Shira & Friends is a kid focused rock n’roll band, and their concerts are always fun and interactive extravaganzas! Combining its own original tunes with classics, Shira & Friends plays a mix of hand-clap-able, sing-along-able, danceable, always smile-inducing music that has audience members of all ages becoming part of the show. I caught up with Shira recently, and she was very gracious, and gave me an interview:
Hi, Shira. Thanks so much for taking the time to talk to me about you and your music.
Absolutely! Thanks for having me!
We recently met at Rick Recht’s song leaders boot camp, and I just loved your voice, and your fun Shababa- shabbat shalom song! How long have you been performing music, and how did you start?
Thank you!! But, I must give credit where credit is due. I love that song too, but I didn’t write it – it’s called “Shababababat” and it was written by my childhood next-door neighbor, Sally Heckelman.
I started performing when I was very young. My mom and grandmother are the Jewish folk singing duo Dvora & Carmi. When I was as young as 5 years old, they would invite me onto stage at their concerts, to sing a number or two with them. Years later I went to college at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts to study acting, and after graduating worked in theater, film, TV, and commercials. Although performing music is “in my blood”, beginning to perform for children, was all a happy accident; it all started with a request I got from an organization that asked me if I could perform at an event it was throwing. I decided to take the gig, and the rest, as they say, is history.
-How would you describe your Jewish background?
I come from a very traditional Jewish background. Growing up, my whole family, including grandparents and cousins, would gather together every Friday night for Shabbat. We’d always sing our zimirot before dinner, and mid-meal my Zeyda would tell us all the story of the Torah portion of the week. I probably heard my Zeyda tell us the entire Torah 18 times before I left for college!
My parents also felt that there was tremendous value in Jewish education, so I attended a Jewish day school from kindergarten all the way through 12th grade. And today, Judaism is a huge part of my identity as an adult, and I spend much of my time, teaching Jewish music, traditions, values, and celebrating Jewish holidays with my young students in several synagogues throughout Manhattan.
-The name of your group is Shira & Friends–who are your friends? How did you meet–what’s the story behind the creation of your group?
My “Friends” are all professional musicians with whom I had worked on regular, adult music, before I began performing for kids. Aside from playing with me they play with other adult bands, some have toured nationally and internationally, all compose music, and my guitarist even works producing other people’s albums and scoring films.
As I mentioned earlier, Shira & Friends started when a community center in Manhattan contacted me and asked if I could put together a band to perform for a family event it was planning. I said I could, and immediately called the musicians who are still my “Friends” today, to see if they’d be interested. The four of us had never played as a band before then, but once we played together, the group just clicked. Although we all performed at that event under the assumption that our band was just formed for this one occasion, we had a great time playing together, and after the show, several people asked us when and where they could see our band play again. We realized that performing children’s music together, as a band, might be worth a shot. And it was!
-Do you have a ‘day job’ and does it involve music, Jewish kids or anything related to Shira & Friends?
Yes, my day job is teaching music to kids. I work as a music specialist both in a Jewish nursery school, and at an after-school religious school. On weekends you can find me in one of the half a dozen synagogues in which I work leading Tot Shabbat.
-What’s your favorite part of performing music for children?
There are so many wonderful things about performing for children and families, but I think that the best part is watching the faces of my little audience members light up when they hear the live music, or connect with something I’ve said or sung. Children’s faces do not lie, and you can instantly see if your performance has touched them. I also love that when I am performing for kids, I get to act like a kid; I love getting to wear clothes in rainbow colors and sequins, make silly faces, and dance like crazy with the kids. There is something very freeing about it.
-Any surprising reactions to your music that you would like to share with my readers?
We really love getting our audiences involved in our shows. We do a song called “Come Join My Band”, in which we encourage the audience members to play along with us with on “air guitars”, “air drums” or whatever air instrument they want to play. At one show, while I was singing that song, two very young girls marched up the side stairs of the stage, playing their air instruments. I didn’t realize that they were on stage with me until they were standing front and center. The next thing I knew about 40 other kids climbed up on stage to play their air instruments with the band. Our stage became flooded with kids! It was a great moment, and so cool to see that the kids felt so comfortable and were having so much fun at our show.
OK–before we go, I gotta know…on your website, there is this hysterical photo of you and what I believe is a rubber chicken. Explain, please!
That photo is from a Sukkot Block Party we played a few years back. We do a song for Sukkot called “Building a Sukkah” for which I pull out a box of props, tools, and decorations that I will use to for my (imaginary) Sukkah. I thought it would be funny to put a rubber chicken in the box, and I guess other people thought it was funny as well. My bass player, Tyler, challenged me to try to find a reason to use that chicken in every show we played after that, but so far I have failed the challenge miserably. I guess I need to be more creative about it!
Shira, I have no doubt that your creativity will continue to create wonderful things, notwithstanding whether you figure out how to incoporate the chicken.
Thanks so much for taking the time to speak with me. It was fun!
Shira & Friends newest CD is called “When You’re a Kid