User:Adam Baruch

Adam Baruch was born on December 17, 1951 in Chorzów, Poland. Both his parents were Holocaust survivals. He immigrated to Israel in 1967. He is married and has one daughter. He lives in Kiriat Motzkin, a suburb of Haifa.

Adam is a graduate of the Technion (Israel Institute of Science and Technology) in Haifa and later other academic institutions and holds degrees in Mathematics, Physics, Computer Science and Education. In parallel to his music-related activities he also maintains a professional and academic career in computer sciences and software development.

He owns Jazzis Ltd. - one of Israel's biggest independent music companies - and is the company's Managing Director. He speaks quite a few languages and loves music, cinema, literature, and travel.

Adam grew up listening to rock music, but his fascination with the Jazz Art Form started at a very early age, when he fell in love with jazz while listening in Poland to forbidden broadcasts from Western radio stations, such as "Voice of America" and "Radio Free Europe". With Stalin's death jazz music in Poland was able to come out of the "underground", and became a flourishing and quite popular artistic activity. In spite of his young age Adam Baruch started to go to concerts and jam sessions, read books and jazz magazines and collect jazz records. He became the youngest ever member of the Polish Jazz Society.

After immigration to Israel in 1967 he continued his jazz activities and developed jazz contacts with artists, writers, educators and organizations all around the world. He published many articles about jazz music in the leading jazz magazines, such us "down beat", "Jazz Journal International", "jazz forum", "Jazz News International", and many others. Adam continues to write about music and over the years published thousands of album reviews in many publications and on his music-related Internet sites. His internet site on which he publishes his reviews (over 7,200 album reviews) has over 13 million visitors and is one of the most respected source of information about music on the web. (http://www.adambaruch.com)

In 1978 Adam founded the Israel Jazz Society (IJS), the first organization in Israel dedicated to the promotion of jazz music. For many years he published a monthly newsletter for the IJS and organized concerts and tours for visiting jazz musicians. He pioneered the participation of Israeli jazz musicians in festivals and competitions on the international scene.

Adam was also active in establishing the European Jazz Federation, which later became the International Jazz Federation. In 1980 he was elected as a Board Member of the International Jazz Federation, on which he served till the organization ceased to function in 1992. Adam is also a gifted photographer and his many visits to jazz venues all around the world gave him plenty of opportunities to catch all the great jazz artists on film. His exhibition "Jazz Images 89" shown during the 1989 Eilat Jazz Festival was the first ever jazz photo exhibition to be organized in Israel. He is also an accomplished music discographer. He owns a vast collection of over 30,000 albums (vinyl & CD) and is often called “a walking music encyclopedia”.

He is also a well-respected music producer. Serving as a guest producer for several European record labels during the 80's, he founded his Jazzis Records label in 1987, the first and only Israeli record company dedicated to production of original jazz projects. Jazzis Records soon became one of the most important aspects of Israeli jazz scene and the steady production of four new jazz CDs every year established a wonderful library of recorded Israeli jazz - something that was entirely missing in the first 40 years of the Israeli cultural landscape. The jazz productions on Jazzis Records were received enthusiastically by critics and audiences all around the world, and today they can be heard on the radio in almost every country in the world. They are also exported and distributed in many countries, heralding Israeli culture in places never before reached by our artistic ambassadors.(http://www.jazzis.com/records/)

Since 2014 Adam Baruch is the Artistic Director of Singer Jazz Festival in Warsaw, Poland – one of the biggest Jazz festivals in Poland and a part of the annual Jewish Culture Singer Festival.

Adam Baruch is a true pioneer in his soul. His everlasting energy, optimism, inventiveness and ability to plan and execute are his main assets. Without his contribution Israeli culture in general and Israeli jazz in particular, would be much poorer today.