Avi Toledano

Biography

Avraham (Avi) Toledano was born in Meknes, Morocco. At the age of 16, in 1965, he emigrated to Israel, and settled in Kibbutz Ruhama.

His musical career started as a teenager. His first publication was on a radio show, where he sent his own songs. In this radio show, he first sang Moshe Vilenskis song "This is Jafa", which made him famous. During his military service, he published his first album, including his hit: "Zohi Yaffo" ("This is Jaffa").

In 1969, he participated in the Song Festival with the songs "You are The Wind" (Rimona Dinur / Rafi Ben-Moshe) and "The way Back" (Ehud Manor / Nurit Hirsch), with whom he won the third place. That year was his second album "My father," which hits were created by Manor and Hirsch, "How Time Passes" and "I Saw the Summer". Another song from the album was selling Hebrew cover of Mary Hopkin singing "This is the Day", translated by Mickey Hartaby (Hebrew original version was recorded first by Shuli Natan). Hartaby also translated Tom Jones's "Delilah", the Hebrew version was called "When Night Falls". Toledano's successes that year led to winning the title "Singer of the Year".

In 1970, his third album "misty garden" was published and at the same year, he won first children's songs festival held for the first time, with the song "Why this way," written and composed Dudu Barak and Shaike Pycov. His winning partner, was the 10-year-old Irit Anavi. The song became very popular, and is one of the songs most identified with the festival.

That same year Toledano published his fourth album called "At Nations Songs", with songs from different countries, translated to Hebrew.

He continued performing and publishing albums during the seventies, and participated in some cinema movies. Towards the end of the seventies went on tour in Europe, and in 1978 came out with a solo performance called "La Boheme" - Charles Aznavour's songs, who came and attended the premiere.

In 1982, Toledano represented Israel in the Eurovision Song Contest in Harrogate, UK with Hora which was written by Yoram Taharlev. He finished in second place, after the German winner, Nicole. In 1983 Toledano composed the song that represented Israel at the Eurovision Song Contest in Munich. Chai (Alive) was performed by Ofra Haza and also won second place.

In the 1981 finals in Israel, Toledano sang Carneval, a song he co-wrote with Shimrit Or which won third place. In 1986, Toledano wrote Lechaim for Haim Moshe, which came in third. In 1989, Toledano performed in the Israeli final himself and won second place with Dayenu.