Shalom

[Simona Gamarmik <gamarmik...>]

       Shalom Everybody!!!!!
   I am very happy to finally see mail-list under name of Jewish-music.
A little info about myself.  I am Simona Gamarnik, 22, CS graduate student
at USC.  I am originally from Latvia (part of former Soviet Union).
My first encounter with Jewish music was when I was a
little kid and my Mother and Grandmothers used to sing me Yiddish folk songs
at the bed time.  As I grew older, I was very fortunate to meet wonderful
people who had zionistic ideas and where fighting the Soviet Regime for the
right to make Aliya.  Anyway, at 15 me and couple of friends of mine formed
a Jewish band.  Mostly we were singing Israeli "oldies" and anything that
we could get our hands on.
   My main interest now is Modern Israeli music.  I have a big collection of
tapes, unfortunately, I don't know names of the singers on most of them.
But from the ones I know, I really enjoy Haim Moshe, especially his 1987
album "All My Vowels" (Kol ndaray), Arik Sinai, Avi Tolerado ("Marocker"),
and of course, everybodies favorite Shlomo Artzi.  I didn't listen to his
last record, but I've heard that it is great.  Next week I am planning on
making a trip to Fairfax("HaTaklit") and buying it.  It is very hard for me
to say who is my favorite singer, I love almost all of them.
   If you anybody is interested in kind of a mix of Sephardic and Ashkenazi
music, I would suggest to try Baaz Sharaavi(I am not sure about the way to
pronounce it, because there is no English version on the tape, if anybody
is interested, please send me an email, or post it here, and I will spell
it in Hebrew) 1973 album.
   Also, I would like to say Hello to David Kleiner, I think we have a lot
in common since I've also just graduated with CS degree and was looking for
a job, but couldn't find any, so I am back in Grad School.

           Shana Tova to everybody.

   I am looking forward to reading the postings in this mail-list.

                    Thank you,
                     Simona Gamarnik.
                     e-mail: gamarmik (at) aludra(dot)usc(dot)edu

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