HIRSH, NURIT

HIRSH, NURIT (1942– ), Israeli composer and arranger of Israeli folk songs. She was born in Tel Aviv and graduated from the Rubin Music Academy. She also studied movie and electronic music at UCLA in Los Angeles, and composition in New York. After her military service as a musician she started composing songs. Her first song, "Peraḥ ha-Lilakh" ("The Lilac Flower"; lyrics Uri Asaf) appeared in 1965. Since then she has composed and orchestrated more than one thousand songs performed by the best Israeli singers and ensembles. Hirsh also wrote the score for 14 motion pictures, such as Ha-Shoter Azulai (The Policeman Azulai), Immi ha-Generalit ("My Mother the General"), the musical Salah Shabbati, and television series, such as Parpar Nehmad and Kerovim Kerovim. Her song "Osei Shalom bi-Meromav" was awarded third prize in the first Hasidic Song Festival (1969) and became a major hit on the international scene and adopted in prayers by many Jewish communities. In 1973, her song "Ei-sham" ("Somewhere"; lyrics, ehud manor ) took fourth place at the Eurovision song contest. In 1978, another of her songs, Abanibi (lyrics, Ehud Manor) took first place in that contest. Her songs won first prizes in a number of song festivals organized by the Israeli state radio and television authority and in children songs festivals. Her hits reached the international scene and she won first prizes in Japan (1974), Chile (1975), Portugal (1978), Greece (1971),   Malta (1972), Ireland (1979), Yugoslavia (1979), to name but a few. In 1992 she produced together with lyricist Michal Rosen a videocassette for children, "Did dig doog." Hundreds of thousands of copies were sold. In 1999 in the wake of that success she made a second videocassette, "Pim Pam Po." Four collections of her songs have been released: Fifty Hits (Ma'ariv, 1969), La-Lekhet Shevi (Yediot Aḥronot, 1984) Only for Now (Yediot Aḥronot, 1990), Dag Digdoog (Sheva, 1996). (Nathan Shahar (2nd ed.)