Hi all, my name is Ido Schwartz- Naor. I’m happy to be back and sing with NRS. This will be my 6th (maybe 7th?) season!  Here’s a bit about myself:

Born and raised in the hot and humid city of Haifa, in Israel, but spent most of my adult life in, or around Jerusalem (not so humid but still pretty hot).  Moved to the US  (to JC) with my family in 2014. We lived downtown all those years but in May 2021 we bought a house by Lincoln Park. Me, my wife, Talya, and our kids Elinor and Shai. 

I am a linguist, I’ve been a teacher for many years (middle school, high school, and university). Got my first MA in (hold on tight) bible studies and ancient semitic languages, then a second MA in linguistics. I don’t teach anymore. A few years ago I changed careers and started working in language technology: computational linguistics and conversational AI. 

Music has always been a huge part of my life, I play a bunch of instruments, and I sang in a few community choirs before NRS (both in Israel and here).

Other than that- when I don’t work or play music, I am an amateur woodworker (I build and fix my own guitars), I do all the cooking and baking in our house (and that’s a lot!), and I love anything outdoorsy – hiking, camping, biking. 

Oh, and ice cream!