Both were riding to stardom in their day — Avi with his piano and flute, and Barak with his electric guitar — when they turned their lives around and found Torah and chassidus.
Photos: Itzik Blenitsky
While Avi Piamenta’s famous flute has been a conduit of chassidic niggunim for decades, he was surprised to learn that it was also a catalyst for bringing hard-rock Tel Aviv guitarist Barak Grossberg to teshuvah. They are a generation apart, not only by age, but by culture as well — Avi Piamenta has settled in Kfar Chabad, while Barak, who you may not have heard of if you’re not into the genre, has sanctified his heavy-metal style while making himself a religious cocoon in the heart of Tel Aviv. Yet these two musicians, today both of them Chabad chassidim, share an intertwined journey, and more.
Despite the decades between them — Avi Piamenta is in his sixties and Barak Grossberg is 29 — there’s a common narrative: Both of them were at the top of their professions when teshuvah crept into their souls, and both had to recalibrate. And so, we brought them together to share the common notes of their music and their journey through an often unforgiving industry.
For Avi, who lives in Kfar Chabad today, the fame, ensuing spiritual odyssey, and more redirected fame, was intimately tied to his brother — master guitarist Yosi Piamenta a”h, who passed away in 2015 at the relatively young age of 63. It was Yosi who, in the course of his career, created the band’s eventual signature style — rock-influenced chassidic and Israeli music with a warm, happy, and friendly message.
“Our uncle Albert Piamenta was an Israeli saxophonist who became famous for mixing Judeo-Arabic music with jazz,” Avi says. “And my mother loved music so much that the first piece of furniture she bought when we moved to Tel Aviv was a piano.”
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