Achinoam Nini (Noa)
Known in Israel by her given name, Achinoam Nini, Noa is one of Israel’s leading international concert and recording artists who became famous around the world as a world music artist and peace advocate.
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Noa was born in Israel to a family of Yemenite descent , and moved to New York with her family at the age of 2 after a scholarship that her father had received (doctor of chemical engineering). She grew up in the Bronx and studied along with her siblings in a Jewish religious school (S.A.R) and then went to high school at Manhattan’s “Yeshivat Remez.” Throughout that time, Noa had already started to compose songs and her parents decided to take her to music and dance lessons.
At 17 Noa came back to Israel by herself in order to experience living in the country. She resided in a boarding school and later joined the Israeli Defence Forces and served in an Army Entertainment Group. With her release from the army, Noa decided to seriously focus on her musical career, and went to study music at the acclaimed Israeli music academy “Rimon.”
Looking back at her career, it looks like the world music community was waiting around the corner for Noa. The song ‘Babel’ was the first song she recorded in French, English and Arabic, for the soundtrack of the movie ‘Notre dame de Paris.’The song was realesed in 1989 and reached #1 in France.
In the following years Noa met her musical partner, Gil Dor, while in Rimon, and the two started to perform together and released two successful albums in Israel. In 1994 they met famous American jazz guitarist and 19 Grammy Awards winner Pat Metheny who helped with Noa’s first international album and opened the door for her to share stages with artists like Sting, Carlos Santana, Sheryl Crow, Annie Lennox and many more. Noa’s biggest hit was the theme song of the 1997 Academy Award winning movie ‘Life is Beautiful.’
Along with her musical career, Noa is an strong advocate of equality movements and peace. She sang in 1994 and in 2000, in front of Pope John Paul II, and took part in the November 4th 1995 Peace rally, at the end of which the former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was murdered, and in 1996 she was invited by Bill Clinton to perform at the White House in Washington DC.
Noa continues performing throughout America and Europe, but still considers Israel as her base, where she lives with husband (children’s doctor Ascher Barak) and three kids.
