Raif has shared his musical talent on many stages across the country since the early eighties. Raif’s distinctive vocal style and magnetic stage presence has enraptured audiences in Cape Cod, Boston, New York and California style where he continually received praises from those who have had the pleasure to hear this artist. Raif has had the tutelage of many and performed with the best internation
al artists the world has to offer including Leontyne Price, Jesse Norman and Kathleen Battle. He has sung under world renowned conductors such as Seiji Ozawa, Lenard Bernstein and Sir Colin Davis and performed at Symphony Hall, Carnegie Hall and Alice Tully Hall and at Tanglewood. Raif honed his vocal expertise studying the classics working with some of the best voice teachers and coaches on the east coast but his real ability to reach an audience lies in his vocal phrasing, range and wide array of emotional peaks and valleys. His renditions of standards and blues ring true to a listener’s ear making his connection with an audience precise and personal from the moment he starts to sing. In the mid-eighties, Raif studied guitar and performed folk music in Boston. While performing in this genre, he had the good fortune to meet the folk music legend, Odetta. Raif learned a great deal from Odetta and she was very generous in giving him productive feedback on his new-found interest in performing folk music. Raif was also encouraged to perform folk music by people like Tracy Chapman who would within a year of their meeting skyrocket to fame in her own right. He recalls them both singing for each other in his Boston apartment and Tracy telling him “You’re ready, go out and do it.”
In finding the pianist of his dreams in 1982, he set out to perform exclusively in cabaret clubs in Boston and New York with Susan Almasi for the next 20 years to wide acclaim. Susan’s credits were extensive from being the rehearsal pianist for the Boston Symphony at the time to becoming the assistant chorus master at the MET in New York. Their musical duo was called “Serious Business” and recorded their only CD entitled “Alone Together” at Town Hall in NYC in 1999. Throughout the late nineties Raif only gave one concert on Cape Cod per season by choice. His renewed interest in performing keeps him busy throughout the year in supper clubs and concert appearances throughout Cape Cod with a marvelous new pianist and accompanist Mark Borgmann who is well known to jazz audiences on Cape . Raif is recorded on “Serious Business” – 1999, “Reflections” – 2010 “At Last” – 2011.
