Brigitte Dajczer

Summer 2011 = Fragmented identities lead to co-habitation of conflicting ideologies...?

2011-08-03T13:49:00.004-04:00

I just came back to Montréal after playing a few shows in Alberta last week.

The anchor date was the Calgary Folk Music Festival with Geoff Berner & his Trio. From there I booked two satellite gigs off of the anchor date to promote my solo project BRIGA in Edmonton and Calgary. It turned out to be a fun 10 days... I managed to experience two realities: from team player and multi-faceted sideman, to being the soloist cultivating a new audience... all this and everything in between. I flew back to Montréal just in time to catch the tour van up to Québec city in order to play a repertoire of Algerain & North African songs with yet another project: Juno Award nominee Karim Saada @ Les Journées d'Afrique.

Recently, a peer of mine commented on how it must suck to be constantly be hired on other's gigs and to not just put 100% of my time into Briga. Funny, I thought... although I want to continue building on my project and part of that is getting more and more shows + exposure... at the same time I consider myself lucky that others are still willing to include me in their projects so that I can continue learning their music - which in turn feeds me and inspires me to create music of my own. How can that suck?!

For me this is nothing out of the ordinary, this is just a way of living life. I love learning music, I love meeting people, I love discovering new things... so I continue to work in several projects at the same time, all the while cultivating my career as a soloist. There is this idea that once a musician/sideman goes solo, they've "reached" a new level where they are too good to work for anybody else again. I totally disagree with this. We live in a day and age where all styles, genres and histories of music are coliding...and are all being listened to at the same time thanks to the wonders of the World Wide Web...

Long gone are the days of the precious diva and/or the romantic artist who couldn't do anything else but navel gaze + perform, and then be adulated by the masses. We now have pockets of audiences everywhere, ready to multitask their listening habits while pirating good music and sharing their findings with friends. How could anybody limit themselves to one project when the speed of music, media, file sharing and attention spans has taken off into the speed of light?

So there you have it folks, us musicians are capable of being multi-taskers... and we're capable of assuming multiple identities, of living multiple ideologies without being hypocrites, and of feeling more and more fragmented as the internet takes over our artform. And to the guy who felt sorry for me...well, I hope he finds himself at least one more creative outlet than the only one he has now!

Oh and by the way, here's a list of upcoming shows for the next few months. Hope to see you there...

August 7th: w/Les Gitans de Sarajevo @ Festival Lanaudiere - Joliette, Quebec
August 9th: w/Les Gitans de Sarajevo @ Traditions du Monde - Sherbrooke, QC
August 14th: w/Les Gitans de Sarajevo @ Festival Interculturel - Rimouski, QC
August 18th: w/Magillah @ Le Parc - Montreal, QC
August 21st: w/Magillah @ Festival Musique sur le Fleuve - Verchere, QC
August 27th: w/Radiotango @ Air de Tango - Montreal, QC

September 4th: w/Les Gitans de Sarajevo @ Fête de la Musique - Mont-Tremblant, QC
September 23rd: w/Briga @ Les Violons d'Automne - St-Jean-Port-Joli, QC

October 12th: /Briga @ Eros Cabaret D2D - Toronto, ON
October 13 - 15th: w/Briga @OCFF - Niagara, ON
October 22nd: w/Radiotango @ Air de Tango - Montreal, QC

Briga's rockin', but we could sure use your help

2011-06-09T18:42:00.007-04:00

ENGLISH:

6 months after her adventures in Bulgaria, Briga & the band have polished off 9 new songs to be recorded live this July 2011 in a Montreal studio. These songs are a mix of traditional and original songs inspired from Briga's tour through the Balkans, along with her studies with Bulgaria's no.1 violinist: Georgi Yanev (Георги Янев).

Along with her fervent violin and stories sung of unlikely heroes and beautiful stars, Briga goes back to a folk roots sound in this album, all the while honouring its title: Turbo Folk Stories by making a light reference to the musical genres of Serbian Turbo-Folk and Bulgarian Chalga.

Check out our indiegogo site to see how you can get involved.

FRANÇAIS:

Six mois depuis son séjour en Bulgarie, Briga et ses musiciens ont peaufiné neuf nouvelles pièces qui seront enregistré live au mois de juillet 2011 dans un studio à Montréal. Le répertoire est un mélange de pièces traditionelles et compositions inspirés de sa tournée aux Balkans et de ses études avec le grand violoniste Bulgare Georgi Yanev (Георги Янев).

L'album, qui sera intitulé Contes Turbo Folk, aura un son qui tiens fort à la source et rigeur de la musique folklorique des pays de l'Est, tout en tirant une légère inspiration de la musique Turbo-Folk de la Serbie et de la musique Chalga de la Bulgarie. Vous pourrez toujours entendre le violon envoutant de Briga, tout en savourant ses récits improbables chanté aux héros perdus et aux déesses plus réel que vrai!

Cliquez sur notre site d'indiegogo pour voir comment vous pouvez vous impliquer dans le projet!

Geoff Berner, Briga, & Rae Spoon

2011-04-13T07:28:00.000-04:00

So I just zipped back into Canada from the European tour with Geoff Berner, and we're now preparing for the Canadian shows. Make sure you catch the upcoming shows in Montréal and Toronto. I will be performing as Briga, as well as taking part in Geoff Berner's Victory Party Band. These two events are bound to be just insane.

Thursday, April 14th @ Les Bobards. Montréal, QC. Doors open at 21h30

	Tranzac (Main Hall) 292 Brunswick Avenue Toronto, ON Friday, April 15 · 8:00pm - 11:30pm

Let's keep on Rollin'

2011-01-23T11:36:00.000-05:00

Happy New Year 2011 everybody!
Seems like an eternity since I've last written... and my only excuse is that this past autumn 2010, the speed of life almost reached the speed of light itself.

I had the chance to be part of some really amazing projects, and I'd like to share them with you. This past September, Klezmer artist Geoff Berner came to Montréal to record his fourth album with none other than Socalled at the helm as producer. So before you read this, if you don't know who these two geniuses are, then I suggest you click on their names and read up on them before continuing:
Geoff Berner and Socalled

Geoff Berner has assembled a musical dream team to record his album The Victory Party, which will be released this March 2011. We have Wayne Adams on drums, Diona Davies and I on fiddle, Michael Winograd on Clarinet, Benjy Fox-Rosen on upright Bass, and our lovely wild card in from Budapest: Bob Cohen on fiddle and other gadgets. We recorded at Montréal's Treatment Room, and the result is astounding. The song "Wealthy Poet" is already seeping into the nation's households on CBC Radio's regular airplay, and I have a feeling the album will do well. You can read up more about the whole Montréal Victory Party recording sessions and shows on Bob Cohen's amazing blog- Dumneazu: Montreal: Geoff Berner, Josh Dolgin and Smoked Meat Chez Schwartz's

On to another topic, mandolin virtuoso Tom Cohen flew into Montréal from Tel Aviv to assemble Montréal's first ever Andalousian Orchestra and perform at the Montréal Sepharad Festival on November 6th 2010. I had the opportunity to be part of this amazing orchestra. To view Tom in action and my good friend vocalist Michael Abikhzer sing, you can watch the here:

After that, I left for Bulgaria to meet my violin mentor, Georgi Yanev. I spent a month there, tackling the most intricate ornaments found in the Balkans, playing Gypsy weddings and trying to avoid getting into trouble. If you want to read part I of my adventures in Bulgaria, then I suggest you click onto Briga's website . Trust me, you'll leave wanting more!

And now I'm back in Canada, laying low... writing Briga's next album (inspired by Bulgaria), rehearsing with the band and chipping away at the Summer Festival circuit. Let's keep on rollin'!

Briga @ Casa Del Popolo August 4 août

2010-07-28T08:21:00.001-04:00

Ben oui, le show de Casa del Popolo s'en vient vite et nous donnons des billets gratuits à ceux qui osent cliquer sur ce lien et aller au bas de la page: http://www.atuvu.ca/serie.php?sid=4208

MyLaSialta fera la première partie de la soirée, et nous sommes très heureux d'avoir leur énergie et son unique de la scène francophone réchauffer la salle. Vous pouvez les écouter ici: http://www.myspace.com/mylasialta

That's right, the Casa del Popolo show is in a week, and we're giving out free tickets to those who click on this site and scroll down to the bottom: http://www.atuvu.ca/serie.php?sid=4208

Mylasialta will be opening the show, and we're excited to have this band with a very unique local sound from the Francophone world join us for the evening! You can check them out at http://www.myspace.com/mylasialta

Summer 2010 Highlights - keep them hats on!

