Ariel Bart

Musician between the worlds

It is the songs of Neil Young, Bob Dylan and Stevie Wonder, among others, that resound in Ariel Bart’s home. And it is her older sister who falls in love with the sound of the harmonica that appears in the songs. She joins a harmonica orchestra to learn to play the instrument herself.

Ariel grew up with her family near Tel Aviv. She started playing the harmonica at the age of seven. Like her sister, she became a member of the Ramat Gan Children’s Harmonica Orchestra. It was founded by Schmuel Gogol. He survived the Holocaust because he played the harmonica in the orchestra of the Auschwitz concentration camp. Today the orchestra in Israel bears his name.

Ariel plays mainly classical and folk music with around 40 other children. She grows up with the instrument and the harmonica becomes a natural part of her.

Learning from other instrumentalists
She studied at the New School at University for Jazz and Contemporary Music and travelled to New York City. Here she worked with jazz greats such as bassist Reggie Workman, pianist Shai Maestro and saxophonist Jane Ira Bloom. Ariel occasionally takes private harmonica lessons, but at university she is unique with her instrument. She learns a lot from other instrumentalists, tries out everything that is possible on the harmonica and pushes the boundaries. Ariel enjoys this freedom, which has many advantages for her: she attends courses that are interesting for her music and her playing. She immerses herself in the world of jazz.

She began composing at a young age, and her music is a blend of different musical worlds: it moves between jazz and the sounds of her native Israel, sometimes melancholic, but always full of passion.

Between the worlds
She calls her first album ‘In Between’: Being between worlds, between time, between the here, the past and what is to come. Ariel travels a lot for her concerts and projects. She combines her art with others, making video clips and writing sounds for films. Ariel currently lives in Berlin, a city she says is both totally chaotic and very relaxed at the same time.

Ariel feels she is still at the very beginning. There was a time, she says, when she wanted to imitate the sound of other instruments – a flute, a trumpet, a saxophone – with the harmonica. Now she is looking for the instrument’s very own sound. And this is as different as the musicians who play it. She is constantly opening new doors, playing with a wide variety of musicians and creating her own unique and imaginative art.