NancyKarin Vardi: A songstress with a stage presence of sincerity, charm

NancyKarin Vardi is a songstress with a stage presence of sincerity and charm who deftly shares her message in a way that fascinates her audience.

By SARAH HERSHENSON FEBRUARY 5, 2025 03:35

NANCYKARIN Vardi in performance. (photo credit: Nicol De Castro)

NancyKarin Vardi, is a singer and actress who knows how to strut her stuff. Skilled with five decades of stage experience in the US and Israel, she is currently working in Israel with director Yaron Kafkafi, and producer Avigal Shemer in her new show, Last Call for Love, appearing at various venues across the country.

Vardi’s career includes recent highlights such as singing with the Israel Opera choir, appearing at the Women’s Festival in Holon with her show My Broom and I, and participating at the Yale University Cabaret Conference. The Last Call for Love is also the title of her latest album, which she recorded in London in 2023.

Her recent show at the Swan Dive Cafe at Netanya’s Tremolo Center was in two acts and features 14 original songs composed for her by Shlomo Gronich and Daniel Schwartzman, with her own lyrics. The music blends the sounds and genres of classical music theater, jazz, rock, tango, and blues.

The music of NancyKarin Vardi

She intersperses the songs with monologues, also in English, drawn from her life experiences and delivers them from the point of inner strength. Her motives of personal empowerment, as in songs like Schwartzman’s “Confidence” and Gronich’s “I Know You,” inspire the listener and provide thoughts to be remembered long after.

Vardi’s voice, which is mature, and at times a bit rough around the edges, captivates the audience. She surrounds herself with a group of finely skilled musicians who learned their trade at the Jerusalem Academy and overseas: Shahar Borek on piano; Adam Mader, who plays a variety of stringed instruments and the trumpet; Roni Wagner, percussion; and Yair Ofir on electric guitar and bass.

It was noteworthy that the ensemble never got in the way of the singer. They played so well during the intermission musical interlude that this listener wished they would have played another set. Dancer Yosef Poliakin added variety to the performance as he danced to the choreography of Sasha Greenberg. His smooth and graceful movements added to Vardi’s stories and provided another fine touch to the evening.

The star of the show, nevertheless, was Vardi. Each song is a vignette of her roller-coaster life, her strategies for coping, and her determination to surmount obstacles. The lyrics are in English, and, to assist Hebrew speakers, she has subtitles in Hebrew displayed above the stage.

Vardi is a songstress with a stage presence of sincerity and charm who deftly shares her message in a way that fascinates her audience.

Her next show is on February 22 at the conservatory in Kiryat Ono.