[3] .

Since the early 1970s, Hirsch has been writing music for films and series, as well as for theater musicals . Among the films to which she wrote music - “ Police Azulay ” (“Ballad about Police Azulay” Hirsch calls one of the most memorable in her work ^[5] ), “ Behind Bars ” (song “Give Me Your Hand” to verses by Shimrit Or performed by Boaz Sharabi in the film) and “Don’t ask if I love” (the title song from this tape was a hit performed by David Broza ). The musical “Salah Shabati” according to the script by Efraim Kishon , to which Hirsch also wrote music and who withstood more than 400 performances on the stage of the theater “ Habima ”, became extremely popular ^[3] . In 1992, the Dig-Dig-Dug music collection was released on videotapes, consisting of children's video clips to Hirsch's music and lyrics by Michal Hazon. The collection was sold in an amount of more than 300 thousand copies ^[3] . The popularity of the cassette was so great that in subsequent years three collections-sequels were released and a theatrical performance was staged ^[2] .

By 2016, Nurit Hirsch had created about 1600 songs, wrote music for dozens of films and numerous television series and programs. Many of her songs are attributed to the Hebrew songwriting gold foundation ^[6] . Her two children from Joram Rosenfeld followed in the footsteps of her mother: Dani's son became an instrumental musician and teacher of jazz music, and her daughter Ruthi became an opera singer ^[4] .

In 2016, Nurit Hirsch was awarded the Israel Prize in the field of Hebrew songwriting ^[6] , and also became an honorary doctor of Bar-Ilan University ^[7] and Ben-Gurion University ^[8] . Since 2015, she is an honorary citizen of Tel Aviv ^[4] . Among her other awards ^[4] :

• Violin of David Award of the newspaper “ Yediot Ahronot ” (1968)
• Israeli Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (AKUM) Prize for the Work of Life (2000)
• Prize to them. Rosenblumov city hall of Tel Aviv for a career contribution to stage art (2014)
• Prize AKUM them. Levin Kipnisa for his special contribution to art for children (2016)
• Prize to them. Arik Einstein of the Ministry of Culture and Sports of Israel for his contribution to Hebrew songwriting (2016)
• Israeli Union of Artists Award for Life (2016)

• nurit-hirsh.com - official site of Nurit Hirsch
• Nurit Hirsch on the Israel Prize website (Hebrew) : biography , creativity , jury arguments
• Nathan Shahar. Nurit Hirsch (neopr.) . Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia (March 1, 2009). Date of treatment July 25, 2017.
• Nurit Hirsch (Hebrew) in the MOOMA database