It’s been about 10 years in the making and she’s had lots of ups and downs since but Ofir, left, has finally released her self-produced CD The Passion Show.

The eight songs on The Passion Show are full of vibrant energy and dance rhythms that would be at home in the hottest dance clubs in Europe.

Ofir (Ronit Ofir Engel) combines Eurobeat with world music and American pop to create her own unique style, and her vocal range is truly beautiful and impressive. She also throws in some Spanish flavour on Never Call Me Babe, and on It’s Awesome she mixes Chinese styles with a dance beat.

It’s hard to find a basis of comparison but songs like Task of Mind and Outrageous bring Madonna’s Ray of Light and Geri Helliwell’s It’s Raining Men to mind.

“People definitely keep saying Madonna,” the Nahariya-born singer/songwriter says of her sound. “And even Celine Dion gets mentioned. When people tell me I can write for Celine Dion that makes me feel, ‘Wow! That’s great.’”

Ofir spent some time in New York (where she had a role in the pilot for TV’s Sex in the City) before moving to Toronto in 2004.

While her music is pop/dance oriented she doesn’t feel her lyrics are as throw-away as many pop songs. “I have a unique style. My words are not cheap. They’re very calculated.’

The song Fire Escape, for instance, was written after 9/11 when she was worried about the fate of a firefighter friend of hers.

“I tried to imagine what it’s like to be the wife of a husband there and you don’t know if he survived.”

Ofir has won poetry competitions in the past and last year released a spoken-word CD of her poetry Poetry of the Brilliant Silence.

She has also won several song-writing awards. An earlier version of the title track she recorded in 2004 placed in the Top 5 of VH-1’s Pop Song of the Year Contest.

Some of the songs on The Passion Show were written 10 years ago and others are more recent. Despite all the promises and accolades she’s had, getting this album out has been an arduous journey.

Shortly after coming to Toronto she was seduced by a shady producer who offered to record and distribute her album on his label. She was told she had to put $35,000 up front, of which she came up with $17,000.

Long story short, that deal fell through and she never got her money back.

Undaunted, Ofir finally decided to do it all herself and set up her own record label Passion Show Records.

While she admits it’s been tough, it has been rewarding. “I sold 1,500 CDs on my own. That’s very good for a small label. I’m working towards getting a good manager now and a booking agent to make this bigger.”

Ofir has had some radio exposure in the United States and Toronto Exclusive magazine nominated the song Task of Mind for best dance song for 2007.

Ofir also does lots of charitable work. After the tsunami in Southeast Asia, she organized a toy drive for hospitalized children. In 2005 she recorded Natalee, a song for Natalee Ann Holloway who disappeared in Aruba.

You can hear and purchase her songs on her website www.thepassionshow.com and her Myspace page www.myspace.com/goldcd. Try these: Task of Mind, It’s Awesome, Outrageous and She Breaks Windows.

This info was copied from The Canadian Jewish News: http://www.cjnews.com:80/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=14310&Itemid=86