Jonathan Bar-Giora
- Composer
- Music Department
- Actor
Jonathan Bar Giora (born July 8, 1962) is an Israeli composer and
pianist. Since 2000, Bar Giora has composed over 150 Israeli films, such as Bonjour Monsieur Shlomi, Time of Favor,
Queen Shoshana, You only Die Twice and more. He also worked as a composer, arranger and producer with Israeli
performers such as Yossi Banai, Miri Mesika, Shalom Chanoch, Meir Banai, Rita, Riki Gal and many others. Between 2011-2015 Bar Giora served as the head of the soundtrack department at the Sapir Academic College, where we continues to teach as a senior lecturer. He also lectures at Beit Berl's film school and at the Maaleh School of Film and Television.
At age 16, Bar Giora started playing Jazz in local clubs. All through the 1980s he played jazz and
wrote music-related articles for the local press. In 1990 he staged a
one man show "I'd be delighted to meet you after the plague", which he
wrote, composed and performed (Director: Shlomo Vazana). A secondary
character in that show, Michel Clayderlast, became successful when Bar
Giora created "Live Elevator Music". A performance-art show debuted at
the 1990 Israel Festival, featuring Clayderlast playing 20-second bits
of popular music live inside an elevator (20 seconds being the average
time elevator users spend inside). In 1991 he staged Erua Mochi, a rock
spectacle presenting a new musical style: "Live Acid". The band, led by
Bar Giora, played looped music live in an attempt to reduce fears among
live musicians, in a time when increasingly popular electronic and
sampled music threatened to wipe all their job opportunities. 1992 was
dedicated to Jesse's Carnival, a gloomy cabaret show with
singer-songwriter Jonathan Licht. In 1993, Bar Giora created a Fringe
theatre show named Entebbe- The Musical with Etgar Keret. Bar Giora
composed all of the songs and original score, and the show won first
prize at Acco Festival of Alternative Israeli Theatre. In 1994 he created "Sea of Blues"' - an evening of
bluesy and jazzy covers to middle eastern hits. The rest of the
90s were dedicated to theater music and TV live performances (Musical Director of Ad
Eser, a weekly talk show, and many others). In 1999 he wrote the music for Pgisha Le'eiyn
Kets, a special CD dedicated to the poetry of Nathan Alterman, read by
Israeli actor Yossi Banai. That same year he composed Joseph Cedar's
feature film Time of Favor. It was a first in a series of more than 150
movie scores (TV dramas and documentaries included) which were created
by Bar Giora since. In 2018 the Tel Aviv, Jerusalem & Haifa Cinematheques held a special tribute to his musical work for films and television. That same year "Helicon Music" released the album "Themes" , the first anthology of music composed by Bar Giora for the movies. It was the first in a series of over 10 soundtrack albums composed by Bar Giora to be released by "Helicon Music"
Early in 2020 the Israeli Andalusian Orchestra Ashdod dedicated a concert to Bar Giora's works titled "Soundtrack of the Heart".
Early 2021 saw the release of "Sharim Tfilayla" - an album arranged and produced by Bar Giora, starring some of Israel's leading performers, such as Ninet, Shalom Chanoch, Ester Rada, Miri Mesika, Alon Eder and others.