Aish 3 is Abie Rotenberg's latest project together with veteran partner Shlomo Simcha.
“Iguess there’s still gas in the tank,” Abie Rotenberg told Mishpacha in an interview last month, discussing five decades as a composer who has found the right words to express devotion and pain and healing and memories. He was referring to Aish 3, his latest project together with veteran partner and Toronto neighbor Shlomo Simcha.
But when Aish 3 was in the works after a 17-year hiatus in the series, the number-one question people in the know were asking was “Is the sound the same?”
“I’m too old to change my spots even if I had an inclination to do so. And, I don’t,” says composer Abie Rotenberg. “Still, I don’t live in a vacuum. I’m exposed to contemporary music at every concert and wedding I attend, even though its influence on me is much less than it is upon today’s youth, simply because my girsa d’yankusa — the sounds I heard growing up — dominate my musical DNA. At the same time, I do enjoy the challenge of breaking new ground.”
The original Aish duo — Abie and Shlomo Simcha, joined this time by coproducer Doni Gross — went through hundreds of Abie’s ideas and creations, from cassettes in shoeboxes in his basement to more recent melodies on his computer and phone. Abie says that with Doni as coproducer and arranger, it was easier for him to venture out of his musical comfort zone.
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