Avner Strauss

Avner Strauss (אבנר שטראוס) (born 1954 in Jerusalem, Israel) is an Israeli music producer, musician, guitarist singer/songwriter and poet.

He has also written books and music for children.

Strauss picked up the electric guitar at age 14, and began playing in rock bands in the late 1960s.

Although he started out as an Avant Garde guitarist in Jerusalem in the late 1960s, today Strauss plays jazz, flamenco, classical, folk, bluegrass and blues guitar.

Avner has published two illustrated story books for young children ("The Porcupine", "Mr. Frog") and one book of poetry for adults ("Distance and Other Measures").

He has produced three audio CDs of original Hebrew songs, including a live CD of Blues in Hebrew, and a CD and animated DVD of his original children's songs.

In 1971 he formed the first Israeli Blues band, and wrote one of the first Israeli Twelve-bar blues; " I got a Telephone, Ain't got no one to call ".

Drawn to jazz guitar, Avner went to Boston in 1975 to study at the Berklee College of Music (Composition, graduated in 1978).

Upon returning to Israel in 1978, he began recording and teaching music, and received an appointment as a guitar professor at the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance.

For few years after he was the advisor of the Israeli guitar company "Yuval" and endorsed their guitars giving concerts (1980–1984) in the frankfurt trade fair "Musikmesse".

Avner Strauss' musical instrument store in Jerusalem ("Effect") in the 1980s was the first Israeli store dedicated solely to guitars.

Avner Strauss is the founder of "Strauss Mifaaley Tarbut" and Sal Tarbut Strauss (Hebrew:"סל תרבות שטראוס") that were involved with education for the arts in the educational system in Israel since 1986, producing music, dance, theatre, cinema, literature and plastic arts shows and activities for schools.

Avner also produced an instrumental guitar album ("Courtyard", MCI records 1990) that highlights his many different musical facets and playing styles.

Avner Strauss poems have been published in various magazines among these are; Mantis 1976, April 2010, February 2011 issues of Moznaim and in the Jewish poetry anthology "Voices Within the Ark" along with poems by his grandfather de:Ludwig Strauss and great grandfather Martin Buber.

During the years Strauss devoted many years to the research of catalogs and collecting whistles, he published hundreds of articles about the subject and about the History of whistle manufacturers in the 19th century and is considered one of the world's foremost authorities on the subject of collecting whistles, some of his articles and samples of his collection which might be the largest known, can be found on the Whistle Museum.