2010-06-29T11:42:00.005-04:00

I've been meaning to write this for a while, but we've been hit with quite beautiful weather here in Montréal, and I've been putting off sitting down and writing a bit. Well, this summer is going to be a beautiful one. Here's a few shows worth highlighting:

Last night I played the Montreal International Jazz Festival with the amazing and talented Amanda Mabro.

We were on the main stage and played two sets: one at 8pm and the next one at 10pm. It was a great show, free outdoors so thousands of people came out and we were spared the rain! Amanda Mabro and her team will also be playing the OSHEAGA festival on August 1st. You can check out more info on their site: http://www.osheaga.com/

Then there's the London SunFest (London, Ontario) with Hassan El Hadi. Get ready to hear some great Moroccan Groove and beautiful vocals by Sabah Lachgar. The festival runs from July 8th to the 11th. More info can be found here: http://www.sunfest.on.ca/

The month of August is gonna kick off with a BRIGA show @ Montreal's legendary venue Casa del Popolo. So come on out and check out Briga's hot gypsy grooves on August 4th, show starts at 9pm. If you still haven't checked out my solo project, here's more information: http:/www.brigamusic.com , or check out the Briga links on the right hand side of this blog...

Then it's off to Toronto for the Global Grooves festival where Les Gitans de Sarajevo will be pumping Canada's metropolis with some good old Balkan Gypsy Brass tunes on August 13th. More info here:
http://www.ydsquare.ca/

So there you have it folks! A beautiful summer is passing by, so let's jump on the train and go with the flow!

Geoff Berner & Rae Spoon Winter Prairie tour, with Briga warming up the crowd

2010-03-03T09:15:00.006-05:00

The Geoff Berner & Rae Spoon Winter Prairie tour took place from January 28th to February 7th. We played a smogasbord of lovely cities :Regina SK, Saskatoon SK, Brandon MB, Winnipeg MB, Kindersley SK, Medicine Hat AB, Lethbridge AB, Calgary AB, Edmonton AB. The last show of the tour was at The Artery in Edmonton, AB and was truly epic.
The audience mouthed every single word that slipped out of Geoff's mouth, and the trio was dripping from sweat on stage. The show was recorded by CBC Radio 2 "Concerts on Demand". Check out the link to hear the live show:

CBC Radio 2 Concerts on demand: Geoff Berner at The Artery

The tour was great, Geoff and Rae were kind enough to let me open up the evening as "Briga". I played a few songs from the new album "Diaspora" and I was delighted to discovered an all new audience. By day 3 we started getting into the swing of things and the van's touring psychology got into full swing. I was still searching for my edgy rock star character that would get me my place in the van. It wasn't helpful that I had a lousy general use of sematics and that I often got called on by Rae or Geoff for being so awkwardly politically incorrect! But after arguing with them it was in my Quebecois and Polish blood to be so dramatic and over the top, they began to warm up to me and thus at day 6-7 I metamorphosized into the label that would most get me support in that van: The hot, sexy eastern european/quebecois half breed violinist from Alberta who liked to swear like nobody's business and be purposefully "politically incorrect" all the while not insulting the current marginalized discourse of Jews, Queers, Transgendered People and other Visible Minorities. In retrospect, I was drinking a lot of whiskey and spending an average of 4 hours everyday in the van with the gang. We ate together, crashed together, breathed the collective consensus of creativity together - always with an edge - while floating down the ribbon of Highway #1 in a silver bullet minivan.

One of the big musical discoveries was the band YO MAJESTY (check them out at http://www.myspace.com/yomajesty4life ). Before every city we'd make sure to put some YO MAJESTY on. And sometimes upon entering the venue of the day, the result could be leathal...both Mr.Rae Spoon and I were at times accosted because of our ass shaking to the song "Bootie Klap". Although we didn't mean to, apparently we were suggesting to some men that we might be one of the few fuckable "females" in the night club. Eventually, we stopped our shinanigans.

At around day 10, our touring van was starting to smell bad. Yay! ;)

As a coping mechanism to displacement and identity deconstruction between days 3-7 of the tour, I found a little cactus in Winnipeg and dragged it along with us while we toured through Saskatchewan. At first, Geoff was sceptical about me bringing a plant into the van, but after my childish tantrum, "Cacti the Cactus" was assimilated into the family. But by Medicine Hat I could no longer bear the responsibility of taking care of a desert plant in such Siberian Canadian weather, and I gave it to our hostess in Medicine Hat, Ina. It was a sad parting moment because Cacti had become such an intrinsic part of our lives. From days 8 - 13 of the tour, Rae, Geoff and Wayne & I often commented about how much we missed Cacti. There were moments when I was labelled as an abandonner of small helpless plants ;)

I leave the tour stories at that kids. We had a lot of wonderful moments on stage, and on the road.

Nicolas Caloia's: Ratchet Orchestra (you aint never seen anything like this!)

2009-12-08T12:23:00.008-05:00

This Saturday December 12th, the Ratchet Orchestra will be performing at Il Motore: 179 Jean -Talon West, Mtl, QC corner of Waverly; De Castelnau Metro. ...(the new venue belonging to Sala Rossa & Casa Del Popolo owners). Show starts at 8:30pm, and those willing to come out and listen will be greeted with a 30 piece orchestra playing compositions by Nicolas Caloia and Sun Ra.

For those of you who have never heard the Ratchet Orchestra, or even have the slightest clue of what this brilliantly clunky and musically complex phenomenon is about....here's the myspace link for you to listen to:

Ratchet Orchestra MYSPACE

Last but not least, here's the list of musicians that will be involved in December 12th's show:

BLOODSHOT BILL - Vox
Craig Dionne - Flute
Jean Derome - Bass Flute
Lori Freedman - Clarinet
Gordon Krieger - Bass clarinet
Bryan Highbloom - Soprano sax
Louisa Sage - Alto Sax
Damian Nisenson - Tenor sax
Ida Toninato - Baritone sax
Jason Sharp - Bass sax
Gordon Allen - Trumpet
Philippe Battikha -Trumpet
Thea Pratt - Eb horn
Eric Lewis - Euphonium
Tom Walsh - Trombone
Jacques Gravel - Bass Trombone
Noah Countability - Sousaphone
Cathy Inouye - Sousaphone
Joshua Zubot - Violin
Brigitte Dajczer - Violin
Guido Del Fabbro - Violin
Jean René - Viola
Gen Heistek -Viola
Norsola Johnson - Cello
Nicolas Caloia - Contrabass
Chris Burns - Guitar
Guillame Dostaler - Piano
Ken Doolittle - Percussion
Michel Bonneau - Conga
Robert Kraft - Drums
John Heward - Drums

Hope to see you there!

Amanda Mabro & Elsianne @ Cabaret Juste pour Rire

2009-11-26T17:39:00.004-05:00

I first saw Elsiane back in 2007 at Metropolis' small room. François had called me out of the blue and suggested we go check her out. The evening was amazing; I can honestly say that I've never heard a beautiful voice like that. And she was surrounded by a great band and the ambiance of the show was very intense and satisfying!

So ffw to November 27th, and what a coincidence that I'll be backing up Amanda Mabro at Cabaret Just pour Rire...and that Amanda and Elsiane are doing a double bills for the evening. This show is bound to be a night of way too much vocal expertise and magnitude delivered by two astounding Divas! I most recommend that if you're in Montréal this Friday evening, you must come out to Cabaret Just Pour Rire!! Show starts @ 8:30pm, tickets are 20 in advance and 25 at the door...

Les Gitans de Sarajevo: Balkan Dance CD release party @ Sala Rossa

2009-11-16T21:45:00.002-05:00

On Thursday, November 19th, Les Gitans de Sarajevo will be releasing their fourth album titled: Balkan Dance @ Sala Rossa. Tune in to see this 7 piece band gipsy groove out La Sala Rossa!

Show starts at 8:30pm, and tickets at the door ($20) include a free Balkan Dance CD!

Come on down, and not too late because the band will be playing all the songs from the album, and the show won't last longer than an hour!

BRIGA : November 2nd @ Cabaret Le Lion d'Or, Montreal, QC

2009-10-21T10:17:00.004-04:00

On Monday, november 2nd 2009, we will be celebrating the Briga CD launch at the Cabaret Le Lion d'Or! Not only will we be playing pretty much the whole repertoire from the album, but we'll be screening Lyle Pisio's animated short that features Briga'S song: "EMPRESS".

Doors open @ 8pm, show starts at 8:30pm

$12 + tax & fees, $15 at the door

To purchase, please call Billeterie Articulée: 514-844-2171 ou www.admission.com

Briga, alias Brigitte Dajczer, will be performing an exhilirating show of wild violin that showcases original compositions, and arrangements of romanian, bulgarian, and ex-yugoslavian gypsy repertoire.

