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Dudu Tassa and Jonny Greenwood onstage at the Jerusalem Oud Festival on November 5, 2026 (Jessica Steinberg/Times of Israel)

Applause for musical collaborators Dudu Tassa and Jonny Greenwood thundered through the auditorium as the 17 members of their band filed onstage Thursday night, with an electric sense of expectation in the crowd.

The ensemble, led by rocker Tassa and Radiohead’s Greenwood, opened the Jerusalem International Oud Festival, performing songs from “Jarak Qaribak,” their 2023 album that renewed classical Arabic love songs with jazzy rock overtones.

Throughout the tight 90-minute set, Tassa and Greenwood, both playing lead and bass guitars, led a band of excellent local Arabic- and Hebrew-speaking musicians and singers that included Greenwood’s Israeli wife, Sharona Katan, on keyboard, and their daughter, Omri Katan, as one of two backup singers.

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Promoted: American Technion Society

The oud, the pear-shaped, fretless, stringed instrument, was played,…