He grew up watching his father work musical magic, but it was a producer across the ocean who really tapped into Ruvi Banet’s potential. The son of Seret Vizhnitz composer Reb Chaim Banet, the younger Banet — who is Motti Steinmetz’s producer and a sought-after arranger and musician in his own right — says that he breathed music from his early childhood. “I give a lot of credit to my father. He allowed me into the studio when his compositions were being recorded. I watched Mona Rosenblum and Moshe Laufer at work, and I always wanted to know how everything was done. With a lot of curiosity, patience, and perseverance, baruch Hashem, I eventually fulfilled my own dream of writing musical arrangements.”

Ruvi’s first efforts were arranging his father’s songs. “I wrote the music for ‘Nachamu Ami’ on my father’s Ohavei Hashem album, and people heard it and saw that I knew what I was doing.” One of those listeners who took notice was Gideon Levine, who had a popular recording studio in New York and was producing his Best of the Best albums at that time. “I was 23 years old when he brought me to New York for a month to work on his arrangements. I would say that opened the door wide to more and more music.”

 (Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 742)