With Jeremi Roy on bass, Marton Maderspach on the drums, Alix Noël on keyboard and accordeon, and Tacfarinas Kichou on percs, BRIGA offers you eastern european, balkan and gypsy repertoire, mixed up with either a heavy groove or sensual lyrics... The improvisational talent of all musicians shines and the energy guarantees a night of dancing!

Les Gitans de Sarajevo on Youtube AND CDBABY

2009-09-18T23:46:00.002-04:00

Here's a great clip of us playing a televised Concert from ARTV's series: "La Symphonie du Nouveau Monde". Here is a synopsis of the project:
"Cette série propose un voyage aux quatre coins du globe (Bolivie, Maroc, Bosnie-Herzégovine, Sénégal, Guadeloupe, Costa Rica, Haïti, Vietnam, Madagascar, Japon, Inde et Tchad) en compagnie de douze musiciens du monde, originaires de ces pays et qui vivent maintenant au Canada.
Dans le plus ambitieux projet de sa carrière, le directeur musical Luc Boivin (Belle et Bum) adapte avec eux La Symphonie du Nouveau Monde, première œuvre classique inspirée de la diversité culturelle, composée par le tchèque Antonin Dvorak en 1893."

And if you want to get into some other musical highlights that Les Gitans de Sarajevo have enjoyed in the past couple of years, check out last years' clip of the song Zsa Zsa performed on BELLE et BUM:

So now it's 2009, and Les Gitans de Sarajevo have their 4th album out, after 10 years under our belt!! The CD is out, designed by none other than the amazing ZORA SAUVAGE! Check out Les Gitans de Sarajevo's website: http://www.lesgitans.info and if you want to buy a cd, go to www.cdbaby.com! OPA!

Briga: Debut album Diaspora out and about and onsale!

2009-07-19T10:47:00.010-04:00

If you are interested in getting a copy of Briga's new double CD album "Diaspora", check out CD Baby & itunes...!

Exciting? Yes ;) Daunting? Yes ;p Relieving & Stressful? All of the above!
A lot of people have come into play in realizing this dream. Many faces, chapters and encounters have been met, and I'd like to dedicate this post to all of them. So I figured I'd break it down to a few anecdotes of interesting times we've shared up until now. Here's a photo of Studio Karisma sound genius Guy Hébert & I during the Mastering of the Album. We spent a very relaxed day together, listening, going to the Polish Bakery, eating so many wonders of food, and drinking tea. Oh...did I mention that we worked hard?!

And after waiting to get the design and printing lined up...It's finaly arrived! A very narrow miss but it all worked out!
The goal was to have the CD ready to share with music lovers at a show we played last night in Ste-Geneviève, Québec. Our good friends at Standard Media Services (www.standardmedia.ca) had shipped the order out from Ottawa to Montreal on August 11th, with the goal of it arriving at my place before noon on August 12th.

As profound stupidity would have it, the order was missed and was now floating somewhere around the island of Montréal in a Purolator truck before it would be retired at the Purolator Headquarters in ANJOU @ 6:30pm. Let me remind you that the show was due to start at 7:30pm and end no later than 8:30pm. The manager, Joe Cuntrera, was facing the possibility that he just might have to drive all the way out to Anjou (about 40 minutes each way) during the show to get those CDs.

Needless to say, what happened next was a gift. On his way to come pick us up before the gig, Joe took a wrong turn and found himself face to face with a Purolator truck. He pulled over and managed to catch the guy in the truck. "Excuse-me, would you by any chance have a box of 1000 CDs that weren't deliverable?" The guy answered "YES!" They checked the name, and it was definitey our order!

So that's that! The CDs were retrieved, Joe never had to drive to Anjou and we got to La Salle Pauline Julien in time for the gig.

As for the album release, it was scheduled for October 2nd at Café Sarajevo but news has it that Café Sarajevo has just lost a court case in regards to being a live music venue. So while we search for a new venue to release the album, we will be selling CDs through CD Baby, itunes and mail order....

à+!
Briga ;)

Dan Meichel: Show them how it really is Danny boy - don't rest in peace!

2009-04-23T00:23:00.003-04:00

On Monday morning, April 20th, Paula Fayerman wrote on Facebook: Dear Friends, Dan Meichel died while on tour in Japan. It is thought he had a heart attack. I will miss Dan's smiles and of course hearing him play and sing. I'ld like to do a tribute to Dan on noise this Thursday April 16 from 9:00-10:30 pm. If you have a story or song or hello, please let me know. I'm not sure how to organize this yet, but maybe we can have people drop by CJSW 90.9 studios or call in.

Monday evening, Lyle Pisio called me and confirmed the news. There will be a tribute to Dan this Thursday evening, on CJSW radio from 9ho0 - 10h30h. Check out CJSW's website to hear the live broadcast: www.cjsw.com. Look for Paula Fayerman's NOISE show. As a tribute to Dan, I will post the letter of support that I wrote for his trip to Japan.

To whom It May Concern,
I am writing this letter in support of Dan Meichel’s endeavor to go to Japan, research, discover, and play with artists who approach sound in unique ways. It would be in his best interest to leave Calgary, AB for six months, acquire fresh experiences and to bring back to the prairie community different and challenging ideas.
It is through Dan Meichel and the tiny Noise community in Calgary that I was initiated to the art of improvisation. Little did I know that these formative years would lead to my ability to be a diverse and adaptable player, with a creative and fearless approach to improvisation, be it in jazz, folkore music of different countries, or any other style.
Dan has touched the Calgary Arts Community on all levels. He crosses over from music, to theatre, to dance and visual art happenings. This includes having worked with Alberta Theatre Projects, One Yellow Rabit Theatre, Street of Crocodiles’ celebration of the New Gallery’s 25th anniversary, and Peter Moller’s Shrine of Impossible Love.
Please consider Dan Meichel as a not only one musician who would benefit from going overseas to discover and learn new forms of approaching sound and performance, but an artist who would bring back to an entire prairie community a much needed boost of creative energy.
Sincerely,
Brigitte Dajczer

Carmen's top picks

2009-01-14T22:21:00.016-05:00

My violin mentor, Carmen, is back in town. A Romanian Rrom who comes from a long lineage of violin virtuosos, Carmen changed my playing, my outlook on life and my approach to music. Eventually, I'll dedicate a post to him, his story and how we met but for now I leave you with Carmen's lesson of the day. Unlike in the beginning where we worked on actual violin technique and repertoire, now our lessons mostly consist of Carmen and I sitting down, having a coffee and watching youtube clips. Here are some clips of top violinists and virtuoso musicians...

Romanian Violinist Ovidiu Bartes...
Take the time to sit through the whole 6:45mins of his exquisit playing. Please listen to his perfectly executed mordentos (ornaments), and near the end (4:55mins) the pace picks up. Not only is his technique impeccable, but at times I think I see a playfulness and delicate touch of joie de vivre in his interpretation (0:46mins). Absolutely delightful!

A duel between Serbian accordeon virtuoso Dejan Kostic (aka Mozart), the legendary Romanian accordeonist Ionica Minune & Romanian accordeon virtuoso Marian Mexicanu

Chinese virtuoso Chuan Yun Li playing a unique version of Paganini's 24th Caprice in A minor. I love how he shakes his head at the end of the piece. I don't know which one I was more blown away by: the arrangement or his playing...

Serbian Romani artist (i think...) Miki Cortan's mind blowing solos on Yamaha keyboards. As of 0:24 mins he's eating up tips like there's no tomorrow...and the more tips there are, the more madness there is. I wish I could play the violin with such reckless abandon !! (I don't know why there's a 2-3 second delay in the sound synch....oh well, enjoy)

à+
Brigitte

Butterflies and Kisses

2009-01-03T03:50:00.028-05:00

Happy New Year! It's January 3rd, and I'm finally back home (Montréal). Today was spent in Luc Boivin's studio (www.studio.tapageur.ca) recording with Quebecois/Moroccan artists Hassan El Hadi and Sabah Bounit. They are currently working on Hassan's album, and today he had guests in such as Quebecois Trad Icon Yves Lambert (Bottine Souriante & Le Bébert Orchestra-www.lapruchelibre.com/lambert), Bambara Trans mastermind Khalil Abouabdelmajid (www.bambaratrans.com) and I. The day was "quietly spent" recording tracks, hanging out in the studio and chatting over coffee and fast food.

