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Customarily, one should refrain from directing a reader to YouTube at the start of a story. But to appreciate the talent of Anna Senger you have to see her in action–specifically the moment she got the golden buzzer on Israel’s Got Talent hobbled on to the stage disguised as an old woman called Licia, the audience expected a comedy routine, but Anna had them fooled. In place of gags, the Juilliard graduate born in Jerusalem wowed the crowd by playing two pianos at the same time, and then was briefly suspended upside down in a harness. Cue the standing ovation and shiny confetti, which you must see in much the same way as you should see Anna in the musical Having her name on the poster outside the Strand’s Vaudeville Theatre is currently a thrill in its infancy as Anna has only been assistant musical director officially since last summer.

“I was hired first to do the tour and also as the substitute for the West End show which I was really happy about,” says the spirited 35-year-old sitting by a keyboard. “Now I conduct three times a week, but I’m at the theatre every day, where I share this lovely room with the resident director and choreographer.”

Anna also shares backstage with the six queens who lead Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss’ global hit about Henry VIII’s spouses, and enjoys the Tudor camaraderie.

“We do nine shows a week and even when I’m on standby, I’m listening on the tannoy,” says Anna, which will literally be music to the ears of show producer Kenny Wax and a slap on the back for the charity Resource. Turns out that the community’s centre for job seekers doesn’t just help business professionals get back to the workplace, it can tackle showbiz too.

“When Anna relocated here from Israel, she found getting a job di cult,” says Resource’s Jennifer Ho man. “We gave her one-to-one coaching and tailored programmes to help her get started and now that she has managed to land her dream job in the West End. We’re delighted.”

“Resource was really a crucial part of me getting the job,” Anna concurs. “I’d never done interviews in the UK or in my life actually and they sent me to a seminar where I learnt about applying for job and preparing a CV. As mine was more unusual, they even got someone who knew about theatre to tailor my CV and then when I got the interview they helped me to feel more confident.”

And she should be confident with a resume that almost harks back to when she was four and her mother Liora (her Venezuelan father Rubin lives in New York) started teaching her piano. By the time she was eight Anna was performing in international competitions.

“Classical and very serious,” says the woman styled Don’tLoseUrHead. “I began studying conducting when I was 16, then left school to go to the Academy of Music in Jerusalem, from where I got accepted at Juilliard in New York. There I went straight into the second year, as I’d already done a lot of theory.”

Revealing her musical achievements with typical Israeli nonchalance is why Anna intrigues and why she moved easily into drama at Jerusalem’s Nissan Nativ Acting Studio.

“It was a big switch that entered my mind while I was in New York. But after 20 years of classical piano and competition, I didn’t want to go to Tel Aviv. I just wanted to study, be calm and stay with my mum in Jerusalem.”

Post-drama school, Anna dabbled in musical theatre, which is where she conceived the old lady act – Licia, the creeky pianist – that not only thrilled the judges on but also the panel on the German, Italian and Chinese editions.

“I did work in Israeli theatre, but when I came up with the act and more people were asking me to travel to other countries, I thought I should try my luck outside of Israel. My husband Omri (Dagan) who was in a band and released two albums, had also started working as a filmmaker and photographer and together we felt we couldn’t really fulfil our dreams in Israel.” Not that she doesn’t love her homeland, as she sincerely does and holds a singular and alternative perspective on the new right-wing government.

“I think it is di erent for actors who work in more culturally liberal Tel Aviv. I come from Jerusalem where we’re more detached, look to the past and teach it. I enjoyed playing the historical roles of our ancestors in traditional plays that tell Israel’s story. We built this country, and we’re part of it and what we did is amazing.”

What’s equally amazing is that a creeky old woman who plays two pianos at once while airborne is now setting the tempo nightly on stage for Henry spective on the new right-wing government. to the amazing.” VIII’s wives.

