‘L’chaim for the next 1,500’: Israeli drummer celebrates Cirque Du Soleil milestone

“I never really decided to be a musician. It was just natural for me.”

For Israeli drummer Eden Bahar, music has never felt like a conscious career choice so much as a way of life. The son of renowned Israeli pianist and composer Yaron Bahar, Eden was raised in a home surrounded by music. His earliest memory of playing the drums is around the age of six, alongside his father.

“He used to play famous compositions, and I used to play with him. That's what got me started, and we still do it to this day together.”

By the age of eight, Bahar was already performing publicly alongside his father at concerts in Israel. At nine, he performed in front of an audience of 32,000 at the 16th Maccabiah Games. When he was 14, he embarked on his first solo tour.

More than two decades later, that prodigious talent has taken Bahar around the world with Cirque du Soleil, where he is the drummer and bandleader for the production Kooza. He joined the show in 2019, but getting there was a journey.

After studying at the School of the Arts Arison Campus in Tel Aviv, Bahar served for two years in the Israel Defence Forces orchestra. Following his military service, he performed in more than 30 countries with over 100 bands. During that time, he auditioned for Cirque du Soleil and entered the company’s casting pool. Four years after his first audition, he received an offer to join Kooza.

“I was very fortunate before joining Cirque du Soleil to play with a lot of other bands and play around the world. Many different genres, many different people, but I think being here in this company is a different level than anything I’ve worked on before,” he says.