Album Notes

Shuva ─ a voice calling. Shuva ─ a dream. Shuva ─ come back, come back to us. Come back to Israel. Come back to who you are.
We have a great prayer for redemption. But the redemption isn’t an imaginary world in which all glows with new colors that we’ve never seen. The redemption is a return to who we really are, to who we were before we lost our innocence, yet with new understanding. It is who we are as a people. As people, as a world.
The songs of Shuva are part of this huge prayer. Some of them were written in a more innocent period of my life. Some of them are the fruit of newer realizations. But in all of them can be found the search for renewal.
This album, comprised of my own compositions, describes a journey from the individual to the collective. From the hidden to the revealed. Come join me on this journey. And enjoy – the joy of every person is also a deep prayer of mine.


Bio:
Raz Hartman is an Israeli-born singer, pianist and teacher. Trained in classical music from a young age, he pursued a degree in classical piano performance at the University of Southern California. Somewhere along the way, he met Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach, and realized that music is meant to be joyful, and an expression of the soul. With this awakening, Raz began connecting to the rich world of Chassidic melodies and composing his own music.
After completing his degree, Raz returned to Israel where he served in the Israeli army and then spent six years learning Torah at the Bat Ayin Yeshiva. He now lives with his wife and four children in Jerusalem’s Nachlaot neighborhood where he leads the "V’ani Tefillah" minyan, teaches Torah and yearns to combine his music and love of teaching to reach out to touch the souls of all who hear.