Shye Ben Tzur

Shye Ben Tzur was born in 1975 in New York City

Shye Ben Tzur was born in 1975 in New York City. He became interested in Indian music after a concert in Jerusalem by Hariprasad Chaurasia and Zakir Hussain. This interest later led him to Qawwali, a form of Sufi devotional music.

He first went to India to find a teacher of classical Indian music. He studied it for years in the traditional way and traveled to Ajmer, site of the shrine of the Sufi saint Moinuddin Chishti. He then began to compose Qawwali in Hebrew.

His first poetry collection, Bituyeh Nefesh, was published in Israel in 1999. In 2004 he performed at the Jahan-e-Khusrau Sufi music festival in New Delhi. He has worked with folk musicians from the Rajasthan desert and with artists such as Shubha Mudgal, Fernando Pérez, Yossi Fine and Zohar Fresco.

In 2015 he recorded an album with British guitarist Jonny Greenwood and Indian musicians at Mehrangarh Fort in Rajasthan. Paul Thomas Anderson filmed the sessions for the documentary Junun, which premiered at the 2015 New York Film Festival. Ben Tzur performs around the world with his ensemble and is married to Sajida, an Indian chef and dancer.