Avi Belleli
On October 27, 1963, singer, bassist, guitarist, soundtrack composer, and music producer Avi Belleli was born!
(Photo: Shani Evenstein - Wikimedia Commons)
He is one of the original, bold and groundbreaking creators in Israeli music, the man who founded and led as vocalist and bassist the masterpiece band "Tractor's Revenge", combined with rare power alternative and avant-garde rock with modern dance, theater and ancient piyyutim, and became one of the most decorated film and television composers in the history of local culture. Here are 36 fascinating chronological facts about his life and musical legacy.
1. He was born and raised in Givatayim to parents who immigrated to Israel from the Mediterranean basin. His father, Moshe Belali, was a member of a family of Italian Jews from the island of Corfu who moved to Egypt. He was born in Alexandria, spoke Italian as a native speaker and worked in Israel as a laborer at the Amcor factory, while his mother, Luna née Akunis, was born in Thessaloniki, Greece, spoke Ladino as a native speaker and worked as a house cleaner and childcare worker.
2. Already as a child, he developed a multidisciplinary approach that connected sound and image. He used to project silhouettes of inanimate objects onto the walls of his parents' house using an old eight-millimeter projector, an experience of light and shadow that shaped his synesthetic approach, according to which he sees sounds as shapes and colors.
3. In the fourth grade, he studied classical guitar for six months with private teacher Aviva Cameron and also studied for about a month at the municipal conservatory, and already that same year, with his friends from Masada Elementary School in Givatayim, he founded his first band, "The Sparklers," which held enthusiastic rehearsals even though most of its members did not yet know how to play.
4. In the seventh grade, he formed a new band called "Hurricane" with the drummer of "The Sparklers." Since the band already had a talented lead guitarist named Avi Samara, Belali switched to playing bass guitar, a decision that shaped his musical identity for many years.
5. In 1978, when he was only a tenth grader, he and the members of the band "Hurricane" received their first professional job as the regular backing band for reggae singer Tony Ray, whom they accompanied in performances across the country until he graduated from high school.
6. Belali studied at Ort Technikum High School in Givatayim until the eleventh grade, and after transferring to Shelev School, he decided to permanently leave the high school framework at the age of seventeen and began working for a living in a drip irrigation warehouse alongside his friend, the drummer from the band "Hurricane."
7. In the early 1980s, after returning from a stay abroad, he teamed up with his childhood friend from Givatayim, Uri Doshi, and in 1986 the two released their first mini-album under the name "Here" and in English "Akan". The name was chosen as a play on words on the phrase "here and now" as well as a tribute to the Turkish film actor Tarik Akan who starred in the film "Yol", which the two were influenced by.
8. As part of "Here," Belleli and Doshi recorded another album with texts in English, but the project was shelved due to financial considerations and marked for Bellali the transition to creating in Hebrew and the search for a new artistic language.
9. In 1988, he founded the band "Tractor Revenge" in Tel Aviv with guitarist Ofir Leibovich, keyboardist and sound engineer Ilan Green, and drummer Danny Makov. Rami Fortis suggested the unusual name to the band members, following the name of an instrumental song that was shelved from his masterpiece album with Berry Sakharof, "Stories from the Box."
10. After several record companies rejected the young band due to its unconventional sound, Nitzan Zeira recognized the potential and signed the band to the independent label Nana Disc.
11. In 1990, the band's debut album, "The Tractor's Revenge," was released, produced with the assistance of Barry Sakharof and presented a mesmerizing combination of dark alternative rock with ethnic and oriental influences. The album yielded timeless classics led by Avi Belleli's deep voice and bass playing, including "Game of Tears", the cover "Kites" and the moving arrangement of the traditional piyoot "Adon Hasleichot".
12. Back in 1989, the fateful connection was forged between Bellali and "Tractor's Revenge" and choreographer Ohad Naharin and the "Batsheva" dance company. Naharin approached the company to compose and perform live on stage the music for his work "Wall," which was performed in 1990 and achieved tremendous international success.
13. During the intensive rehearsals for the show "Kir", Belalli met Melanie, a dancer in the "Batsheva" troupe, who became his wife in 1995 and the mother of his two children, Oriya and Ilai.
14. In 1992, with "The Tractor's Revenge," he released his second album, "The Right to Scream," which included the notable songs "Jungle Development" and "She", and at the same time, the album documenting the music for the work "Wall" was released.
15. In 1993, Belali became one of the most sought-after music producers in Israeli rock when he produced the masterful debut album of the band "Church of Reason", "Whispered Things", in which he gave the band a deep, rich and mysterious sound envelope.
16. That same year, he collaborated once again with Ohad Naharin and the "Bat Sheva" troupe, and together with Danny Makov, he composed and performed the music for the iconic dance work "Anaphase", which included their famous version of the Haggadah song "Chad Gadya" and became one of the most prominent milestones in the history of Israeli dance.
17. In 1995, he produced the second and highly regarded album by singer Tal Gordon, and in the same year, he released the band's third album, "Kitchen Cabinets," with "The Tractor's Revenge," which included the song "Bicycle and a Book", which was originally written for the now-lost rock opera "Samara" by playwright Hillel Mittelpunkt.
