Basya Schechter/ Pharaoh's Daughter
Basya is most widely and wildly known for composing for her groundbreaking ensemble Pharaoh's Daughter, a 7 piece world music ensemble that travels effortlessly through continents, key signatures, and languages with a genre-bending swirling neo hasidic chanting sound. Basya Schechter’s earthy, soulful beautiful voice rings out over instruments that form a vibrant collage of East/West, old/new, Ashkenazi and Sephardic enlivened by flutes, electronica and strings.
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Her musical journey began in her home in Boro Park in a melodic cacophony of singing shabbat songs in harmony while hammering out rhythm on gefilte fish jars and kiddush cups. After she left her ultra orthodox background, she found herself searching and hitchhiking through Israel, Africa and the Middle East. To mimic the incredible musical sounds she was hearing she began re-tuning her guitar to sound like a cross between Arabic oud and Turkish saz, which inspired harmonic minor melodies, and unfamiliar odd time grooves. A liminal expression began to emerge over which she sang and composed in a style that resonated with Hasidic klezmer, folk, classic rock, worldbeat and other jewish music, yet was of a bigger world.
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Basya was the recipient of numerous compositional and project grants from NYSCA (New York State Council of the Arts) American Composers Forum (for Trance, and multilayered sound and video installation collaboration with fillmaker Pearl Gluck) and the American Music Center.
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Pharaoh's Daughter
Pharaoh’s Daughter, a 7 piece world music ensemble that travels effortlessly through continents, key signatures, and languages with a genre-bending swirling neo Hasidic chanting sound. Basya Schechter’s earthy, soulful beautiful voice rings out over instruments that form a vibrant collage of East/West, old/ new, Ashkenazi and Sephardic enlivened by flutes, electronica and strings. The band explores traditional, while staying contemporary, the meditative yet ecstatic.
Pharaoh’s Daughter has recorded five albums with a family of downtown NYC stand out musicians, as well as another two albums under her own name. Pharaoh's Daughter has toured Eastern and Western Europe, America, Greece, Israel, South America, United States, Canada and the UK. Some of her favorite NYC venues to perform have included Central Park SummerStage, Lincoln Center’s Damrosch Park, Joe’s Pub, The Stone, Mercury Lounge and City Winery. The ensemble has been featured on NPR’s PRI and they have been guests on John Shafer’s New Sounds numerous times.
“Pharaoh’s Daughter is one of the most original and exciting groups to have emerged from the new Jewish Music Movement.”
Ben Frandzel, Rhythm
PHARAOH'S DAUGHTER PRESENTS: SONGS OF DESIRE
A New Musical presentation based on the biblican"Shir HaShirim"- Song of Songs
Songs of Desire is “sonic midrash,” a commentary not written in words but in sound, layering ancient melodies with new interpretations from Pharaoh's Daughter: A band whose music blends the old and the new— sacred text on oud, whispers of Hebrew refracted through electric strings. Think klezmer meets trance, Middle Eastern maqam, West African pulses, mingling with a Brooklyn beat.
The Vision
What if the transcendent Song of Songs, that mysterious, passionate text nestled within the Hebrew Bible, could be heard as it was meant to be—a lush, erotic symphony of divine longing and human intimacy, a timeless message of love, loss, and divine union with fresh arrangements and raw emotional power.
This project will be a journey to the heart of sacred eros. Infused with the teachings of Kabbalah and Hasidic mysticism, and excerpts of text translated into various romance languages, Songs of Desire will weave a tapestry of sensuality and spirituality—rooted in the ancient text yet undeniably fresh and contemporary.
Why Now?
“Desire is the pulse of creation.” According to Jay Michaelson, at a time, when the world around us feels like it’s crumbling, we have a creative revolution, a soul map to puzzle together sustainable, generative musical legacies. In our fragmented world, where intimacy is mediated by screens, Songs of Desire offers a radical, countercultural invitation: to return to the immediacy of love in its most embodied.
UPCOMING 2025 SHOW
OTHER PROJECTS BY BASYA
​Darshan
Darshan
Inspired by the mystical poetry and songs of the Jewish tradition, Darshan breathes new life into ancient Hebrew and Aramaic texts through a combination of Rap Commentary and Musical Midrash. esoteric indie rapper ePRHYME, world-soul singer Basya Schechter of Pharaoh's Daughter, and multi-medial polymath Shir Yaakov Feit transform classic Jewish texts and prayers into a truly unique form of Sacred Pop Art For The People.
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Darshan is available to perform Live in multiple configurations ranging from sit-down acoustic duets to "plugged-in" big-stage ensembles.
ePRHYME (Eden Pearlstein)
Eden Pearlstein (ePRHYME) is a Brooklyn-based Hip Hop Artist and Jewish Educator. Since the early 2000′s ePRHYME has released numerous critically acclaimed albums on iconic indie label K Records as part of their International Pop Underground Series. Starting in the 2010’s, Eden has worked closely with NYC downtown veterans such as Jamie Saft (Electric Masada), Jon Madoff (Zion 80), Greg Wall (Hasidic New Wave), Basya Schechter (Pharaoh’s Daughter), and many others. Whether rhyming about current events or personal struggles, riffing on a text or reinterpreting tradition, ePRHYME’s “rapid-fire word salads are a humanist vision of…religious consciousness fused with social action, and an uncompromising blend of urban forms and neo-Hasidic spirituality” (The Forward). Additionally, Eden holds two M.A.’s in Jewish Studies from JTS, and is an alumni of Asylum Arts, a global network for Jewish Culture.
“Schechter makes music that is both appealing and intriguing. As an ex-Hasid wielding an oud (a pear-shaped, Middle Eastern precursor of the modern guitar), she is often cast in the role of an exotic Sephardi-Ashkenazi hybrid who blends two flavors of Eastern music — Middle and European — spiced with folk, pop and even African elements. Such worldly eclecticism is tailor-made for a contemporary Jewish musical landscape where Ladino poetry, Hasidic niggunim, or wordless melodies, and elements of every genre imaginable (rhythm and blues, Brazilian samba, North Indian classical music) all play nicely together.”– Alexander Gelfand, FORWARD
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“ePRHYME (who was known in a previous life as Eden Pearlstein) writes lyrics peppered with bits of Jewish mysticism and philosophy that fit indy label K Records’ iconoclastic bent…It’s a far cry from the bagels-and-lox Judaism of many Jewish hip-hop acts today, and it’s a welcome breath of fresh air.”-Tablet Magazine
Profound words and quotes from influential speakers paired with meditative and textural soundscapes and lyric videos in collaboration - Basya Schechter and composer, bass player, composer/producer - Daniel Ori
Avi Fox Rosen and Basya Schechter set the Yiddish poetry of Itzik Manger to music. We are so excited to bring these songs to the world.. Stay tuned!
Naomi Seidman wrote an incredible book called “Sarah Schnirer and the Bais Yaakov Movement: A Revolution in the name of Tradition, explores the history of the movement in the interwar period. With a group of women singers who also left, Basya is arranging songs that Naomi found in the archive from this period of time.