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Profile No. IL-07

The Kadosh Brothers

Oud (Onn Yosef Kadosh) — Israeli
The Kadosh Brothers

Original painted group portrait of The Kadosh Brothers, created for JazzProfiles.com — not a photograph. No free-licensed photo of the trio could be located (checked Wikimedia Commons, their Instagram/YouTube channel, and album art). Original artwork — created for JazzProfiles.com, not Creative Commons–licensed source material — Commissioned/created directly for this profile

The Kadosh Brothers are three siblings — Onn Yosef (oud, composer, and the group's bandleader), Elay (double bass), and Elamar (drums, percussion) — who grew up making music together in a Tel Aviv household before they had a name for what they were doing. Per their own booking-agency bio, Onn began his musical training in elementary school and gravitated toward the oud; Elay discovered the double bass at eleven and has gone on to perform in other jazz ensembles in Israel and internationally; Elamar started on drums and percussion at seven.

The band's self-description is "Prog Middle East Ensemble": Middle Eastern classical melody, carried primarily by Onn's oud, run through the rhythmic vocabulary of progressive rock rather than straight-ahead jazz or classical Arabic ensemble playing. Their own tagline — "Three brothers, playing together as one, carrying their ancient family legacy" — points at the group's core selling point: this isn't a band that assembled around a concept, it's three siblings translating a shared musical upbringing into a specific fusion sound.

As of this research pass, the band's official Apple Music artist page shows only a single release: "Jirjur (הופעות במפעל הפיס)," a single released July 17, 2025, credited jointly to The Kadosh Brothers and Aquarium, classified as rock.

Onn Yosef Kadosh's profile outside the family band runs deeper than the group's own thin discography suggests. His side project, KOMRADIN — a duo with saxophonist Asaf Harris (an earlier lineup, for the debut album, also included drummer/percussionist David Sirkis) — released its debut album Qamar al-Din in 2024, premiering at the 25th Jerusalem International Oud Festival (a Confederation House Jerusalem production, held November 21-30, 2024). The album reworks the muwashshah tradition, a form of classical Arabic sung poetry with roots in medieval Al-Andalus, filtered through a contemporary jazz lens and built on the maqamat (Arabic melodic mode) system. KOMRADIN's second release, "Hilalen" ("Two Crescents," released January 16, 2026), narrows the group to a duo of oud and saxophone and was recorded on a roughly 120-year-old oud built by Damascus's historic Nahat family of instrument makers — a lineage whose work from the late 1800s through the 1980s is widely regarded among the finest ouds ever produced. It's a striking detail: a family band built on "ancient legacy" as a tagline, with one member also literally playing a instrument that is itself a century-old physical link to Arabic instrument-making history.

The core Kadosh Brothers sound sits at the intersection of two traditions that don't often share a stage: Middle Eastern classical melody, carried by the oud's microtonal, maqam-based vocabulary, and the harder-edged structural ambition of progressive rock, in the rhythm section built by Elay's bass and Elamar's drums and percussion. It's a related but distinct neighborhood from bassist Avishai Cohen's Andalusian and Mediterranean-inflected jazz, profiled separately in this system — both draw on similar regional musical roots, but the Kadosh Brothers route theirs through rock structure rather than trio jazz. Onn's parallel work in KOMRADIN, focused on the more historically rooted muwashshah and maqam traditions with far less rock influence, suggests his own musical range extends considerably beyond what the family band alone shows.

Key Recordings
Full Discography

The Kadosh Brothers: Full Discography

The Kadosh Brothers - As Group

Their only confirmed release is "Jirjur (הופעות במפעל הפיס)," single, July 17, 2025, jointly credited with "Aquarium."

Onn Yosef Kadosh - KOMRADIN (side project, not a Kadosh Brothers release)

Album Title Recording/Premiere Release Date Personnel Role Notes
Qamar al-Din Premiered at the 25th Jerusalem International Oud Festival, Nov 21-30, 2024 2024 Onn Yosef Kadosh (oud), Asaf Harris (saxophone), David Sirkis (drums, percussion) Co-leader (as KOMRADIN, trio lineup) Reworks the muwashshah tradition (classical Arabic sung poetry, medieval Andalusian roots) via the maqamat modal system, through a contemporary jazz lens
Hilalen (Two Crescents) January 16, 2026 Onn Yosef Kadosh (oud), Asaf Harris (saxophone) Co-leader (as KOMRADIN, duo lineup) Recorded on a documented ~120-year-old oud built by Damascus's Nahat family of instrument makers; includes muwashshah poetry recitations with percussion
Personnel & Collaborations
Linked Profiles
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