Being back home actually had an impact on me. For the first time I realized that perhaps...just maybe...I was feeling "At Home" like most people would define it. Whereas in the past, I never quite felt at home in the environment I lived in: raised in Calgary, I was still being told to "learn how to speak english you immigrant" even though I was perfectly fluent in both languages and oh so Canadian. This left me feeling like I definitely wasn't at home in Calgary, so I had come to define home as "my own personal home...my home within" (with a motion towards the heart). Returning to live in Montreal along with the extensive touring/traveling in the past years has continued to solidify my idea of "home within", mostly as a coping mechanism for artists and future generations to pull themselves together in the midst of cultural, geographic, social and emotional states of displacement. More and more people in the world are experiencing this today, so it's only natural to adapt. But back to Luc Boivin's studio, and the friends & peers I found myself amoungst...

I felt "at home" with them simply because they provided me with familiarity and a safe feeling. This was due to a combination of the following ingredients: common shared space (recording studio), common shared interestests (music), a project bringing us together (Hassan's CD) and most importantly, a solid foundation of past experiences shared amoungst each of us. This group today is a microcosm of a larger community of Quebecois/Canadian/International artists that have been criss-crossing in and out of each other's projects, shows, and lives for a long time. It's through this network of memories and work stories that we are brought together and feel "connected".

Being home brought me back to reflecting on the Montreal Jazz Festival 2008 show we played with Amanda Mabro this past summer (www.amandamabro.com). While in Europe, I suddenly became aware of being disconnected from my femininity and I suddenly longed to confide in a female friend...someone who felt my language. Years in the music business has turned me into an Egg: cold and hard on the outside (for the freelance female musician must be a supremely virtuose playing machine better than any male counterpart to simply be seen as: "a good musician"), and at the same time within this egg shell holds an oh so soft, warm and fragile being. Laugh if you will, the result is a career and no personal life. No personal life is in a way...no home. No "home" is the saddest thing that could happen to a human being. Having met Amanda Mabro and working with her for barely a year now, Amanda's warm and emotional spirit forced me to open up.

The night we played the Montreal Jazz Festival was the closing Saturday night of the event. Amanda was scheduled to play from 8-9 & 10-11pm on the Rio Tinto Alcan stage. Although it was a prime time spot, I was in denial and nonchalantly went shopping at Complexe Desjardins minutes before we were to do soundcheck. Once on stage, I only noticed the ocean of people after the first song, when a roar of clapter & screaming pushed the energy we had put out from onstage 20 fold back into our faces. That evening, I would later find out that each set we played was witnessed by 20 000 people. The energy from the mob was intense...A long long time ago I lost the feeling of Butterflies in my stomach (that you get from being nervous before a show). But adrenaline plays tricks on your mind. Maybe those Butterflies had flown away from my stomach decades ago...but a new feeling emerged: a dry mouth, sweaty hands and the tingling feeling of kisses in the palms of my hands. At the end of the show, it was announced that Amanda would be signing CDs. I wandered around a bit before meeting up with her and the band at the tent. The line-up was incredible, and I was accosted by people who recognized me from the show. A couple teenage girls completely freaked out and were jumping all over me. Once things calmed down, everybody in the band, along with their significant other, started making their way to the metro. I remained alone; remember...no personal life. We took the metro to our respective homes, agreeing that we'd meet up at Boule Noir to celebrate this important evening. High from such an amazing show, adrenaline still running through my system, I opened the door to the empty apartment. I crashed. The evening went from total joy and adulation, to an unbearable loneliness. I had arrived "home", but in a way...to no home. For somewhere in this whole equation of success, I had forgotten to build close love & friendships outside of the working music environment.

And the point of this story? omg...are you still reading this blog? Well, a lot of reflecting on how to create healthy balance between work and play. So the Hollywood ending is as follows: Since then, Amanda & I's connection continues to grow, I try to spend more time hanging out with friends who aren't professional musicians, and there's always those wonderful moments when you find yourself in a studio with a bunch of old working buddies and think to yourself: "I'm happy to be home". May you all have a beautiful year of 2009, full of butterflies and kisses.

Flashback: 06/12/05 = United Nations Climate Change Conference 2005: A truly Montreal experience

2008-12-26T09:52:00.023-05:00

A quick flashback to December 6th, 2005. This entry was taken from a gig diary I had before I started the Blog. CONTEXT: At the time, I played three times a week @ a theatre called: La Maison Hantée. Peter Snow, a magician from La Maison Hantée was co-booking the talent for the United Nations Climate Change Conference (UNFCCC)/Gala Evening that would be hosted in Montreal's Biodôme (www2.ville.montreal.qc.ca). The first Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (MOP1) was held in Montreal from 28 November to 9 December 2005, along with the 11th conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC (COP11).
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Conférence des nations Unies sur les changements climatiques
United Nations climate Change Conference
Soirée Culturelle du Canada
Canadian cultural Evening
Au/At the Biodôme (December 6th, 2005)

J-F Ouellete (washtub bass), Stéphane Boucher (trumpet and ukelayle) and I (violin) played at the Biodôme this evening.

About a week ago, we went to the Radio Canada (CBC) headquarters on René Lesveque and were fitted with these ugly lime green men’s suites. Each suite was labeled with a piece of laminate paper giving details about the costume (what T.V. show it was from, the date of the production, the name of actor etc.) All I can remember is 1981, and Roy Dupuis' name (Shake Hands with the Devil-2007, The Rocket-Maurice Richard 2005, etc. ) written on J-F’s suite tag. The lime green suit jackets were accompanied by tacky shirts to go underneath. After a half hour of searching for the most embarrassing combination, our costumist found us men’s blouses with rococo lace and frills around the buttons. I got the fluorescent pink one, J-F the baby yellow and Stephane: amber. We each got silk bow ties to match our silk kerchiefs of which I can only remember mine being sky blue. I was the only lucky one to be given purple suede platform shoes to match the tiny purple lines in my plaid lime green pants (this was mostly due to the fact that the pants were too long for me, so platform shoes were a quick solution.) Oh yeah…we were off to a good start!

Upon our arrival at the Biodôme, we were greeted by the salty smell of a pond being drained out to be cleaned. Passes were given to us after we presented ID, in which I had to wait an extra ten minutes because the girl could not find my name on the list. There were a few rules laid out for us: 1. We were told not to play in the Biodôme’s ecosystems. 2. The animals were not to be disturbed 3. We were not to speak to the delegates and heads of state unless spoken to first. After wandering through the halls unsure of where we would settle down and play…we decided to do our make-up & hair, while waiting for the place to fill up before getting started. The last touch to the outfit was the green clay (Argile) put on our faces and in our hair. I put my hair in two French braids and had no difficulties making the ends stick straight outta my head with the clay: I had a wire placed through my braided pig tails so that I had a Pippi Longstocking look. I got a little on the suit and prayed that CBC wouldn’t come after me.

We found a secluded corner and started playing. It felt so cold…we felt so out of place…so after barely 10 minutes of playing, we stopped and decided to find a better place to play. We strolled around and noticed kiosks devoted to food and alcohol. Waiters started offering us sushis, as well as Québec wine. After 5 servings of sushi, and one or two glasses of wine, we felt properly warmed up and started playing. We wandered around as we played our music; gathering from the looks on delegates faces we must have seemed funny. I had already decided that I felt like a glorified clown with a red violin glued to my argile covered neck, so I went with it. Amoungst us Artists was a Hugger Busker, some Faux waiters and waitresses, the two Cirque du Soleil lizard girl acrobats slinking around on the glass ceiling of the Biodome, the Montreal Gospel Choir, and many more.

We eventually found a prime performance spot; in the front couloire where 80% of the delegates where schmoozing. As we played, the waiters (during such events like this one, considered equals in the brotherhood of servers vs musicians) brought us drinks and food…interrupting our playing with hedonistic gifts for the mouth, spirit and soul. Security came up to us and told us there had be complaints regarding performers consuming food and wine. We were warned for the first time. J-F & Stéphane stuck to their guns; they used their boyish charms and flirted with the waitresses. They got the waitresses on our side and soon after the girls brought food and drinks to us secretly. I drank and ate too much. We looped the repertoire and improvised in between, shouting out sporatic vowels and grunts. It felt as if our playing was permanently out of tune, but the rhythm J-F held on the washtub bass kept the crowd going. Some shouted out “Tom Waits”, and others stared, curious. We continued playing and met some of the most beautiful people:

1. A man from South Carolina enjoyed our tunes. He often stood a few feet away and watched us…grabbing wine from the waiters and offering it to us. We shook our heads "no", but still grabbed the drinks.

2. A woman from South Asia came up to us with tears. I assumed they were tears of joy, for she had a pleasant smile on her face. As we played through her emotions she went up to Stephane, J-F and I, and barely grazing the surface of our cheeks, gave us a kiss so soft yet powerful in its teared understatement. She took the time to give each of us one. Light & fragile, it was a kiss of bliss that sent shivers down my spine...

