Queen Elizabeth Hall, London SE1
There are not many acts, one imagines, which can bring Israeli ambassador Ron Prosor to his feet, swaying, clapping and dancing with the crowd. But the Idan Raichel Project managed just that on Monday night at the South Bank’s Queen Elizabeth Hall, when the ambassador joined a capacity audience for a feelgood show of Israeli world music, brought to London by the Jewish Community Centre for London and programmed by YaD Arts.
The first half of the programme belonged to Noa, a fireball of Yemenite energy whose 15-year collaboration with the guitarist Gil Dor has provided a fusion of Middle East rhythms with jazz and Brazilian samba. Barefoot and with long, swinging braided hair, Noa’s set, in English, Hebrew and Arabic, dipped into her extensive back catalogue but was least successful with songs from her new album, Genes and Jeans.
This, she says, is an exploration of her Yemenite past and her upbringing in New York’s Bronx, before she returned to Israel to join the army and launch her musical career.
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