Shira Z.
Carmel

Shira Z. Carmel is a composer, singer and songwriter from Jerusalem, now based in Melbourne/Naarm. Over two decades, her music has travelled through various ensembles and international tours, and into film, television, radio and interdisciplinary art. Moving between alternative pop, jazz, neo-soul, cabaret, folk and experimental song, she writes contemplative lyrics of her own and sets poetry to music in Hebrew, English and Yiddish.

“Carmel’s quartet hovers somewhere in the middle of a dodecahedron, whose faces include TOM WAITS (in terms of presentation), HAVA ALBERSTEIN (in terms of vocal intensity and folkish nuances), FREDERICK CHOPIN (in terms of musical mystery), KURT WEILL (in terms of elegant grit), THE SOFT MACHINE (in terms of jazzy texture), JOLIE HOLLAND (in terms of folk-meeting-jazz and of hauntingness), REGINA SPECTOR (in terms of playfulness) and, say, THE PIXIES (in terms of rock-age liberty), but that would be to say nothing about it.”

Yuval Ben-Ami, +972 Magazine ↗︎