Jewish Music Festival Archives
Community Dance Party 2008
JCC East Bay, 1414 Walnut Street, Berkeley, CA, 94709
$12 JCC East Bay members, seniors, students $15 general
Community Dance Party
Get down as the artists of the Ark take off! Jewish dance specialist Bruce Bierman fits the moves of the ancestors into the grooves of your imagination.
Co-sponsored by the Anisman / Sherman Family and Julie Sherman in memory of Ursula Sherman
The Ark presents CYCLICAL RITUALS (part 1): Spring
Jewish Music Festival Artist Residency
Finale of the 23rd Annual Jewish Music FestivalCo-presented by the Eugene & Elinor Friend Center for the Arts, JCCSF and the Consulate General of Israel. Co-sponsored by the Taube Foundation for Jewish Life and Culture
JCC San Francisco
3200 California Street, San Francisco 94118
TICKETS: $24 members and seniors; $28 general $18 students ON SALE January 15
The Ark presents CYCLICAL RITUALS (part 1): Spring
This collaboration of nine singularly innovative artists from Israel, Ukraine, New York, New Orleans and the Bay Area is the first of what is envisioned as a series of ritual performances exploring tradition, creativity, time, environment through art and music. They all share a deep commitment to traditional music, ranging from Mississippi Delta blues, to Ukrainian village ballads, as well as Yiddish, Mizrahi, Ladino, cantorial and klezmer musical expression, and in imaginative ways, have used their talent to take these forms in creative new directions. Almost all of them have worked together before in different configurations. This new ensemble will debut in this World Premiere that will be the result of a week-long artist residency.
Ark Artists:
Frank London, Ensemble Coordinator, trumpet and keyboard. This Grammy-winning founding member of the Klezmatics, dubbed the “mystical high priest of New Wave Avant-Klez jazz,” by All About Jazz is one of the most respected composers on the international Jewish music scene.
Aaron Alexander, percussion, founding member Midrash Mish Mosh: “Firmed up by crashing cadenzas and complex unison lines, Alexander’s compositions are marked by gravitating flows and quirky motifs… [his group] combines invigorating arrangements with a prominently transmitted fun factor”. Down Beat
Avi Avital, Israeli mandolin virtuoso. “The mandolin in his hands altered the colors of sounds like a kaleidoscope, dancing to the composer’s inventory of sound, hypnotizing and amusing…” Haaretz
Stuart Brotman, bass, founding member of Brave Old World and Veretski Pass. A moving force in the klezmer revival. He produced The Klezmorim’s Grammy-nominated album, Metropolis, and has performed with Andy Statman, the Klezmer Conservatory Band, Itzhak Perlman, as well as Ry Cooder, Geoff and Maria Maldaur and many others.
Jewlia Eisenberg, vocalist, founding member, Charming Hostess. “Eisenberg’s songs are hilarious and touching, and they run the gamut from hard-edged and powerful to sweet and soulful.” New Yorker
Glenn Hartman, accordion and piano, founding member of the New Orleans Klezmer Allstars, “This genre-crossing, heroically nutty Crescent City ensemble has a raucous, wild spin on the popular Eastern European revival.” Billboard
Mariana Sadowska, Ukrainian vocalist and harmonium player. “Sometimes a musician has such an inborn desire to communicate that her message naturally becomes universal. Such is the case with [her.]” New York Times
John Schott, guitar, founding member, Dream Kitchen. This Grammy-nominated artist “offers tearing musical effects and sounds like Bill Frisell on LSD. Still, the music never descends into total chaos, although it sometimes glides very close to the edge of madness.” Dresdener Neueste Nachrichten
Jessica Ivry, Cello
Israel @ 60
St. John’s Presbyterian Church
2727 College Avenue, Berkeley, CA 94705
TICKETS: $20 members, students and seniors; $24 non-members
Israeli master percussionist Chen Zimbalista and Friends
“Totally charismatic . . . able to ignite everybody around him and makes every percussion instrument he touched sing…a rich acoustic experience that celebrates artistic freedom and open sound of life.” — Jerusalem Post
Israeli percussionist Chen Zimbalista has dazzled audiences around the world with an enchanting array of rhythmic sounds that he cajoles from more than forty instruments, played with his lightening quick hands, some of them at the same time. His music – a euphonious blend of pulses and beats – defies classification. A true feast for the senses, his programs are taken from classical, blues, jazz and occasionally rock idioms.
To celebrate Israel’s 60th birthday, Chen will focus the night’s energy on contemporary Israeli composers with pieces by Weisenberg, Shemer, Gronich and a few of his own. The program will also feature pieces by Gershwin, Bloch and Sichon.
Chen’s vibrant marimba will be augmented by percussionist Katja Cooper and Argentine pianist Josè Gallardo. Cooper is Bay Area based and has played throughout the middle east and played with a host of international artists. Gallardo is currently an assistant professor at the University of Mainz, Germany who has performed in Europe, North America, South America and Asia.
Golem
With Lord Loves a Working Man
The Rickshaw Stop
155 Fell Street, San Francisco, CA 94102
Presented in association with The Hub
TICKETS $18
Contrary to popular belief, Golem is neither a towering Jewish Frankenstein who defended the Jews of 17th Century Prague, nor a creature from Lord of the Rings. Golem is a six piece Eastern European folk-punk band.
Fronted by Annette Ezekiel – singer, accordionist, and 5-foot powerhouse; with vocalist, tambourine player, crazy-man Aaron Diskin; violin virtuoso Alicia Jo Rabins; trombonist extraordinaire Curtis Hasselbring; elegant upright bassist Taylor Bergren-Chrisman, and unstoppable drummer Tim Monaghan, Golem’s sound evokes wisps of old-world elegance filtered through the successes and disappointments of new-world dreams. Spending nights in Lower East Side immigrant-owned bagel shops and summers in Eastern Europe, Annette collects Jewish, Gypsy, and Slavic folk songs, and, with Golem, rewrites, adds, edits, and rearranges them along the way. These are the songs to which Eastern European grandparents danced over a century ago, and now Golem has its unwrinkled fans moshing to the same pulsing beats.
Unrequited love stories? Check. Drunken dances? Check. Warnings to future sons-in-law? Check. Dysfunctional families forcing kids to sell bagels on the street? Golem has ‘em all. And they may be in Yiddish (or Russian or French), but when Golem wails that the rent is too high, everybody understands.
Based out of the Mission District of San Francisco, Lord Loves A Working Man is a 9-piece band inspired by the raw and emotive sound of the Southern Soul shouters and horn-driven Rhythm & Blues of the 1960s. Mixing originals with obscure covers, LLAWM puts everything they got into respectfully invoking the spirit of old soul music while giving it their own distinct voice. “Our steamy but sweet fantasies of soulful early-1960s amour now have a soundtrack: Lord Loves a Working Man… These men pour their hearts out in songs that make audience members alternately work up a sweat and hold each other very, very close.” -SF WEEKLY