CAL PERFORMANCES PRESENTS POMEGRANATES & FIGS: A FEAST OF JEWISH MUSIC FEATURING POWER DUO TESLIM WITH KAILA FLEXER AND GARI HEGEDUS, KLEZMER BAND THE GONIFS, AND KITKA WOMEN’S VOCAL ENSEMBLE
DECEMBER 20 AT 8:00 IN ZELLERBACH HALL
CELEBRATING SEPHARDIC, KLEZMER, YIDDISH SONG AND ORIGINAL MUSIC
In a season of Nutcrackers and Messiahs, Pomegranates & Figs: A Feast of Jewish Music promises holiday fare of a different stripe. The infectious exuberance of klezmer, Yiddish folk song and the soulful traditions of Sephardic music will warm Zellerbach Hall stage. Cal Performances presents a triple bill featuring the driving, danceable rhythms of The Gonifs—playing klezmer and Yiddish Song, the glorious harmonies of Kitka Women’s Vocal Ensemble and Bay Area power duo Teslim featuring violinist Kaila Flexer and multi-instrumentalist Gari Hegedus. Teslim will be joined this evening by special guests: violinists Julian Smedley, Shira Kammen, Leah Wollenberg, harpist Liza Wallace and percussionist Faisal Zedan.
Kaila Flexer, founder of Klezmer Mania!, created Pomegranates & Figs to celebrate the diversity of Jewish music. This event takes place one night prior the start of Hanukah this year. Klezmer (short for “klei zemer”—“vessel of music”) has always been a fusion music, changing over the years in response to time and place. In that spirit, Pomegranates & Figs brings a diversity of Jewish and original music. To make it all more heymish (homey), audience members can schmooze, kibbitz, and nosh (visit, chat and snack) before the show and at intermission with sweets, savories, and surprises from CAL Performances vendor Downtown Restaurant.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
TESLIM (Tes-LEEM) means both 'commit' and 'surrender' in Turkish and features violinist Kaila Flexer a descendant of Polish klezmer musicians, and Gari Hegedus on (mostly plucked) strings including Turkish saz, oud, Greek lauoto and hand drums. This potent duo performs original and Sephardic music. As composers, their original work reflects their deep respect for folk music. Teslim just released their debut (self-titled) CD.
Flexer is best known in the San Francisco Bay area as the founder and producer of Klezmer Mania!, a much-loved annual Bay Area event for more than 10 years (1989-2002). She has also been at the helm of bands such as Third Ear, Next Village and Kaila Flexer's Fieldharmonik, ensembles that feature her original compositions. She has performed both nationally internationally with her own ensembles as well as with groups including The Hollis Taylor-Kaila Flexer Duo, The Flexer-Marshall Duo, Club Foot Orchestra, Kitka Women's Vocal Ensemble and with Persian vocalist Hamed Nikpay. She has recorded two CD's of original music for Compass Records (Nashville) to critical acclaim.
Hegedus plays a vast array of instruments including Greek and Turkish lutes, violin, viola and hand drums. In addition to Teslim, Gari Hegedus performs with Stellamara. He has studied with oud master Naseer Shamma and has recorded and performed with Ross Daly, Hamed Nikpay and numerous other musicians. He has toured with the Mevlevi Dervish (Sufi) Order of America and continues to participate in Turkish ceremonial and devotional gatherings around the country.
Kaila Flexer, best known as a leading West Coast proponent of the klezmer revival, and Gari Hegedus, who plays a dazzling menagerie of string instruments, have created an enthralling body of deeply personal music. This is a singular CD by an utterly original pair of players.
-Andrew Gilbert, San Jose Mercury News
“The twin stringed chemistry and virtuosic interplay is extraordinary as Kaila and Gari forge a fresh musical idiom inspired by the cross-pollinating currents of Turkish, Sephardic and Cretan/Greek music.”
