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"I was seven years old when I first experienced the power of music to enchant and elevate my soul. Listening to the songs of prayer of the small congregation of the Shul in Via Eupili in Milan, I would shyly join my voice with theirs, and feel connected to something new, familiar and yet well beyond myself: my first true spiritual experience, I believe.

 

Ever since then- although temples are no longer part of my life - I have found that when I am singing, I feel that I am also somehow praying . My musical choices are guided by my search to connect myself, the musicians I work with, and my audience to that primary spiritual dimension in our inner selves.

 

When I succeed, a communion occurs, and I am simply grateful to be alive.” Shulamit

BIOGRAPHY

Charlette Shulamit Ottolenghi is an Italian-Israeli world music singer. Brought up in Milan by an Italian father and an English mother of Polish origin, she emigrated to Israel in 1973.

It was only in her late thirties, while in the midst of a successful career as a Clinical Psychologist, that Shulamit began to persue her dream of being a professional singer. In the following years she successfully succeded in maintaining both her professial occupations. Shulamit always researches edits and produces her own programs.

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She began her musical and vocal training under the tutelage of some of the most prominent teachers, including the internationally reknown opera singer, Prof Mira Zakay of the Tel Aviv Music Academy and Ms May Israeli, Head of the Interdisciplinary Vocal department in the Jerusalem Rubin Academy. Shulamit eventually began performing in 1995 under the Patronage of the Italian Institute of Culture in Tel Aviv. Currently she continues her vocal development with Mr. Yaniv Baruch, a Master in the Jo Estille method.

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Shulamit’s music reflects her multifaceted identity, ranging from Jewish Italian Liturgy to songs from the Holocaust and various Italian and Jewish Folk traditions. Her last CD, "For you the sun will shine – songs of women in the Shoa" was released in 2014 and co -sponsored by the Hadassah Brandeis Institution". The CD is a rare compilation of songs written by women musicians in the camps, with the contemporary musical arrangements by the composers Frank London (Grammy Award Winner for Contemporary World music) and Shai Bachar.

 

Her previous CD, Italia Ebraica was released by Amiata Records in 2012. The CD is a collection of Italian Jewish Liturgy in interpretive arrangements featuring classic, folk and jazz elements. Musical direction Maestro Orazio Corsaro (Messina, Italy)

 

At home in Tel Aviv, she maintains a lively musical dialogue with her origins, and collaborates and performs regularly with prominent musicians in Italy and in Israel.  Shulamit has been repeatedly invited to perform by private and public institutions, including:

  • The Israeli Embassy, The Vatican

  • Municipalitiy of Rome

  •  Municipality of Bologna

  • Municipality of  Padova

  • Municipality of Venice

  •  Museo Ebraico, Bologna

  • The Confederation House -Kalman Sultanik center for Ethnic Music and Poetry

  • Diaspora Museum, Tel Aviv

  • Italian Jewish Art Museum, Jerusalem

  • Cultural Institutes of the Italian Embassy:  Tel Aviv | Vancouver | Madrid

  • Jewish Days Music Festival, Jerusalem

  • The International Oud Festival, Jerusalem

  • Museum of Jewish Heritage, New York

  • WSRC Brandeis University

  • Tzavta Tel Aviv

  • MEIS Museum Ferrara

  • Bialik House Tel Aviv

Building upon her classical training, Shulamit has expanded her repertoire to include musical encounters with world, folk and electronic music. She is specially interested in rare Jewish repertoires and always in search of a dialogue between different musical languages. In the last years engagements and collaborations include:

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  • Invited by the Italian Institute of Culture in Tel Aviv to perform Shema‘ at the Brodet Auditorium in Tel Aviv 

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  • Performed Shema‘ : Primo Levi from Poem  to Song at the MEIS in Ferrara (Italy) as part of the Italian Government official  program for the centenary of Primo Levi.

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  • Invited to perform  Shema‘ at the Bialik House Auditorium in Tel Aviv  (2018)

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  • Premiered her new program “ SHEMA’: Primo Levi - From Poem To Song  in the Flautissimo Festival (Rome, 2018)​​​

 

  • Presentation of the CD "For you the sun will shine- songs of women in the Shoa on the occasion of Yom Hashoa 2016 at Tzavta Tel Aviv, in collaboration with the Embassy of the Czech Republic in Tel Aviv, The Italian Culture Institute in Tel Aviv and the Vidal Sasoon International Center for the study of Antisemitism of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

 

  • Release of the CD 'For you the Sun will Shine -songs of women in the Shoa – co sponsored by the Hadassah Brandeis Institute.  Musical arrangements Frank London and Shai Bachar, Frank London trumpet, Shai Bachar: piano, Yuval Lion: percussions (2014)

 

  • Invited to present the CD at the Women Studies Research Center in Brandeis University (April 2014)

 

  • Teaming with Grammy Award winner and trumpeter Frank London and Jazz pianist Shai Bachar for her concert at the Jewish Heritage Museum (New York, 2013)

 

  •  Release of Italia Ebraica by Amiata Records, Musical direction by Maestro Orazio Corsaro with Abate Berihun (sax), Orazio Corsaro (accordion and Sicilian bag pipe), Abe Doron (percussion) and Assaf Hakimi (contrabass) (2012) Presented at Mishkenot Shaananim in Jerusalem.

 

  • Invited by the Italian Embassy in Israel to open with her concert the homonimus exposition Italia Ebraica, under the auspices of the Italian Foreign Ministry at the Eretz Israel Museum (Tel Aviv, 2007)

 

  • Creating Sicily in the East, the fruit of her collaboration with Sicilian ethnomusicologist, composer and accordion and Sicilian Bagpipe player Orazio Corsaro. Premiered at the International Oud Festival (Jerusalem, 2008)

 

  • Collaborated with saxophonist and composer Maestro Alfredo Santoloci, from the Santa Cecilia Academy in Rome, on Italia Ebraica, Jewish Italian Liturgy for voice, sax, percussions and electronic traces (2007)

 

  • Teamed with Italian computer music composer Maestro Gabriel Maldonado to develop her innovative program A Voice for Life, songs of women in the Shoa for voice, sax and computer music. Performed on Holocaust Remembrance Day at the Santo Spirito in Saxia Concert Hall (Rome, 2006)

 

  • In her first collaboration with Maldonado, Shulamit performed her Jewish Italian music program "In Those Days, In Our Time" at Michelangelo's Piazza del Campidoglio in Rome, by invitation of the Rome City Council. (Rome, 2005)

 

  • Invited to perform her program Shir Hashirim veod Shirim at Moked Italia, an annual Jewish Studies convention (1999). The repertoire explored Israeli composers setting to music the most ancient Hebrew Poetry (The Songs of Songs) as well as some of the most important Israeli contemporary Poets.

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