In an unexpected musical twist, frequent musical collaborators Jonny Greenwood of Radiohead and Israeli rocker Dudu Tassa will open this year’s Jerusalem International Oud Festival.

The two will perform songs from “Jarak Qaribak,” their 2023 album renewing classical Arabic love songs with singers from Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Algeria, Egypt and Morocco, along with selections from Tassa’s albums.

The eight-day festival opens November 5; tickets are on sale via Bimot.

Greenwood, whose wife, Sharon, is Israeli, hasn’t performed in Israel since 2024.

The Radiohead guitarist has long collaborated with Tassa as well as with Arab artists.

A concert he and Tassa played in Tel Aviv in 2024 prompted a call from the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement to boycott Radiohead’s upcoming tour. The band had gigs canceled in 2025 amid pressure from the boycott movement against Israel.

In a Sunday Times interview last year, both Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke and Greenwood took umbrage at fans’ calls for Radiohead to take a vocal position on the war in Gaza, and to pledge not to play in Israel. But the two were split over whether they would actually want to perform in the country.

Yorke said he wouldn’t play in Israel again while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is in power. The band last performed in Israel in 2017, in Tel Aviv.

“I wouldn’t want to be 5,000 miles anywhere near the Netanyahu regime, but Jonny has roots there,” said Yorke. “So I get it.”

Greenwood, in The Times interview,........

© The Times of Israel