-Dore Stein, Tangents Radio, KALW
Kitka Women’s Vocal Ensemble
Kitka is a women’s vocal ensemble unlike any other. These sophisticated singers blend a contemporary sensibility with specialized vocal techniques from Eastern Europe that have been distilled over centuries. Using only the pure unaccompanied voice, they create a constantly shifting landscape of sound, pulsing with angular rhythms, where dramatic dynamics leap from delicate stillness to shattering resonance, and seamless unisons explode into lush incomprehensible chords.
Kitka, meaning “bouquet” in Bulgarian and Macedonian, began in 1979 as a grassroots group of singers from diverse ethnic and musical backgrounds who shared a passion for the stunning dissonances, asymmetric rhythms, intricate ornamentation, lush harmonies, and resonant strength of Eastern European women’s vocal traditions. Since its informal beginnings, the group has evolved into a professional touring ensemble that has earned international recognition for its artistry, versatility, and fresh approach to folk music. Through a busy itinerary of live and broadcast performances, recordings, educational programs, master artist residencies, commissioning programs, and adventuresome collaborations, Kitka has exposed millions to the haunting beauty of their unique body of repertoire. Kitka has released seven recordings on their own Diaphonica record label, most recently Sanctuary: A Cathedral Concert.
In recent years, Kitka has been exploring the soulful song traditions of Eastern European Jewish women. Their live concert documentary: "Kitka and Davka in Concert: Old and New World Jewish Music", has won awards at international film festivals from Beijing to Toronto and has been broadcast on more than 80 public television stations nationwide. Singing in languages including Hebrew, Ladino, Yiddish, Hungarian, Ukrainian, Russian, Bulgarian, and Ukrainian, Kitka's set showcases ecstatic Hasidic chants, contemplative prayers from the Ashkenaz tradition, tender Sephardic lullabies, and songs of work, love, loss, and celebration from the Jewish immigrant Diaspora.
"Kitka had the audience in their hands from the opening strains of a dazzling array of Yiddish, Hebrew and Eastern European folk tunes drawn from a range of points on the globe." - Jewish News Weekly
THE GONIFS
Gonif (Yiddish):
1) a thief
2) a clever, mischievous child
3) “America gonif!” meaning, “Only in America!”
The Gonifs klezmer band formed in 1995 as the house band for San Francisco’s pirate radio station, Radio Libre. Part of the second generation of the klezmer revival that began in 1970’s Berkeley, the Gonifs bring a fresh, quirky, anarchistic spirit to their deep love for f Yiddish music.
Singing accordionist Jeanette Lewicki (Klez-X) and clarinetist Peter Jaques (Brass Menazerie) meld Jeanette's effervescent stage presence and fluent Yiddish with Peter's fluidity in Greek, Turkish, Arabic and Jewish musical modes to create a language, which speaks to everybody. Twenty-five-year-old drummer Aaron Kierbel (Rupa and the April Fishes) brings solid, danceable beats and playful ease to drum set, dumbek, and an array of percussion toys. Bass clarinetist Aaron Novik (Floating World, Gubbish) is a contemporary composer equally at home with odd meters, sensitive improvisations, & head-banging heavy metal. The newest Gonif, bassist Stuart Brotman (Brave Old World, Veretski Pass), has been playing his performing for nearly half a century. A multi-instrumentalist, composer and arranger, here Stuart plays the basy, a traditional Carpathian bowed bass that drives the klezmer dance rhythm.
TICKET INFORMATION
Tickets for Pomegranates and Figs: A Celebration of Jewish Music, Saturday, December 20, 2008 8:00 p.m. in Zellerbach Hall are priced at $20/$26/$32. Tickets for all performances are available through the Cal Performances Ticket Office at Zellerbach Hall; at (510) 642-9988 to charge by phone; and at the door. Tickets are also available through all BASS outlets, through BASS tickets at (510) 762-BASS, and the BASS Arts Line at (415) 776-1999. A limited number of half-price tickets are available for purchase by UC Berkeley students and UC faculty and staff; senior citizens and other students receive a $2 discount. For more information, call Cal Performances at (510) 642-9988.
All Cal Performances programs are supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts, the California Arts Council, and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.
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