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Sample Track 1:
"To You Kasiunia" from People's Spring
Sample Track 2:
"Chassidic Dance" from People's Spring
Sample Track 3:
"Who is Getting Married" from People's Spring
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People's Spring
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Cd Review

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Washington Post, Cd Review >>

Warsaw Village Band

Poland's Warsaw Village Band may be a folk music sextet, but that doesn't mean it employs polite strumming and quaint melodies. Sunday evening on the Kennedy Center Millennium Stage, this three-woman, three-man ensemble used violins, dulcimer, cello, Polish frame drum, marching band-style baraban drum, and high-pitched vocals to showcase the unique, raw style they referred to as Polish "roots music from the ancient to the future."

With the women upfront and the guys in back, the group featured songs from their two recent albums, "People's Spring" and "Uprooting." Although the one-hour set was often dominated by noisy waves of rhythmic bowing from the two violin players, their string work frequently lacked melodic variety. But the other instruments, and especially the haunting female vocals, took up the slack.

The women, led by youthful yet serious cellist Maja Kleszcz, turned mournful numbers such as "I Had a Lover" and "Red Apple" into showcases for "white voice." Though that style is sometimes described as shouting, this band showed that the high-pitched intonation is musical and mesmerizing. For the show closer, "The Rain Is Falling," the band engaged in three-part harmonies and feverishly upped the tempo of this cinematic, orchestral-like composition.

Warsaw Village Band's traditional songbook doesn't contain the hooks of contemporary pop, but the glorious timbres, the galloping percussion, the driving pings of the dulcimer and the dissonant staccato stroking of the cello delivered plenty of drama.

-- Steve Kiviat

 01/11/05 >> go there
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