About The Artist:

Uri Miles is a pianist, keyboardist, brass, accordion and percussion player. He is a composer, arranger, producer a nature photographer film soundtrack editor and a qualified piano tuner (RPT).Uri Miles graduated from the Donna Weizman Conservatory in Haifa, majoring in piano and organ, in the field of classical music and jazz. Uri established the eighties band “TransSound” which played original material written by Miles.Artists with whom Uri has collaborated, recorded or performed:Rita, Yehudit Ravitz, Noa, Arik Einstein, Nurit Galron, Ivri Lider, Yehuda Poliker, Danny Sanderson, Etti Ankri, Riki Gal, David Broza,Aviv Geffen, Edinden Aviv, Ronit Shachar, Shlomo Gronich, Michael Adler, Izhar, Shlomit Aharon, Lea Shabat, Shlomi Shabbat, Micha Biton,Korin Allal, Gilad Vital (Fools of Prophecy), Yuval Banai and more.

Song: Hitragut

Contribution to: Larger Than Life

Hitrag’ut is one of several songs that became popular because of the unique efforts of Bracha Zefira (1910-1990). Zefira was born in Palestine to Yemenite parents who died when she was still a toddler, and she was raised in a series of foster homes, in neighborhoods teeming with Sephardic culture. Young Bracha was musically gifted, and loved to sing the songs she heard all around her – songs from Yemen, Persia and the Spanish Diaspora. Her talents brought her to the attention of patrons who funded her studies in Germany where, for the first time, she was exposed to Western classical music. Returning to Palestine, she longed to bring her songs to a wider, more diverse audience, and understood now that providing sophisticated accompaniments would make the presentation of this “exotic” music more accessible to Western (Ashkenazic) audiences. She collaborated first with her husband, Nahum Nardi (1901-1977), a Russian-born composer (whom she had met while studying in Germany) but when their marriage failed, she turned to some of the other European composers who were arriving during the fourth aliyah and creating the unique merger of East and West that is represented in early Israei art music. Zefira’s work with Paul Ben-Haim (1897-1984) resulted in his setting of this Sephardic melody. Ben-Haim’s setting of Hitrag’ut for Zefira (and its later adaptation by him for choir) became extremely well-known, and her performance succeeded in accomplishing her goal of bringing “new” Sephardic melodies to a wider audience. In this case, the original melody was “borrowed” back from its artistic setting and returned to its traditional role as a folk song.

About Larger Than Life

Established in 1998, by parents of children with cancer, “Larger Than Life” is a humanitarian voluntary organization serving sick children all over Israel. The aim of the organization is to improve the quality of life of children with cancer, regardless of race, nationality or religious affiliation. The organization cares for children of all faiths: Jews, Christians, Druze and Muslims. Its activities take place in cooperation with all of the hospitals in Israel.