Tamar Melanie Shalit

Biography

Tamar Melanie Shalit is currently completing her Bachelor’s studies in composition at the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance, in the class of Professor Haim Permont. Born in Jerusalem, Tamar is a descendant of Holocaust victims from Germany, Hungary and Poland. She has been writing and performing music from an early age, singing in children’s choirs and studying voice at the Yellow Submarine Music High School in Jerusalem.

Her chamber, choral and orchestral music has been performed by various ensembles of the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance, where she studies in the Cross-Disciplinary Composition division. In 2015–2016 Tamar lived in Brazil (Rio de Janeiro), where she researched Afro-Brazilian popular culture through folk music and capoeira, including singing, writing arrangements for concerts, movement and percussion performance.

Her compositions and arrangements have been performed at the Sounds of the Desert festival (Meitar ensemble), at a national conference and workshop of Israeli folk song at Bar-Ilan University, and in the Jerusalem Academy’s project Composers Following Memories. She has taken part in workshops in Israel, Crete and Rio de Janeiro. Tamar’s music shows the influence of a wide range of genres, from traditional and contemporary Western music to Afro-Brazilian, Mediterranean and Israeli popular music.