'Hallelujah Global Singing Contest'
Location: Hakfar Hayarok (the Green Village), Ramat HaSharon, Israel
Day 3 -13th August 2011

The past three days have felt like a lifetime. I can't believe that it was only 72 hours ago that I woke up to my first day in Israel for the competition. On Thursday morning we set off for our first of many rehearsals at the Rimon Music School in Ramat HaSharon. The school is one of the best in Israel and we are extremely lucky to be having our rehearsals there, accompanied by some of Israel’s top musicians, arrangers and vocal coaches. Our first rehearsal began by each contestant singing their chosen Hebrew song – acapella – in front of the rest of the group, by order of Benny, our main vocal coach. He helped us with our pronunciation and diction of the Hebrew words which is for some of us quite challenging (as Hebrew is not our first language). To my surprise I didn't receive that much criticism after my performance of Ivri Lider's 'Zachiti Le'ehov' – only the correction of 2 words! Benny and Esti (our female singing coach) seemed to like my song and although they didn't sing my praises, there wasn’t that much criticism either.

We then took it in turns to practice our songs in the studio with the Band. Each of our songs had been arranged by a different musician and it was lovely to meet the arranger of my song, Gil, who is in fact practically the same age as me. He is a musician in the army and spends most of his army service basically being a musician, which I thought was rather nice (and lucky!). My first run through with the band went well and it was great to hear what the song sounds like with a live band (as opposed to acapella in my bedroom!).

Friday was a similar day of rehearsals however our group of 30 was split into two groups (team A and B); team A went for a bike ride and trip to Tel Aviv/Jaffa and team B (my group) carried on rehearsing at Rimon. On Sunday we will swap activities (so team A rehearse and team B go to Tel Aviv). On Friday evening we went to a Kabbalat Shabbat service at a local Beit Chabad (a particular branch of orthodox Judaism) which was a challenging experience for some - I certainly felt very uncomfortable behind a mechitza (a dividing wall between men and women in a synagogue) hidden from the rest of the room and I was quite relieved when the service finally finished. I find it very hard to engage in prayer when I cannot see or interact with the service leader, nor the rest of my peers, and all because of my sex!

Anyway, after a nice shabbat dinner (again provided by Chabad with men and women eating on separate sides of the room) and an interesting rabbinic tale from the Rabbi hosting us, we all walked back to Hakfar hayarok (a good 30 minute walk) by which time it was past midnight and the next thing to do was bed!

Now it is Saturday afternoon and we have a relaxed day of doing absolutely nothing – apart from resting and visiting the pool. On Wednesday and Thursday next week are the semi finals – two concerts of each team, where everyone will perform their song to the judges and 6 from each group will be chosen as the 12 finalists to perform in the grand final concert on the 25^th. Those who do not succeed however will still be part of the final concert (performing group songs) and we still continue to travel and work together as one big group. Looking further into next week, we have a trip to Masada and the Dead Sea lined up, plus performances to a group of soldiers in the IDF and also to a group of sick children at a hospital. I will try to write again as soon as possible, but for now goodbye and Shabbat Shalom!

P.S. I forgot to mention how internationally diverse this competition is – contestants are from literally all over the world – Russia, Ukraine, Australia, the U.S., Holland, France, Argentina, Uruguay, Costa Rica, Brazil, Canada, the U.K (only me) and probably more!

Zara also featured on BBC Radio Bristol's Sunday Show last week. You can listen online by clicking here (available until 28th August)

Listen to Zara's semi-final performance by clicking here