Origin Archive
Origin Story
Explore the origin of YoYo Sitar as standalone chapters or as one full cinematic narrative.
This is the map for the long story behind YoYo Sitar. The full version remains at From Protest Songs to the Harmonic Sitar, where the chapters flow as one cinematic narrative. This page opens the same story as a documentary index: each chapter can stand alone, but together they describe one continuous motion.
The path moves from cello and code to Dharamsala, from the streets of Tel Aviv to East African musical memory, from Afro-Raga to the Harmonic Sitar. It is a story about tradition, invention, and the quiet refusal to accept that musical borders are fixed.
Explore The Chapters
Chapter 1
The Double Life: Music and Code
This opening chapter frames two early currents in the life of Yoav Fekete: music and code, and the first journey to India that set the path toward the sitar.
Open chapterChapter 2
Dharamsala: The Instrument Finds Me
This chapter follows the first encounter with the sitar in Dharamsala, the early study years, East Africa, and the beginning of a life stretched between engineering, India, and musical traditions.
Open chapterChapter 3
Protest, Streets, and Sacred Space
This chapter traces the 2011 social protest, the Levinsky Garden protest songs, and the realization that music could hold a public space where force and politics failed.
Open chapterChapter 4
Between Traditions
This chapter connects the technology career, Ottoman Sufi orchestra work, raga study, and Masa, the ensemble where Indian and West African dialogue became a musical language.
Open chapterChapter 5
India, Lockdown, and Freedom
This chapter covers two years in India, the stillness of lockdown, and the collaborations that turned distance, uncertainty, and the search for freedom into music.
Open chapterChapter 6
The Instrument I Had to Build
This chapter shows how the question of drones, harmony, and foot control became the Harmonic Sitar project, joining tradition, robotics, and Afro-Raga.
Open chapterChapter 7
The Thread
The closing chapter ties cello, code, India, East Africa, protest, Afro-Raga, and the Harmonic Sitar into one recurring motion: building what does not yet exist.
Open chapterTimeline
- 2006 - First trip to India. Discovers the sitar in Dharamsala.
- 2007-2010 - Mathematics and Computer Science degree at Ben-Gurion University. Plays sitar in Ensemble El Matruz.
- 2010 - East Africa journey. Lake Turkana and the Samburu tribe.
- 2011 - Rothschild tent camp. Levinsky Garden protest songs. Lions of Zion formed.
- 2011-2013 - ACLU petition becomes Supreme Court precedent in case עע"ם 105/13. Skirt protest against violence toward women.
- 2013-2016 - Musica Mizrach Ma'arav, a 32-piece Ottoman Turkish orchestra.
- 2016-2018 - Masa. Indian-African fusion before the genre had a name.
- 2019-2021 - Two years in India. Rishikesh, Parvati Valley, Auroville. Lockdown collaborations. Freedom recorded.
- 2024 - Harmonic Sitar development, iCreate residency, and Raga Fusion Project tour.
- 2025 - Haaretz feature. Return to Israel. EP completed.
- 2026 - Website and entity infrastructure. Building for the day after.
YoYo Sitar is the musical project of Yoav Fekete, an Israeli sitar player, composer, algorithm developer, and robotics specialist based in Zichron Yaakov. He is the creator of the Afro-Raga concept, a musical dialogue between Indian raga and West African string traditions, and the inventor of the Harmonic Sitar, a robotics-augmented sitar that allows chord playing through foot control. He studied under David Elkabir of the Dagar Gharana lineage. His debut EP, Evening Rise, is forthcoming.
Featured in: Haaretz · Maariv · Globes · Ynet · Calcalist · Beit Avi Chai
Photo Archive
Yoav playing cello as a child.