3. Delegates from all over the world wanted to get their pictures taken with us. We had many people insist on taking pictures of themselves with us, and videotape of our performance. A group from Botswana…some Quebecois women, even a group from Japan…

4. At one point during the evening, I found myself standing still; a glass of wine in my right hand and the violin on the left, staring at two penguins who were staring right back at me. Glass separating them from I, we were only a meter away from each other. Some US politician was standing next to me staring at them as well. I looked over at him, we made eye contact...he seemed startled to be staring at me…then back to penguins…back to me...back to them...it must have been so surreal for him.

As the night went on, we ran into the South Carolina man very often. Throughout the Biodome, I would see him and he’d cheer us on while we played...at some point we had a couple of seconds to chat. Immediately, we were warned a second time; not to be too friendly with the delegates – or to drink & eat their food. Still playing a set that now stretched out to be about 3 1/2 hours long, the last I saw of him was at the end of the evening when I finally put my instrument down. As he slurped away at a fresh water oyster next to a food kiosk, he asked me what my favorite food was. I didn’t know where to start (after all, there are so many yummy foods worth eating! i thought to myself), so he offered me a fresh water oyster while asking me if I had ever tried them before. “No” I answered, and as I tried my first oyster he commented on how erotic it was. Hmmm....me in a clown costume with Argile all over my face and hair, and a South Carolina delegate in an expensive suite in the middle of the Biodome eating oysters with tabasco sauce...I sure hope he got the "Canadian Cultural Evening" he was looking for. We ate a couple more oysters not saying much, looking at each other. Then J-F & Stéphane called me over to pack our stuff. 5 hours had gone by since the beginning of the evening (of which we played one long set of 3 1/2 hours) and it was time to leave. Before leaving the Biodôme, I went to the washroom and caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. The green argile had worn off around my temples and neck from sweating, and my mouth showed traces of wine drinking; a red ring with green argile cracks. I was embarrassed at the sight of me! What a horrendous looking violin clown I was.

As for the results of this Conference? According to some articles, it was a great success in that the event marked the entry into force of the Kyoto Protocol. The UNFCCC hosted more than 10,000 delegates, it was one of Canada's largest international events ever and was the largest gathering in Montreal since Expo 67. Back then Stéphane Dion was the Environment Minister and according to Wikipedia: The Montreal Action Plan is an agreement hammered out at the end of the conference to "extend the life of the Kyoto Protocol beyond its 2012 expiration date and negotiate deeper cuts in greenhouse-gas emissions." (CBC's The National).

Quartier Matonge, Ixelles-Brussels with Jeff Kavanda

2008-12-03T15:24:00.040-05:00

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Touring with Geoff Berner in the Netherlands

2008-11-26T08:57:00.011-05:00

On the morning of November 17th, I flew into Paris, caught a train to Liège (BE) from Gare du Nord, took the #4 bus to rue Surlet and arrived just time for soundcheck for Geoff Berner's show. From there we toured through Amsterdam (Nuewe Anita), Haalem (Patronaat), Vaals, Middleburg (Kaffe t'Hof) and back to Amsterdam.

Every show had its own flavour, and although everyone of them was a success, perhaps the most memorable moments for me would have to be:

1. Playing to an over capacity crowd of 200 at the Nuewe Anita (Amsterdam), where some didn't get into the venue because of lack of space, most watched us from a second floor balcony hollering as if it were a real punk show, and once the whiskey ran out for Geoff and I, the owner quickly brought us a 32oz bottle of Vodka to keep us in top performance shape.

2. playing Kaffee t'Hof (Middleberg), where the ultra hip and styling venue owner gave us some top notch whiskey that had a huskey-smokey taste. His collection of religious iconography statues were sporatically placed throughout the bar; all of them missing a limb...and he insisted on tipping us an extra 100 Euros because he truly enjoyed our show.

3. 5 shows in 6 days, with a quick stoppover to see the Norwegan band: Kaizers Orchestra play @ Tivoli's in Utrecht on our only night off. Geoff was invited on stage to play "Whiskey Rabbi" with them, we got to walk around Utrecht (which, b.t.w. is perhaps even prettier than Amsterdam...and it's canal is straight out of a fairy tale), and I got to share my first DUVEL beer with Norwegan guitarist Geir Zahl, my partner in crime: Geoff, and a bunch of Kaizers Orkestra groupies. Did you know that their groupies like to buy them large Chocolates in the shape of the first letter of their names? Wow! Why don't I get groupies like that?! LOL

5. Elizabeth, the lovely Austrian PH.D student who rode her bicycle 30km one way and 30km back to see the show, all this through a snow storm.

6. And of course, there was the attemp to live up to Amsterdam's reputation by attempting to smoke Barney's joints. The result was a pathetic duo; Geoff and I getting lost in the streets of Amsterdam, Geoff catching the train and I missing it because I wasn't quick enough to figure out what was going on, me almost leaving my violin behind on the train, and us being sick the morning after...with my speaking to the dutch waiter in french for some unknown reason. We both concluded that we are not made for Amsterdam's green stuff.

Check out Geoff Berner's new CD "Klezmer Mongrels" at www.geoffberner.com or www.myspace.com/geoffberner

Face to face with a Bootleg = $15 CAN

2008-11-15T13:05:00.011-05:00

Here it is: the Bootleg I suspected was floating around of an epic gig I played at Théâtre Corona in 2004 with the following musicians at Le Festival du Monde Arabe. The show was a concept gig where musicians from the Occident meet musicians/mystic sufists from the Orient:

Montrealers:
Michel Donato (contrabass - played with Oscar Peterson), Thom Gossage (drums - top canadian drummer), Thuryn Von Pranke (keyboard - internationally renown musician), Jeremiah McDade (woodwinds/multi-instrumentalist - tours the world with The McDades), and me (violin).

Morrocans - 8 morrocan sufists from Tangier & Marrakech:
Abdellah El Gourd, Abdelkader El Khiley, Lahcen Alti-Llah Khalid, Rahali, Mohamed Benothman, Ahmed Benothman, M'Barek Benothman, and Najib Senhadji

First off, I never signed any document that would allow this to come out. Beyond that, I have many mixed emotions about it all: from surprise & disdain at the fact that I had to buy a CD that I contributed to the musical phenomena of...for $15 CAN...and knowing that I, nor any of the other musicians, will never ever see a cent of it - to an ironic sense of accomplishment when my friend Joe looked over at me (as I borrowed $15 from him to buy the CD) and he said in awe: "Wow, you have bootlegs of your playing floating around?! Cool..."

One thing for certain: my investigation about the circulating rumours of an existing CD is now over. Three years ago I got in a cab and the cabbie was playing a CD that had a very distinctive violin and sax playing wrapped in a gnawa trance of Karkabouhs. I asked the guy what show it was and he proudly explained "Gnawa El Jazz". I then went through the underground arabic community rumour mill... (also labeled by the community as "le téléphone arabe") and found out that my friend Nazir had a copy of the CD. It took me a year of playing phone tag with him to get a copy of it. That was last year (2007). And just when I though it was all behind me, two weeks ago I ended up at a Nomadic Massive show and found the official bootleg on sale.

That's all folks. I'm not ready to go into a full on sermon about bootlegs and all that shit. Especially not when we live with the World Wide Web and we download everything to high heavens for little money or free. All I can say is that as a musician living in these modern times, we work/live like dogs trying to pay the bills and we scramble like rats in hopes for our music to be heard and appreciated. We are stupid enough to leave it to others to make the money off of our backs. And that's where I want to change.

Autumn Campfires and the search for home

2008-11-01T11:18:00.008-04:00

I just spent a week greeting/hosting/entertaining a friend visiting from High River, Alberta. When I was living out west, we played Greek Rembetika (the greek blues) together in a band called: The Rembetika Hipsters. To this day, he is one of the greatest collaborators I've had the chance to create music with. Let's call him Eleftarios...he chooses to be somewhat anonymous.Here he stands, in the shadows, at Quai des Brumes...enjoying the equally mysterious and elusive Montreal band: "Phantom Power"...

Anyways, he arrived at the airport at 0h30h. That same evening I was invited by some people to go have a campfire on the mountain. I was told that there would be balalaikas, guitars and they needed a violin or two at least. Although I hadn't really met any of these people (except for Mirjana...who shares some of the same circle of friends), and being the curious creature that I am I decided to go for it...I enjoy meeting new people. Being the horrible hostess that I am and leaving everything to the last minute, I texted (sms) Eleftarios to tell the cab driver to drop him off somewhere in the middle of nowhere...downtown - I hadn't had the chance to tell him about the campfire before he caught his flight.