18.In July 1995, he and the band "Nikmat HaTractor" (Tractor's Revenge) reached an unforgettable live-performance milestone when they were chosen to serve as the opening act for the American alternative rock giants "Faith No More" during the band's historic shows in Israel, part of the tour for the album *King for a Day... Fool for a Lifetime*.
19. In 1996, he led the band in the show and live album "Acoustic Kitchen," which was recorded at Noise Studios in Tel Aviv and featured intimate arrangements and string instruments for songs from the first three albums. The album was a huge commercial and critical success, reaching gold album status.
20. In the same year, 1996, Belali officially began his extensive solo career with the instrumental and experimental album "Orphans and Children with No Way Out," which brought together works he had composed for dance, theater, and video art performances.
21. In the late 1990s, he deepened his activity in the world of theater, and in 1999, with "The Tractor's Revenge," he released the album "Othello - The Moon's Mistake," which combined rock songs with the music the band composed for the production of the Shakespearean play directed by Yossi Pollak.
22. In 2002, he released three fascinating solo albums that reflected his cinematic and stage world, "The Power of Balance", "Myth" and the soundtrack to the acclaimed film "Broken Wings" directed by Nir Bergman, whose theme song was sung by Maya Maron.
23. In 2003, he led "Tractor Revenge" on their sixth studio album, "Where Are They All Going Suddenly?", a polished and critically acclaimed rock album that included the hit "Flat Screens" and won critical acclaim.
24. In 2004, he compiled his multidisciplinary works from a decade of work in a special four-CD set, which documented his works for film, dance, and theater and marked him as a first-rate avant-garde composer and soundtrack.
25. In 2005, he won his first Ophir Award in the Best Original Music category for the film "Must Be Happy" directed by Julie Schalz.
26. During that time, he created one of the most recognizable soundtracks in the history of Israeli television for the groundbreaking drama series "In Treatment" by Hagai Levy, Uri Sivan and Nir Bergman. The minimalist and hypnotic opening melody he composed won him two Television Academy Awards in 2006 and 2008 and was sold, along with the series format, to dozens of countries around the world.
27. In 2006, he released the solo album "Strawberry and Gunpowder," and in 2008 he joined singer Yehudit Ravitz in the acclaimed joint project "Bellali Ravitz Ravitz Ravikowitz," in which Bellali composed the poems of poet Dalia Ravikowitz for Ravitz's performance.
28. In 2008, he won the Original Music Award at the Israeli Documentary Film Competition for the soundtrack to the masterful film "Children of the Sun" by director Ran Tal, which consisted, among other things, of pioneering use of archive recordings and old radios from the kibbutzim.
29. At the beginning of the next decade, he recorded a continuous and impressive achievement at the Israeli Film Academy when he won the Ophir Prize for Composer of the Year two years in a row, in 2010 for the film "The Guide to the Revolution" by Doron Tzabari and in 2011 for the film "Good Morning, Mr. Fidelman" by Yossi Madmoni, for which he also won the Music Award at the Jerusalem Film Festival.
30. In 2011, after an eight-year hiatus from joint studio recordings and line-up changes that included the addition of keyboardist and composer Roy Yarkoni, he released the album "All That's Left to Run" with "The Tractor's Revenge," which combined new songs alongside re-recordings of the band's classics.
31. During his personal period of mourning for his father's death, Belli found solace and depth in the philosophical poems of the poet of the Spanish Golden Age, Rabbi Abraham Ibn Ezra. He composed the project's songs himself, invited the members of "Nekmet Tractor" to perform them with him, and in 2013, the masterful album "Ma'a Lahabi" was released, which provided a stirring alternative rock interpretation of nine-hundred-year-old texts.
32. Starting in 2013, he began performing in an intimate, joint show with his partner, the violinist and singer Galia Hai, a show that combines exposed arrangements of the songs "The Tractor's Revenge," songs by poets, and excerpts from the film and television soundtracks he composed.
33. In the 2000s, he added additional wins to his collection of awards at the Academy Awards for Television and Documentary Film, including for the music for the drama series "Barefoot" in 2012, for the documentary film "Gan Eden" in 2013, for the hit series "Shtisel" in 2014, and for an episode about the poet Zelda in the series "The Hebrews" in 2015.
34. Over the years, he made sure to collaborate with the esteemed theater director Rene Yerushalmi in the Itim ensemble and composed music for a series of masterpiece plays directed by her, including "The Herzl Project," "Krapp's Last Tape," and "The King Tends to Die."
35. In 2023, a full decade after the last album of "Tractor's Revenge", he released the bare and personal solo album "The Immigrant" on the Nana Disc label, produced by Udi Turgeman, in which he wrote and composed personal songs that stood on their own for the first time, without any association with dance, theater or film work.
36. In 2025, he recorded another historic achievement in Israeli cinema when he composed the original music for the Jerusalem Film Festival-winning documentary "Malachi," and was nominated simultaneously for two different films for the Ophir Award for Best Original Music, Eyal Halfon's "Burning Man" and Shai Carmeli Pollak's "The Sea," for which he ultimately won the Ophir Award.
With a career spanning four decades of uncompromising artistic exploration, Avi Belali continues to be one of the most unique, courageous and influential voices in Israeli music.
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