Four Track Preview from Nir Motzeri's 2014 Album, "To Make Her Happy"

"To Make Her Happy" Preview Tracks

I composed this niggun while riding alone on the train from  Dharamsala to Pushkar.  As the train rattled along with its broken beats I found myself searching the horizon for an olive tree, for a reminder of home.  I never found the olive tree, and so in its place I composed, "Longing Train."   

Written and Composed by Nir Motzeri.
Mixed by: Shahar Kaufman, OnyxStudio, Rosh Pina
Mastering: Yoram Vazan

Featuring:

Nir Motzeri - Bansuri Flutes, Mandolin, Oud, Viola, Celtic Whistles
Alon Pener-Tessler - Contrabass
Yoni Sharon - Percussion
Elan Kenan - Classical Guitar
Eyal Luman - Kanun
Uri Shefi - Lyre


Longing Train - רכבת געגועים

A cross-continental composition, named after Jog, a traditional Indian raga.  I started this niggun before traveling to India to study bansuri.  The tune was completed after my post-India trip to Canada, where I had been immersed in the celtic/quebec folk music scene.  

Nir Motzeri - Bansuri, Violin, Mandolin, Percussion
Yanush Hurwitz - Accordion
Eyal Luman - Naal & Kanjira

Jog - ג׳וג

When my mother and father moved to our village, my grandmother, blessed be her memory, gave them a small date palm that she had grown herself from seed, for luck and happiness. My father planted it in our garden close to the house, where it has grown for the last 30 years. This melody was written in the shadow of that palm, the tree that reminds me of her.

 Nir Motzeri - Mandolin, Bansuri, Oud
 Ilan Kenan - Classical Guitar
 Eran Klein - Keyboards
 Alon Pener-Tessler - Contrabass, Fretless Bass
 Yoni Sharon - Percussion

Under The Date Tree - תחת עץ תמר

This niggun was written as part of my attempt to woo my wife.  She loved the bluegrass banjo but all I had on hand was a Greek Bouzouki.  I wrote this tune, To Make Her Happy, while sitting amongst her flowers on our balcony in Montreal, Canada 2006.

Nir Motzeri - Greek Bouzouki, Bansuri, Violin, Mandolin, Oud, Percussion
Dvir Spiegel - Acoustic Guitar, Banjo
Alon Pener-Tessler - Contrabass, Bass, Fretless 

To Make Her Happy - לשמח אותה

Playing on a wide range of traditional and ethnic instruments, Nir Motzeri combines the rich multicultural reality of modern Israel with the ancient Jewish tradition of niggun.  A musical storyteller, Nir's compositions are fantastical worlds in which remote genres, rhythms and styles find themselves at home with one another and instruments converse like long lost friends.  The son of a Yemenite, born into an Israeli Sephardic family, with roots stretching from Spain, Italy and Morocco, fusion is Nir’s native musical language.  Traversing borders between East and West, the old world and the new, "To Make Her Happy" is a testament to the power of pure, wordless music to touch the heart and speak the langage of the soul.