Maccabi helped unlock Yael’s songwriting skills

Jewish Telegraph, March 2007

YAEL MEYER honed her songwriting skills as a member of Maccabi in Chile.
The 25-year-old was born in Santiago de Chile and began learning the piano at the age of five.
Eight years later, she swapped the piano for the guitar — and it opened up a whole new world for her.
But it was her voice that won her a scholarship to Berklee College of Music in Boston when she was 18.
Yael, who now lives in Los Angeles, released her first EP, The Other Side, in 2001 in her first year at Berklee, and three years later she self-released her first album, Common Ground.
She describes the Jewish community in Chile as “small, tight and amazing”.
She said: “There is one Jewish school in the capital and another elsewhere in the country. All the Jewish kids went to the Jewish school so you grew up with the same people.
“There were also lots of Jewish youth movements trying to get youngsters in involved.
“I went to the Jewish school from the age of 12. Before that I was in a non-Jewish school which gave me a strong sense of being Jewish.”
She added: “There is a lot of ignorance. So many people don’t know Jews so there are myths of what Jews are. Some people still think we have horns.
“There is a huge Palestinian community in Chile and it spreads antisemitic propaganda.”
Yael left her family behind in Chile to attend Berklee.
“I make decisions on gut feelings,” she said. “There were no questions. It was something I had to do and I never looked back.
“I’m blessed that God always brings the right people into my life.”
Yael describes her family as very musical. She said: “It was important to my father — a 70s folk music DJ — that we grew up with a musical education.
“I didn’t like the piano at five because the teacher wasn’t nice.
“My favourite part of the class would be when the teacher played piano and I would sing. I realised that if I learned the guitar I could accompany myself, plus it was easier to write my own music on guitar.”
She added: “In my Maccabi group I was the songwriter and I wrote songs for festivals which represented the whole movement.
“It gave me the self-confidence to pursue it. At 17 I had the strength to say it was a big part of who I am.”
Her EP and full album were both self-released — available on iTunes and at www.cdbaby.com — but she is not sure whether she will have her forthcoming album released by a record label.
“The internet is so powerful if one is dedicated,” Yael said. “The industry is changing so quickly that the consumers decide how it works.
“MySpace makes it so easy to find what you like, pursue it and buy it.”
Yael received a major boost in 2004 when Rolling Stone magazine in Latin America named her album as one of the top 50 of the year.
“That was a huge thing,” she said. “I had no expectations when I released the album, but the press and the public supported me more than I expected.”
In addition, Yael was hailed as “one of the top five artists to look out for in 2005” by El Mercurio — the most prominent newspaper in Chile.
Yael — who has two sisters aged 23 and 13 and a 14-year-old brother — has also moved into film music.
She collaborated with Argentinean musician and sound designer Luis Maurette in the music and sound of the German short film Ondinas.
She also composed the music for Bodas de Oro, a short film by Chilean director Nimrod Amitai and co-wrote the song Flota together with Chilean musician Alfredo Ibarra for his solo debut album which will be released under the pen name Lainus.
Some of the tracks from Common Ground were used on the soundtrack to Al final del T documentary by director Andres Guiloff and Auschwitz: 3rd Generation documentary by director Daniel Segal.
She is currently working with director Shai Agosin on the Latin-American film El Brindis — the “Spanish equivalent of l’chaim” — which will be released later in the year.
Last year, Yael married Hungary-born keyboard player Dani Endrei, whom she had met at Berklee.
“He is everything to me,” she said. “He is my friend, my soulmate, my partner, my inspiration. He keeps me grounded and is an incredible musician.
“Dani is Jewish. There was never any doubt that I would marry someone Jewish.”
Yael says she writes her songs when she is alone.
“It’s an intensely personal thing,” she said. “My musical talent is a gift from above.”
Yael tries to visit her family in Chile twice a year, although last year she was unable to make the trip. After she graduated from college she moved home for a year.
She says she is involved in the LA Jewish community from “an outsider’s perspective”.
She said: “I don’t define myself one way or another and belonging to a specific organisation or synagogue usually tends to secretly require one to define oneself in a particular way (Conservative, Reform, Orthodox, Zionist, feminist,etc).
“I am Jewish, that defines me. So I prefer to surround myself with good-hearted people who make differences in all planes, physical and spiritual, regardless of their denomination, and work with them towards making positive changes.”
www.yaelmeyer.com and www.myspace.com/yaelmeyer