I remember the day I first met Harel Shachal. It was in 2001, back at my University building on 13th Street, NYC. He was walking around restless, going from one practice room to the next, with his black clarinet case on his back. I was a freshman, and he was a senior at New School University, Jazz program. Very quickly, realising the Israeli connection, we started talking. I asked him what was going on? What is he doing?

“I am looking for my sound,” he answered. 

This was the first (out of many) “lessons” I’ve learned from Harel over the years, until this day. Lessons that are always spiritual and physical at the same time. I’m blessed to host Harel in this festival, as he is already part of its DNA.

What makes you feel homesick?

Harel: My wife and my daughters.

What makes you feel better if/when you are homesick?

Harel: Friends and good food. Remembering that I don’t know.

What makes you feel sick of home? 

Harel: Politics, when people do not consider my space in terms of noise. When people think that they know.

Why do you do / practice music?

Harel: It started as a healing thing for me, as a kid, I would play and connect to a higher force, energy through the music.

Later, for many years, the practice continued as running away from my traumas. It was something to escape to. In the last few years, it went back to being healing, to connect me again to the higher force.

What inspires you / what is your inner drive for creation?

Harel: I found out that there is a higher consciousness, an energy that includes everything, and sometimes I can experience it through playing music. This thing is an expression of life. The creator of life, you can call it god, higher intelligence, nature, or whatever you want to call it. I call it higher consciousness. The music often brings me straight to experience this energy. Not only to be aware of that, but to really feel it in me and all around me. Lately, I can also feel that while I play my Clarinet, other people can feel the same thing, this higher consciousness. This gives me a lot of strength and inspiration.

We are living in a very difficult and challenging time. If you could give one piece of advice to yourself, your fellow artists, or the audience, – what would it be?

Harel: Thinking is a bad excuse for inaction.

What do you expect from your upcoming performance at FRAMED FEST? / What is your wish for this specific show? 

Harel: To remind us that we are all connected. 

By Yael Nachshon Levin