Roy Yarkoni

Born in 1972, trained in classical piano and music theory at the Giv'atayim Conservatory. Studied composition at the Rimon school of Jazz and Modern music, also electronic music and production at the Muzik school. After Rimon Roy co-founded the first (and maybe last?) Rock In Opposition band in Israel - Ahvak where he plays piano and sampler, and composes some of Ahvaks' music. Ahvak's drummer is Dave Kerman (5uu's, Thinking Plague, Present, Blast etc) who joined the band while making an Aliya to Israel. Together with sound engineer Udi Koomran they produced and recorded Ahvak's debut album, which was released in 2004 by Cuneiform Records. Ahvak is well known to RIO fans all over the world, and has performed at the "Le Tritonales" festival for modern music in Paris. Roy also published an electronic CD called "The best of what dreams are made of" (check out the "dream home" track), and the "Thin Lips" CD which is a unique combination of music and poetry narratation, in a post modern approach to this medium (check out the "TV" track). The poet in this album is Karen Alkalay Gut. Roy and Karen are working together these days for the second time, and you can hear the result in the "Nighthawks" track. In this collaboration the narration is replaced by the inspired singing of Yael Kraus. This new band called "Panic Ensemble" and is performing these days round Tel Aviv, and planning to record its debute album. The band's first live performance was distributed by the "Birdsong" net label (check out the "Underground" track). www.birdsong.co.il/#royThe band also performed at dance, poetry and multimedia festivals, such as "Israel Festival", "Musica Nova", "Intimidance" and more.All of these projects are joined by Roy's friend and Ahvak's bassist - Ishay Sommer who also plays guitar and tinker with mixing and production.Another such endeavour is the cooperation between Roy and Jewlia Eisenberg, leader of the radical jewish band "Charming Hostess". Nowadays they are working on a new album to the words of the Yiddish poet Celia Dropkin. Music is composed by Yarkoni, singing by Eisenberg, and production by Yarkoni and Sommer. The song "Adam" from that upcoming CD was included in the latest Charming Hostess album - "Sarajevo Blues", released on Tzadik last year. Yet some more collaborations of Roy are with the known israeli singer Tal Gordon - together they released a song for a net collection of indie music; with Avi Belleli, leader of Tractor's Revenge - as musical co-producer of Avi's latest works; with the poet Ronny Someck - working on Yarkoni's music to his poems, performed by the singer Maya Dunietz; and more.Yarkoni also works as a composer for films, theater and dance. He composed music for short films and for theatre performances at the Acco Festival, Bet Lessin, Tmuna and the Khan. Roy co-produced the soundtrack to the israeli-oscar winning picture "Lovely Place" (music by Avi Belleli) and worked with israeli choreographers and dance troupes, such as Iris Erez, Ronit Ziv, Irad Mazliach, Michal Herman, Clipa Theatre and more.Roy's heros are his sons - Hanoch and Nimrod. In his few spare time he likes to fool around with them. Other than that Roy enjoys listening to music, reading books, playing badminton, swimming, seeing a good movie or theatre show, playing with his dog - Kola, or just going to sleep early.For more information you can check Yarkoni's home page at: http://www.royyarkoni.com