Conductors customarily appear in a black suit, white shirt and bow tie, but Israeli conductor Tom Cohen does things differently. When he steps on stage at the Barbican next weekend to conduct his Jerusalem Orchestra East & West, he will dispense with the tie. “I’ll be in a suit, but nothing at the neck – that’s not for me,” he insists. “And I like to add something cool. When I was younger it was white shoes,” he laughs, “but nowadays I’m more subtle – I go for elegant shoes with coloured socks.”

It’s not only sartorially that Tom, 39, breaks the mould. His orchestra comprises Jewish, Muslim and Christian musicians, setting the example of music transcending religious and political division in Israel and beyond. Not only that, but his unique ability is to be able to transfer the music of Arab and North African countries to musicians from a Western classical background – and vice versa; his style has become known as ‘Levant music’.

“The outcome should be that if you know the music from home, you can appreciate it in its new ‘clothes’,” he explains.

Tom established the Jerusalem Orchestra East & West in 2009 with the former CEO Ofer Amsalem. He writes all the musical arrangements himself, synthesising classical, jazz and, for the London concert, Moroccan tribal music. This is the first time that the orchestra is performing in London and Tom is very excited.

“At the start, when my total budget was zero and I was driving musicians in my car back and forth from rehearsals and concerts, I had a piece of paper saying Olympia – Paris, Carnegie Hall – New York, Barbican –London. It wasn’t a dream list, it was a to-do list.

"The orchestra is my baby, the biggest thing I've done in my life, the most ongoing one, the one that I changed with the most and the one that influenced me and my career. Performing in a place like the Barbican in London is the next phase of our journey.”

The music to be played is called gnawa after the Moroccan ethnic group of the same name. “It is the most complicated, simple music – or the simplest complicated music – you can hear. Groove-wise, it is very, very specific but at the same time, you need no background in order to enjoy it. Immediately it touches you and immediately you feel it.”

The musicians will be pairing a gimbri, which is a primitive bass guitar made of wood and camel-skin, with percussion instruments, a jazz pianist and a full orchestra, each element of which is completely at odds with the style.

“The result is a harmonious arrangement with lots of colour and a taste of jazz, pop and rock,” says Tom. “It was an experiment, and the result blew us all away. Last September were invited to Morocco to play this project. The idea of taking their musical style, changing it completely and then being invited to present it to them is something that I would never want to stop doing. Next is a concert on the moon!”

Tom grew up in Beersheva in the Negev in the south of Israel and has a culturally mixed heritage himself.

“My father’s family are Iraqi but my mother's side are Polish and English. My maternal grandmother came from Southport,” he says.

“ I owe a lot of who I am today to the place I grew up in. I had many different communities around me in a very loving home where music was playing constantly.

“Both my mum (a former ballet dancer) and my dad (a journalist) saw music as playing a very important role in our lives. What differentiates me from many other people is that nobody ever explained to me the different types of music (Moroccan, Turkish, Arabic, Western for example) – I listened to it all ‘equally’. When I grew up and went to the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance, I learned that Western classical music stood at a certain point and the rest of the music that I liked stood at a different point. And I could not grasp it.

“For me, the biggest power that we have as people living in the Middle East, in Jerusalem especially, is that all these influences live within us, within the sound of Jerusalem. So it became my mission to create a musical language that connects all the genres together and weaves them into one musical style.”

The Jerusalem Orchestra East & West is recognised by the country’s Culture Ministry as a leading orchestra, side by side with the Israel Philharmonic. Tom has been invited to establish orchestras in the same formation in Belgium, Morocco and Canada and has conducted many different and varied ensembles – from the Israel Philharmonic to the Algerian Chaabi orchestra El Gusto.

He lives in Belgium with his Belgian wife Nicole, 39, whom he met at a music festival in Cyprus, and their six-year-old son, Adam. “We are bringing him up as Jewish – we make all the holidays and he speaks fluent Hebrew, but he knows Christmas as well.”

Maybe Tom will one day write a musical arrangement for a Christmas carol in Hebrew.

• Jerusalem Orchestra East & West is at the Barbican on 5 February at 7.30pm www.barbican.co.uk