Quick Facts
Biography
Atarah Ben-Tovim, MBE (born 1940) is a British flautist and children's concert presenter.
Born in Wales, Ben-Tovim played her first television concerto live at the Royal Albert Hall, at the age of fourteen. She was principal flautist with the National Youth Orchestra, and then from 1963-75 principal flautist with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. She left the RLPO to found Atarah's Band in 1975, a group which sought to improve children's experiences with classical music. Atarah was awarded the MBE in 1980 for her work in this field and by the time that the band called time, it had played to over three million people.
She has guested on several UK television and radio shows, including Lunchtime Pebble Mill on BBC TV and the John Dunn Show, Start the Week and Kaleidoscope.
In the late 1980s, BBC Radio Three networked Atarah's Music Box, all about children and music and Omnibus devoted a whole programme to her work, as did Blue Peter and Magpie. Her own television series, aimed at primary school children (Called "Atarah's band"), aired in 1982.
Together with Douglas Boyd she published "The Right Instrument For Your Child" (1985) followed by "You Can Make Music". Both books concentrated on helping aspiring music students to choose the best instrument for their particular attributes. Ben-Tovim & Boyd did research with thousands of students over a period of ten years following the successes and failures of these students with regards to the instruments chosen and the attributes (physical, emotional & intellectual) that they possessed.
Her musical stories for little children in Rub-a-Dub-Tub on Sunday mornings ran for over two years. BRMB (Birmingham), Radio City (Liverpool), Radio Merseyside (Liverpool), Radio Piccadilly (Manchester), Red Rose Radio (Preston) and many other stations carried her radio series over the years.
She currently resides in France, where she teaches and holds workshops for budding flautists and clarinetists.