Carnegie Hall

Tali Rubinstein (b. 1984) began playing the recorder in second grade. Unlike most kids, she never stopped. A student of mezzo-soprano Bracha Kol, Tali was trained in classical music from a young age. She studied in prestigious music institutions in Israel and received a full scholarship to the Berklee College of Music in Boston as the first recorder player to attend. At Berklee, Tali specialized in jazz, challenging the conventional boundaries of the recorder. She also met Grammy Award–winning producer Javier Limón and worked on his Grammy Award–winning album Entre 20 Aguas. Tali was cited by Barack Obama on his list of Favorite Songs of 2018; worked on Alain Mallet’s Grammy-nominated album Mutt Slang II; has collaborated with Alejandro Sanz, Anat Cohen, Idan Raichel, and Mariza; and has been featured on Univision and Nickelodeon. Fun fact: Tali’s given name, Tal, means “morning dew” in Hebrew.

Itamar Ben Zimra (b. 1993) is a clarinetist, composer, and arranger, and began playing the clarinet in third grade, studying both classical and jazz. He’s based in Los Angeles, composing music for film. Growing up, his heroes were J. R. R. Tolkien, Jules Verne, and King Arthur from The Tales of King Arthur, and he has a passion for adventure and fantasy that planted the seeds for his fascination with storytelling with music and its expression in cinema and theater. Ben Zimra received a full scholarship to Berklee College, where he majored in film-music composition. Through his musical journey he has performed with jazz giants such as Phil Woods, Anat Cohen, Damian Drăghici, Tigran Hamasyan, and Yoni Rechter. Ben Zimra has written the music for many film projects, most notably the score for the show Tom and Jerry in New York by Warner Animation. Fun fact: He can sleep anywhere, in any shape on any surface.