Hagiga

Hagiga in Hebrew means “celebration” and in our music we celebrate the cultural divergence of our Israeli heritage. Hagiga is inspired by the variety of musical flavors and colors of the “Israeli soundtrack”. Our compositions cross musical genres influenced by swing, maroccan, funk and Brazilian backgrounds. It is this unique "celebration” of original Israeli jazz that is Hagiga.
Hagiga was founded in 2001 by Alon Farber and Dani Benedikt, and have since released three albums: "Exposure" and "Optimistic View" were released by Fresh Sound Records label. Nathan Halaway from jazzreviews.com named Hagiga "one of the finer groups that the Fresh Sound label has produced". "New Directions" released by QFTF, was quoted by saxophonist Eli Degibri as he commented - "Taking their time, the band captivates the listener through a deliberate, interesting and wondrous journey."
Hagiga has been performing at both local and international jazz festivals and venues including The B-flat, OCT-LOFT festival, Red Sea Jazz festival, Copenhagen Jazz festival, Jerusalem International Jazz festival, International showcase, Tel Aviv International Jazz festival and Paris Jazz festival. Over the years Hagiga has collaborated with amazingly talented and important artists such as Omri Mor, Eli Degibri, Anat Cohen, Avishai Cohen (trp), Ofer Ganor, Omer Klein, Amit Friedman.
Alon Farber, band leader, studied Jazz composition in Berklee College of music, Boston, and was awarded the Israeli Prime Minister Award for Jazz composers (2016) and the Wayne Shorter Award for composers (1998). He is one of the founders of the "Israeli Jazz Orchestra" were he takes both roles of the lead saxophone and an associate arranger and composer
"No other way to put it: The Alon Farber Hagiga Sextet is a fantastic find!" (Jay Deshponde, allaboutjazz.com)