Biography
From Classical Music to Pop and Rock through Folk and Metal - Shir-Ran Yinon is a versatile and multifaceted musician. As performer on violin, viola, nyckelharpa, singer, as well as composer and arranger - she doesn't set any musical boundaries.
On the violin Shir-Ran is known for her expressive and virtuoso playing along with her wide stylistic range and improvisation skills. She performs internationally with well-known rock and metal acts, including legendary British rock band New Model Army since 2014. Shir-Ran was also the musical director and wrote all arrangements for the band's collaboration with the orchestra Sinfonia Leipzig, which was released as live album and DVD "Sinfonia" in 2023. As a guest-violinist and singer she has shared the stage with artists like Schandmaul, ASP, Haggard, Epica, Calexico & The Eden House and toured extensively with Swiss folk-metal band Eluveitie during 2015-2016. She has also accompanied Evanescence, 2Cellos & Laufey in ensemble shows and was part of Santiano's MTV Unplugged as well as many other TV productions. Shir-Ran has performed in over 30 countries on 5 continents, including shows at major festivals like the famous Wacken Open Air. She is also an experienced studio musician and has recorded for Delain, Cellar Darling, Equilibrium, Leah and many others, often writing the solo-parts and string arrangements herself.
In 2019 Shir-Ran co-founded mondëna quartet, a multi-genre string quartet that performs her own works and collaborates with artists like Sven Helbig, Felix Räuber and Felix Rösch. The debut album "Circles" consists of nine of her compositions an was nominated in four categories for the German award OPUS KLASSIK 2023.
As a composer, Shir-Ran has established a long musical friendship with the German String Philharmonic and its principal conductor Wolfgang Hentrich. The orchestra has premiered already six of her works, including "Vivid" which was also recorded for the album "Alma!", "Fairy Dust" for the Deutschlandfunk Kultur Wartburg Radio Concert as well as "Brisk", performed together with well-known British saxophone player Jess Gillam at Konzerthaus Berlin. Like her performances, also her compositions reach across a broad musical spectrum and are inspired by various genres. Selected highlights are "One Minute of Optimism" for the MDR Radio Symphony Orchestra commissioned by MDR KLASSIK, "Present" for the 50th anniversary of the Dresden Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra and the four-movement "Headbanging Symphony" for the Studentenorchester Münster & the band Words of Farewell. Shir-Ran's compositions and arrangements are broadcasted on radio and performed live regularly across Europe and the US, including at major concert halls like Gewandhaus Leipzig, Kulturpalast Dresden and Musikverein Vienna. She was also a patroness of the "Score" composition competition of the Rheingauer Film-Symphoniker in 2019 and is a mentor at the mArts programme of the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Leipzig since 2021.
Despite her extensive work in other genres, Shir-Ran comes originally from the world of classical music. She started playing the violin at age 9 and later studied viola with Avshalom Sarid at the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance. Shir-Ran also studied composition with Prof. Oded Zehavi and Prof. Eitan Steinberg at the University of Haifa, at which she received the "Dean's Award for Excellence in an artistic major".
Shir-Ran grew up in Mannheim, Germany and resided later in Israel. She returned to Germany in 2013 and lives nowadays in Leipzig. She is the daughter of the internationally renowned conductor Israel Yinon (1956-2015), who loved music above all.