Avi Wisnia grew up in Yardley surrounded by Jewish music – but also exposed to many other genres.
The son of a rabbi and grandson of a cantor, the singer-songwriter has been performing since he was old enough to reach the keys on the piano keyboard.
He describes his own music as a mix of jazz, pop and folk.
Wisnia released his second album, “Catching Leaves,” late last year, in part co-written with Seth Croll.
“Catching Leaves” was inspired by the legacy of Wisnia’s Polish-born grandfather, David. Made to perform by the Nazis who held him captive for three years at Auschwitz-Birkenau during the Holocaust, David Wisnia sang to survive.
Before the war, he sang in synagogue, in theaters and opera houses, and on Polish radio, according to the New York Times.
“It’s really an incredible story. He amazed me all the time with his resilience,” his 39-year-old grandson said.
Avi Wisnia, who released his first studio album, “Something New,” in 2010, said he found it difficult to continue creating his own music after his brother, Dov Benjamin Wisnia, with whom he had collaborated, passed away from a brain tumor in 2012, at age 33.
“It was really hard for me to find my way back to music because I associated making music with him,” Wisnia said. “You can never anticipate how grief and loss is going to affect you. Sometimes you need to sit with that grief for a long time. I just wasn’t ready.”
What ended up bringing Wisnia back to music was his collaboration with his grandfather, when they started performing together in earnest, in 2015.
“Helping him tell his story through music taught me you can move forward through your life. You never really move on, but you move forward.”
Wisnia said that even though his grandfather’s singing was part of such a trauma, he was able to return to it professionally, and it was what kept him going until he was almost 95. David Wisnia died last year at age 94, after serving as a cantor at Temple Shalom in Levittown for 28 years, then at Har Sinai Hebrew Congregation of Trenton for 23 years.
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