quote:Known in Israel by her given name Achinoam Nini, Noa is Israel's leading international concert and recording artist. Born in Tel- Aviv in 1969, Noa lived in NYC from age 2 until her return to Israel alone at the age of 17. Her family is originally from Yemen. After serving the mandatory two years in the Israeli Army in a military entertainment unit, Noa studied music at the Rimon School where she met her long-time partner and collaborator Gil Dor.
Noa's strongest influences come from the singer-songwriters of the 60s, like Paul Simon, Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen. These musical and lyrical sensibilities, combined with Noa's Yemenite roots and Gil Dor's strong background in Jazz, Classical and Rock, have created Noa and Gil's unique sound, manifested in hundreds of songs written and performed together. Noa plays percussion, guitar and piano. She is married to Dr. Asher Barak, they have two children, Ayehli and Enea, and live in Israel.
Over the span of their 15 year career together, Gil and Noa have written and produced 4 hugely successful Israeli albums and four international albums. In addition, Noa has recorded a live album with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, and a live cd and dvd with The Solis String Quartet. There are also various compilations available. The songwriting duo have sold over a million and a half copies of their current catalogue.
Noa has toured and sang with rock superstar Sting, performed her song "Child of man" with Stevie Wonder for a CBS TV special in the US, and shared the stage and microphone with many great artists, including Carlos Santana, Sheryl Crow, George Benson & Zucherro.
Noa and Gil have collaborated frequently with Arab and Palestinian artists from around the world, including Khaled from Algeria, Nabil Salameh from Lebanon, Handallah from Nablus , Rim Banna from Nazareth, Amal Murkus from Kfar Yasif, and Mira Awad from Kfar Raameh. These collaborations enable the duo to express, musically, their belief in the power of communication and dialogue as a means of promoting peace and understanding.
In 1998, Noa recorded the part of Esmerelda in French for the original soundtrack of the multi-Platinum selling "Notre Dame de Paris". Her song 'Babel', written in English, French and Hebrew as theme song for the Gerarad Pullicino movie of the same name, topped the charts in France the following year.
Noa collaborated with French composer Eric Serra on two songs for film: 'the experience of love' from the James Bond film 'Goldeneye', and the song 'my heart calling' from the Luc Besson film "Joan of Arc".
In the year 2000 Noa and Gil were asked to write lyrics for Nicola Piovani's musical theme for Roberto Benigni's Oscar award winning movie: "Life Is Beautiful". The song was recorded and released with the album "Blue Touches Blue", and became a huge hit for the song-writing duo.
In July 2004, During Noa's 8th month of pregnancy with her daughter Enea, Noa and Gil, together with Palestinian singer Rim Banna, wrote and recorded the theme song for the animated film "Pace of Peace". The short film, a joint project of Israeli and Palestinian high-school students, was awarded special notice in the 2005 Venice Film Festival.