So around 01h00 I ran down to get him, and made him drag his stuff up the mountain, saxophone included. He complained about his old knees but once at the top and in front of the view, it all dissipated. It was a beautiful autumn evening...perhaps the last evening of 2008 that brought us perfect weather to have a campfire before the temperature would cool down drastically and the snow would come. We sat around eating random snacks (from poppy seed muffins, to rye bread and sausages) and drinking wine, rum and vodka. Since we were a mix of Russians, Serbians, Canadians, Mexicans and one American, the same old Montreal topic came up: Notions of Home. And I now leave you with a text that Eleftarios wrote, as a Canadian, about his ideas of what home is:
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ELEFTARIOS wrote in responce to the CBC radio broadcast of "Mashup": "Listened with interest to your 24 June program. I too have been culturally dislocated by paths taken in life, but I have never emigrated to a foreign land. It's natural to feel "homesick" for your place of origin, to wonder about your true identity amongst a new culture. But have you ever been homesick at home? I have.
I am a musician and I have travelled and performed in many places far from Canada. I have had the great joy of working alongside artists from Mexico, Jamaica, Venezuela, Granada, Poland, India, Afghanistan, the Balkans, Africa and other places I seem to have forgotten at the moment. I speak only English and a bit of bad Spanish. Most of the artists I've worked with have had less English ability than my bad Spanish. Nonetheless, we are able to interact through a universal language: music (plus knowing how to say "beer" and "please" in about 20 languages).
Whenever I return to my home in the foothills of Alberta after one of these journeys, I have the distinct feeling of not belonging, that it is not "home". In fact, I am homesick for something other. I am dislocated from the world beyond, my real home. At various times of my life, I have felt home to be the Mexican city of Merida, a village in the French Pyrenees, the mountains of Epirus in Greece, and the upper Rhine valley from whence my ancestors fled the devastation of the Napoleonic wars, sojourned for a century in southern Russia, then came to Canada to flee the devastation of the Bolsheviks.
From these Teutonic ancestors, I have inherited some genetic condition of homelessness. I am a point on a very long thread, one of the great human migrations of history. But I'm not the end of the thread because I own a nice house in Canada and hold a steady job with RSP's and dental benefits. My children continue the journey, living and learning in far away places, and cultivating friends from all corners of the world.

This is where it starts, when you grow up and exit the house where your parents maintain your bedroom, just to see what is out there. Emigration can be within your own culture, indeed within your own little village. It's not about place, it's about place of mind.
A long time ago, on another CBC program about Roma people, I heard a story of how the gypsies find the place where they stop roaming. At marriage, the couple is given two different colours of lentils and an empty jar. Everyday they each put a lentil in the empty jar: one colour represents a good day, the other a not-so good day. When the jar is full, it is emptied and they start over.
Eventually, a day will come when the jar is full of mostly good-day lentils. This is the time when husband and wife will cease wandering and put down roots. This is where home is found, and it may be a patch of ground next door to where you were born.
I realize your program is about immigration (arriving) and less about emigration (leaving). But the two words are opposite sides of the same coin. I doubt that I will ever come to a full stop in some far away land, unless I am overcome at last by a bottle of retsina on some cafe patio in Metsovo."

Jorge Martinez, Les Violons d'Automne & Cesaria Evora

2008-10-03T17:04:00.002-04:00

Back in January 2008, I got a call from Flamenco virtuoso Jorge Martinez, asking me if I'd be into playing with him in September of 2008 at a violin festival in Saint-Jean-Port-Jolie. Of course was the answer, I learned the repertoire as quickly as time would allow (about 10 days prep time and two rehearsals w/Jorge, not the band), and Jorge & his ensemble picked me up on Sept. 17th and off we drove to the gig.

Saint-Jean-Port-Jolie is located about an hour 1/2 north east of Quebec City. It is right on the edge of the Saint-Laurent river and quite beautiful. The show went very well, and people went crazy. Before we started, the hall was already full and people had to stand in the back and the aisles. Jorge had suggested that I choose a song from my repertoir for JMZ to play, so I picked a serbian gypsy song "Ederlezi" to begin the second set. To my surprise, people recognized the song, screamed and got up to dance. For the remainder of the second set, the whole hall was up and dancing. yes..."it was a grrreeeeat success:! And on top of that, we shared some wonderful moments...

But talking about success, Jorge's team were so happy with the connection that we shared on stage, that a week after Les Violons d'Automne, they invited me to come and hang out back stage at Place des Arts' Salle Wilfred Pelletier and watch them open for Cesaria Evora. Here they are warming up during soundcheck:

Now this must have been the first time that I'd be at a show but not playing it. And what a wonder it was! First of, the food rider set up by Spectra was amazing. And as foolish of a girl as I am...having an undying love for food...I spent a good portion of the evening eating from the buffet. So much so that Spectra was not very impressed by my table manners and Jorge's manager, Joe, did hear about it. Besides that, let's focus on the music now. Jorge blew the crowd away. Many shows I have seen, and many shows I have contributed to getting people up on their feet and dancing like there was no tomorrow, but this one sent shivers up my spine. At the last song of the set, I got up from the soundman's booth and decided to walk up to the side of the stage...

I turned around to look at the concert hall instead of the artists on stage. It was amazing; the hall was sold out and everybody was up and clapping their hands to the beat. You have to understand that Place des Arts' salle Wilfred Pelletier hosts l'Opera de Montreal and the OSM and the audience that comes with season tickets. I would've never expected to see this demographic up and dancing. You can view it on MySpace TV on Jorge's site: www.myspace.com/jorgemartinezJMZ

The ice was broken, the crowd was sold and warmed up...ready to see Cesaria Evora come on stage next. Cesaria was amazing. The timber of her voice blew me away, Her stage presence was anti-presence. So casual and indifferent to her surroundings was her demeanor, for all one knows Cesaria could have been performing for 4 people at an intimate cafe. It was difficult to get back to reality and realize she was performing in front of thousands. I found her truly amazing...and besides seeing her pass by back stage, I didn't get to be closer to her than that. But her warm voice filled us all with a feeling of having spent a wonderful evening!

Summer 2008 (part III): BRIGA - a gentle beginning

2008-08-31T01:51:00.001-04:00

CUTV's "l'Obscure" has just uploaded on YouTube a 5 minute spotlight on BRIGA. Enjoy!

Summer 2008 (part II): oh Devla, where are you now?

2008-08-24T16:35:00.006-04:00

So I've spent my days hanging out at Laurier pool, then going home and trying to practice & compose, and then finishing off with more swimming at the McGill pool. I'm enjoying it, and that's the closest I'm going to get to a vacation in the countryside; my weekends are always riddled with shows.

On Friday night we played Cafe Sarajevo. Usually we're three or four at the most...but Boris and I found ourselves to be the only ones available that evening. Oh dear...I thought to myself...it's gonna be a night of Boris on beatbox & cheezy keyboard, and me improvising solos for three whole long sets, for little gratification or money. oh Devla, Devla...where are you now? Thinking about the mysteries of Devla got me to reflecting. How faces have come and gone throughout my summer, and always enjoyable. I feel lucky; One minute I was playing my sister's wedding in the Canadian Rockies...

the next I'm in front of 20 000 people with Amanda Mabro at the Jazz fest...

another day I've got a mediocre violinist in the metro making fun of my violin case; while the evening before Les Gitans de Sarajevo were performing au Théâtre de Verdure; a beautiful outdoor amphitheatre in Parc Lafontaine...

one afternoon we're in Studio Victor A finishing up Amanda Mabro's tracks...

then we're dancing the pre-show ritual before Jeff Kavanda's performance au Festival du Bout du Monde, Gaspé...

and the next day I'm in Cafe Sarajevo: playing in front of mafiosos that look at me as if I'm a whore. Ah well...maybe I am a courvah (whore)-if it means making a living at this profession. who knows....

All I know is that I do what I do, and Devla watches quietly. And friday night at Cafe Sarajevo, as I was setting up for a long night, I wondered about Devla and if Devla is with us, if Devla cares about those who are lucky and/or unlucky in life, if Devla breathes into our dreams when we sleep at night, or if Devla watches over our loved ones; ex. my father (recently diagnosed with multiple myeloma)...or if Devla is entertained by the chaos of the world we created...if Devla is busy right now and simply hasn't taken notice of our existence yet. At that very moment I'm tempted to curse and/or hail this existence under my breath, and as if I've stired somethin' in the air, Devla wakes up from the nap: Devla throws the joker dice down and the following happens at Cafe Sarajevo: in walks Sergiu Popa, one of the finest Moldavian Gypsy accordeonists on the earth. He says: "hello! I cannot believe you play alone the two of you!", pulls out the accordeon and bam! we're on fire. As if inspired by this great act of gypsy solidarity, Zohran, a gypsy singer who's been known to make fun of Boris while Boris himself sings, decides to get up and sing along with Boris, as if they were the closest of brothers in the past 10 lifetimes. OPA! Some bellydancers comes out of nowhere and suddenly a slow Cafe Sarajevo turns into a over capacity haven full of drunken people from all over. Cool. I guess our job is here...

whoa...when refering to drunk people: Marton's picture shouldn't be here!

