Tziona Achishena – Musician, Singer, Songwriter – Israel

Tziona lives in Northern Israel, where she performs her moving original compositions and teaches singing, Torah, and prayer. She is a mulit-instrumentalist who plays guitar, piano, riq (a Middle Eastern tambourine), harmonium, and the Persian santur. After living in California, performing improvised music with free Jazz giants such as Charles Gayle, and producing story-theatres and an album of original music, she returned to her Jewish roots and moved to Israel. She channeled her diverse background, which includes intensive studies of Ballet, Tap, and Jazz, Traditional dance in Indonesia, Tai Chi, Western vocal training, Persian classical singing, and creative writing, through a lens of Torah and Mitzvot. Shedding the chaff and harvesting the essence, she uses these skills to express the heart of Jewish prayer through original songs from the Siddur (prayer book) and especially Tehillim (psalms). Since then, she has produced four albums of music, and inspired countless women and girls to express themselves through singing in holiness, and to find their own unique way to connect with G-d. Her students, some as young as 10 years old, compose their own songs and have even recorded CDs under her guidance. She performs solo, and with various drummers and instrumentalists, including violinist and vocalist Chava Rachel Saban. www.koltziona.com