INTERVIEW: Miri Ben-Ari has found the musical partner of a lifetime
Photo: Miri Ben-Ari and her son, Dorel, recently released the single “Whatcha Gonna Do.” Photo courtesy of the artist / Provided by Prana Marketing with permission.
Famed violinist Miri Ben-Ari, a Grammy Award winner, has built a career out of expert classical music and synergistic musical collaboration. She has worked with the likes of Kanye West, Jay-Z, Wyclef Jean, Aventura, Alicia Keys, Wynton Marsalis, Britney Spears, Maroon 5 and John Legend, among many others.
However, it’s Ben-Ari’s most recent collaboration that means the most. Her new single is called “Watcha Gonna Do,” and it features her son, Dorel.
“I think having a child connects you to the true meaning, a whole deeper meaning of the word love,” Ben-Ari said in a recent phone interview. “You never know love until you have a child. There’s something in it, and this song is really about having a good time and my approach to life with my child and my connection with him. It’s about having fun despite all the situations that annoy us and things that we don’t like. It’s all about going with the flow and not sweating things. If something comes your way, just look at it — watcha gonna do?”
The violinist has been producing music for a long time, and this production has taken her in many creative directions. In the past, for example, she was on the producing team for West’s “Jesus Walks,” which scored her a Grammy.
It was a chance session in the studio with her son that got the wheels turning.
“I have a studio where I produce music,” she said. “I got in the studio, and I said to [my son], ‘How about you play this and that?’ I was directing him, producing him, and his voice came through really, really nice. All of a sudden, I didn’t even know he had that talent. He just sounded great, the way that I wanted it to sound, and we kept it.”
Dorel loves music, but he tells his mother all the time that his interests are less classical (her first love) and more pop and hip hop. For Ben-Ari, who grew up in Israel, those musical tastes are just fine with her.
“I’ve been trying to get him more into classical playing and classical instruments,” she admitted. “He’s not interested, and it’s part of the journey of being a parent is understanding and respecting a child for who they are and love them for who they are, as opposed to trying to force your agendas on them. They’re a whole being, and they’re perfect. … I’m going to revisit. I did not give up, but I’m not going to torture him over something that I would like for him to do it.”
Ben-Ari’s parents gave her a violin when she was only 5 years old. She loved it from day one and began to devote her personal and professional life to learning its numerous possibilities.
“I was so disciplined, and I always thought that the violin was something that I’m going to keep doing as I grow up,” she said. “I won competitions as a child. I used to practice hours and hours a day. … I always practiced three, four hours a day. I was 12 when I received my first violin from Isaac Stern, my first good violin in a master class in Jerusalem. I won a couple of competitions that brought me over here to the States. That’s how I got here.”
For Ben-Ari, who is a Goodwill Ambassador of Music for the United Nations and once visited the White House during the Obama administration, the violin is an instrument that is able to transport a person across culture, religion and geography. These strings have taken her around the world and back again.
“I always knew that the violin would take me somewhere else because music can take you places where you can only get through your imagination,” she said. “It’s like a profession where you’re not limited to language, to a certain culture or knowledge of geographical places. It’s beyond borders. It’s beyond geographical places, beyond religion, beyond everything. It’s the most international thing. It’s the first connector between music, culture, religion, people. I always knew my violin and music would take me somewhere.”
She added: “To tell you that I knew that I’m going to wind up at the White House — no, that I didn’t. That exceeded my imagination. To tell you that I knew that I’m going to be introduced in the U.S. by Kanye West and Jay Z and Wyclef Jean as ‘the hip-hop violinist,’ like the first one — no, that was beyond my imagination.”
Back when she was a child — back when she was Dorel’s age — the world was unknown to her, and that meant anything could happen … and it did.
“As a child, I grew up playing classical music,” she said, “but I knew it was going to exceed the limits of the geographical place.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Miri Ben-Ari’s new single is a collaboration with her son, Dorel, and it’s called “Whatcha Gonna Do.” Click here for more information, and click here to follow Ben-Ari on Twitter.