There you have it...
hvala devla...
please take care of my daddy...

Summer 2008 (part I): Vive le Congo!

2008-08-04T10:07:00.003-04:00

Jeff Kavanda is back in town. Nabat Nabat Montréal! It wasn't enough that he conquered Montreal and its regions last year...with his band of Belgian/Congoleese musicians mixed with a couple of local musicians touring furiously through every "Festival des Rhythmes du Monde de ___________________" (fill in the city), now he's released a new album called "TAM TAM D'EXIL" and he's come back to Quebec to promote it.
I met Jeff through the grapevine. In the beginning of February 2007, word was floating around that a Congolese percussionist/vocalist/dancer from Brussels, Belgium was going to tour Quebec in the summer, and he was looking for a violinist to sub for his violinist (that couldn't get a visa to come to Canada). I had received a phone call from Thomas (Alpha Yaya Diallo's drummer) who insisted that we meet for a coffee and discuss business. Jeff Kavanda flew in to do a colloquium at l'Université de Montréal on music and the exile, we met and played as a duet form - we hit it off and the rest is history! It's rare that I meet a musician who's a talented multi-instrumentalist, an artist and an intellectual as well. Jeff is one of these rare instances, and it's such a pleasure to meet him and learn more about Congolese culture.

This year, Jeff decided to come alone and hire local musicians. The result is Momo Coulibaly on drums, Guy Langué on bass, Thomas Ntale on guitar, Joanne Degand on vocals and me on violin. We played Chicoutimi last friday, of which I spent the 5 hour drive back to Montreal listening to a mix tape of different styles of music and rhythms such as zouk, soukousse, bikutsi, 3 over 4, makossa and much much more. Next week we'll be playing Le Festival au Bout du Monde de Gaspé. Jeff's music mixes the traditional with a variety of influences from everywhere.

Check out his stuff: www.jeffkavanda.be and www.myspace.com/jeffkavanda

Renaud

2008-05-31T17:44:00.003-04:00

So tonight I'm playing with Les Gitans de Sarajevo at Les Bobards, and this is the last gig of a music marathon that began about 10 days ago...

And about two weeks ago, I met violinist from Belgium who was touring throughout Quebec. It was a Sunday night and I had decided to swing by Cafe Sarajevo to jam some Django style swing with Lou and the Manouche Swing guys. I was sitting at the bar, admitting to Lilianka that I had to get some negative energy off my chest...someone had passed it on to me and I just couldn't shake it off. She poured me a drink and tried to reassure me before we started playing. Halfway through the gig, a young man with a violin showed up. Damian, the guitarist, had told me about running into a talented Belgian violinist on the street who was up to any kind of trouble, had said he'd be in town up until the end of the month, and was planning on swinging by. Well here he was, he pulled out his violin, began playing and blew us all out of the water.

His name is Renaud. I was awestruck, inspired, embarrased at my own perceived weakness in the style, yet excited to put aside my ego, to learn by picking his musician's brain. After the jam, Damien, Renaud and I sat around drinking and joking around. At first he seemed less open in person than musically. But after a couple of drinks in him he opened up and we got along. We got along too well. Spiritually and musically, we shared the same philosophy. At first, it's easy for one to say that....and to think that you're experiencing it only uniquely to yourself....but at one point, a situation presents itself, the two of you are tested and BAM! the illusion melts away, you realize that the words you shared don't necessarily line up with the vibe that was between the two of you. But with Renaud, I had the chance to spend some time with him throughout his stay, in different settings as well, and even after dissolving every boundary between us and then rebuilding them as to not lose our sense of decency - I felt we were truly genuine with each other every moment.

In the whirlwind of my music marathon, with the following projects on the go...Luc Boivin et la Nouvelle Symphonie (Shot at Theatre Corona for ARTV's last episode of the 12 part series)...Courtney Wing's show at La Sala Rossa, then his CBC recording at Breakglass Studios...BRIGA, my own personal project, going into the studio to record 5 tracks & playing at the WAWA show (we are women artists) at La Sala Rossa...A show with Amanda Mabro as well at the WAWA event...a NOISE jam @ Le Cagibi called:Les Mardi spaghetti with Nicolas Caloia and Chris Burns...the Les Gitans de Sarajevo gig tonight at les Bobards...

...and Renaud's relentless partying, jams at Casa Obscura, musical escapades with Damien and Francois, adventures with dancers from the production he toured with....it didn't matter:
Renaud never passed judgement, never asked questions, never passed off passive aggressive comments about what I did or who he perceived I was, nor did I think of doing such things to him either. We would just look at each other and smile, letting everything dissolve away into nothingness.
Funny...they say that you just can't have two violinists in one room together, let alone play in the same project together, or simply be interested in hanging out...WHY? their egos will create a black hole in the time space continuum and the gig will collapse due to excessive soloing and showing off. Well, Zoe Dumais (another violinist) and I both enjoyed playing with him, and lovingly nicknamed him "Le Monstre" for his mastering of the violin and the art of improvisation. As he left for the airport, I couldn't help but give him a kiss goodbye and thank him for breathing a breath of fresh air and inspiration in my life, and for giving us all such beautiful, positive energy.

Briga and Amanda Mabro

2008-05-15T08:03:00.003-04:00

These days, I am hesitant to continue writing this blog. Adad tells me it's not something worth doing. I tell myself that it's questionable as to how vulnerable you can allow yourself to be on a public forum. Anyways...I continue to write, although sparcely for the time being. We'll see where it goes...

Drum rolls ppppplllllleeeeeeeaaaaaaaassssssssseeeeeeee!

Ladies and Gentlemen!
On April 19th 2008, my solo project: BRIGA saw the day. We performed at one of Montreal's finest venues: Le Lion D'Or. We're a fiesty little team, with Georgi Stankov at the bass, Marton Maderspach at the drums, Alix Noel at the keys and accordeon, and Tacfarinas Kichou on percussion. What's our sound you may wonder...well here's the official statement:

Building on and going beyond Montreal’s gypsy music heavy hitters Kaba Horo and Les Gitans de Sarajevo, Briga brings eastern European folk violin to the forefront and into a realm of New World Influences. Brigitte Dajczer’s violin and vocals transports us to a colorful, energetic, gripping and sensual world all the while encouraging excellent musicianship and improvisation. Briga brings us through divers musical landscapes such as world/urban/funk/jazz/groove, and songwriting/narrative, and always remaining true to its eastern European roots.

Our next show is at Amanda Mabro's WAWA show (We Are Women Artists) on May 29th, at La Sala Rossa. The lineup is magnificent, with talent such as Empire Isis, Annabelle Chovstek, Amanda Mabro, Miss Sugarpuss and more. Music, Film, and damn brilliant witty repartee will be washing over the audience like cream all over a donut (??)!! Check out the website: www.thewawashow.com

Happy New Year!

2008-01-04T09:58:00.000-05:00

Happy 2008!

As you can see, the new website is up and in construction as we read. This year has in store many great things, such as travel, new projects, new faces, all while keeping the good of the old. Cheers!

Cela Fete: Site under construction

2007-07-10T19:36:00.000-04:00

Hi everybody!

It's been a while since my last posting, and I wanted to apologize to you all and let you know that my new website is currently under construction. Between now and the fall, whenever anyone punches in labrigitte.com, you'll get to see my new web site, and from there you can check the blog posting.

As for what's up in my life, well I'm playing like crazy. Busy and good! Great shows, just check out www.myspace.com/labrigitte to find out where you can see me play.

Have a great summer!

Brigitte

Brasserie du Pont

2007-05-01T09:28:00.002-04:00

I had the opportunity to go to a one week workshop near Paris, to study jazz violin with Johan Renard and Didier Lockwood at the Centre des Musiques Didier Lockwood. Just before leaving for France, I had the opportunity to meet up with an amazing percussionist by the name of Louis-Daniel Joly, who just finished a six year contract with Cirque's show: Dralion.
Louis-Daniel and I hit it off from the start, bonding on such nerdy things as Star Trek and 5 over 4s. And then there was the Pandeiro...the brazillian tambourine that my buddy Miron Rafajlovic plays exquisitely, a little tambourine that I've been secretly lusting over playing one day. Sensing my inner frustrated percussionist coming out Louis-Daniel lent me his 8 inch pandeiro, the one he started on years ago, and encouraged me to take it to France and practice over there. I owe you one Louis-Daniel!!!

