Dr. Ariel Lazarus - composer, songwriter, concert guitarist, cultural entrepreneur, and scholar of Sephardic Jewish music - is a unique voice in contemporary Israeli music.
Winner of the Yitzhak Navon Prize of the Israeli Ministry of Culture (2021) for his contribution to the preservation and renewal of Jewish musical traditions, Lazarus creates a personal musical language that fuses Mediterranean maqam, Sephardic liturgical poetry, and Western classical and jazz influences.

Rooted in his family’s cantorial heritage from Gibraltar and Westphalia, and shaped by his upbringing in Rehovot, Lazarus engages in an ongoing dialogue between East and West, tradition and modernity.
His doctoral work at Bar-Ilan University included the viola-guitar concerto “As a Dream Fades” under the supervision of Betty Olivero and Gideon Levinson, alongside a pioneering research article supervised by Edwin Seroussi on the Tisha B’Av lament repertoire of Gibraltar.
His works have been performed and recorded by the Israeli Andalusian Orchestra, the Ra’anana Symphonette, the Arab-Jewish Orchestra, and international ensembles across Europe, the United States, and North Africa.

Lazarus serves as the musical director and conductor of the Israeli Ladino Orchestra, which he founded in collaboration with the Renanot Institute in Jerusalem. Under his direction, the orchestra has performed and recorded with leading Israeli artists such as Kobi Aflalo, Shlomo Bar, Emil Zrihan, Nimrod Lev, and Shir Ifrah, and was invited to represent Israel at the United Nations conference in Fez.
In addition to his new arrangements of Ladino songs, Lazarus composes original works inspired by the poetry of Solomon Ibn Gabirol and by Talmudic texts, performed in Israel, Spain, and Germany.

His solo album, released in Germany, received enthusiastic reviews in both Israeli and international press.
His chamber works and guitar concerto have been published by the Israel Music Institute and Or Tav Publications.

Alongside his concert music, Lazarus is also active as a singer-songwriter in his project “Shirim Hayim” (“Living Songs”), blending original lyrics and music. Since the outbreak of the Iron Swords war, he has performed for evacuated communities and led musical initiatives for communal healing.

As an educator, he leads the fields of Jewish and Israeli creative music at Givat Washington Academic College, Ono Academic College, and the Rimon School of Music, and has served as a cultural ambassador to Jewish communities abroad through the Amiel BaKehila project of Israel’s Ministry of Diaspora Affairs.

Lazarus is a post-doctoral fellow and researcher at the Salti Institute for Ladino Studies at Bar-Ilan University, where he develops an innovative methodology for examining Mediterraneanism as a cultural and aesthetic field within Sephardic Jewish creativity, focusing on its expression in Ladino song.

He is a member of the senior leadership forum Aphikim Le-Israel of the Kulna organization.
Lazarus lives in Rehovot with his wife Yamit and their children Ori, Emily, and Agam.