As usual, the flight to Paris left me dehydrated and in a slight state of delirious exhaustion. From the airport I had to take two trains to get through the city, and then the green line to take me to the town of Melun, 40 km south east of Paris. At Melun, I dragged my luggage a good 15 minutes until I came to Brasserie du Pont. I was told that my hotel would be right next to the Brasserie du Pont. It was easter sunday, around 9 am or so...and there was nobody around. I looked around and there was no hotel in sight either. Tired, sweating in my winter boots (I left Canada in -19 degrees celcius weather and arrived in France in a spring heat wave of 25 degrees celcius) I gave up trying to find the hotel and decided to just stand on the street corner and stare at the flowering trees. My passive state didn't last too long: the owner of the Brasserie tapped on the window and motioned me to come into his establishment.

Turns out his name is Jeff. Jeff asked me if I was lost. I told him about the elusive hotel I was searching for. He motioned that it is right behind his establishment. Then he spotted my violin. "What do you play?" he asked. "The violin" I answered. "Oh great! I need someone to play tonight - we can eat dinner at 7pm and then you play, you feel out the crowd in the restaurant and then I'll give you a cut from the evening". I stared at him blankly. I stammered out something about having not slept for 26 hours. He was so smooth that he swept me into a chair at a table, brought me coffee, water, orange juice, une tartinade and left me there to absorb my breakfast. Stunned, slightly paranoid about how much this unexpected breakfast was going to cost me, I obeyed by eating and drinking. A couple of hours later, I was feeling much better and was ready to head over to the hotel and pay. I got up and he waved off my attempt to hand him some bills. "So what do you say? Swing by around 7pm?" he winked. "Ok. sure!" I answered in an attempt to be overly cheerful.

After a good rest, I got up around 4pm. I slowly started getting ready. As I passed the reception, the hotel owner looked over at me and remarked "Oh, you look great!". My responce was simply: "Well yeah...I have a gig tonight!".
That evening I wined and dined with Jeff and a close friend of his, Thierry, who happens not only to be a pilot for Air France, but plays the guitar and sings Bossa Nova in a beautiful portuguese. I walked from table to table as a soloist for a bit. Then Thierry and I played together for the rest of the night.

I stumbled back to a door I thought belonged to the hotel, Jeff tapped on the window from inside his establishment and kindly motioned the proper door that let to the hotel. It must have been 1 am, I had to get up at 7am and get ready to for my first day of Didier Lockwood's spring training workshop.

Vladia in Praha, Czech Republic

2007-03-23T23:11:00.000-04:00

I woke up three hours after my sleep, to make it to the Nuremberg station on time, but miss my train because I had to go pee and didn't foresee my bad time management. I caught the next train that unfortunately demanded 4 changeovers before I get to Prague, but figured "how hard can it be?" to hop from one train to another, with only 3 minutes of changeover time between each...
Germany had definitely softened me. The high speed ICE trains, soundless and fast as bullets, they'd always have a display of the next station, along with a beautiful female voice announcing one minute in advance what station would be coming up. When I got to the town of Ceska, I realized I was no longer in Germany.

Reminants of the communist era still linger in the countryside. The train stations in the small villages, some of the rural people that ride the trains, never mind the trains themselves! Dinosaurs made out of strong metal with nicotene stained windows that rattle back and forth on the tracks between small villages, the old trains hope one day to see the urban sprawl of magestic Praha but will never get a chance due to their decrepidness...

Once on the train cart, I was approached by three men dressed in some uniform...a cross between an army uniform and a police uniform. One of them shouted some words at me. Guessing he wanted my boarding pass, I pulled it out. He became angrier and shouted words...eventually I figured he was shouting the same word but in several languages. After the slavic languages and whatever else inaudible muttering, he got to what sounded like german...then italian or spanish and that's when I understood: Passportza!

I pulled out my passport and all three seemed surprised to see it was Canadian. They inspected it for a good 5 minutes, asking questions and debating amoungst themselves before the leader said it was legit, and after that they were the nicest men to me in the world. Thank god I wasn't whatever they thought I was...

As for my stay in Praha, it was wonderful!

Germany

2007-03-20T20:47:00.000-04:00

I arrived from my German tour yesterday. It went very well, and the weather along with it. Let's just say that Europe may be feeling much more the effects of Global warming than we are here at this moment, in Canada.

I started off in Koeln. The show was on March 8th, International Women's Day. It was a quartet, with Albrecht Maurer and I on violin, Christian Eckert on contrebass and Achim Kramer on drums. We played free jazz. And what exactly that was...can be somewhat summed up eloquently by Albrecht Maurer. He described our goal that evening as this: if acknowledging that the genres (or styles of music ie. jazz, classical, world etc) played are like islands in an ocean, then the water in between those islands is a pool of sound that can shift, morph, be under the influence of an island or not...etc. And we were to touch upon these islands, and most importantly...explore the waters in between them.

Needless to say that the evening went very well. There's a review in german at www.suelz-koeln.de

From free jazz, I went to funk. From an art gallery, I went to the closing weekend of a bar 45 mins away from Koeln. The team was a group of young men and I. Michael Flossdorf in keyboards, Jan Wendeler on bass, Andreas Hammer on sax, Steffen Hoff on drums, Lars on guitar & me on violin. Man did these guys know how to groove. We played some Herbie Hancock, Prince and more at the Stellwerk Hoffnungsthal.

I spent a few days off in Koeln with Michael before I hopped into a car with a Turkish German guy by the name of Kiwi (no joke) and zipped off to Fuerth (right next to Nuremberg) to play the Klezmer Festival with Geoff Berner. Kiwi and I had a blast. Turns out his girlfriend lives in Nuremberg, so I got them on the guest list and we played a great show on Friday night. Fuerth is celebrating it's 1000th year anniversary (1007-2007) so they went ahead and celebrated with an extra bang by holding the Fuerth International Klezmer Festival this year (although it is usually a biennial event). The line-up during this weeklong festival is exemplary, from the Klezmatics to Dobranotch, to the Budapest Klezmer Band...they had everything klezmer from all corners of the world! We played at the Kulturforum, had three encores, they brought us whiskey on stage, and it was great to play with Geoff and Wayne again. We stayed up late drinking, and I was sad to part with them at 4 am saturday morning so that I could get three hours of rest before my trip to Praha to visit Vladia...

February 2007

2007-02-26T21:14:00.000-05:00

Where do I start...well, February has been a blast. This month has been contrary to everything I whined about last year. I feel blessed...Cheers to the month of February!
I got my first myspace booking through a couple by the name of Frank and Stephanie, who hold sexy and classy theme parties. Frank contacted me on a Friday night, and Saturday evening I was improvising on top of DJ Luke Native's house tracks. I didn't have a chance to stick it out too long because I was on my way to a house party, but feel free to check out Monde Osé's myspace page: www.myspace.com/mondeose.

The next weekend, I shared the stage with Andrea Revel at the Wawa Show, an event masterminded by cabaret-pop-noir artist Amanda Mabro. It was a great evening, and you can read up more about it @ thewawashow.com.

Next on the agenda was Geoff Berner's sweeping into town. I had the chance to play at Casa Popolo and Wakefield's Blacksheep Inn as well. I met Bob Wiseman officially (after all we met two years ago when I was touring Ontario with both Geoff and Kris Demeanor...but none of us really remembers) and after being in their presence for merely two-three days, I feel inspired to write music and lyrics again. In March, Wayne Adams and I will be supporting Geoff at the Fuerth International Klezmer Festival in Germany. I am absolutely looking forward to playing with them.

While in Germany, I will have the opportunity to collaborate with another great improviser, violinist Albrecht Maurer. After throwing back and forth ideas about what we should do, we concluded the following:
„Die Idee zwei Violinen und eine Rhythmusgruppe zu einem Quartett zusammen zu stellen ist in der Aktuellen Musik nicht häufig anzutreffen. Doch was der Jazzdrummer Joe Baron mit 2 Gitarristen in der Frontline jüngst im Stadtgarten kreierte, überzeugte und insperierte mich spontan zu dieser ähnlichen Besetzung. Mit Brigitte Dajczer treffe ich erstmals eine Kanadische Geigerin, die mit polnischen Roots und einer Menge weltmusikalischen Wissen zusammen mit uns auf Entdeckungsreise geht“. Albrecht Maurer
„I really like the idea of placing two violins on either side of a drummer.
This opens up a space for dialogue between both violins, while the drums can shift to whichever focus/direction that presents itself. Since it is my
first time in Germany, and I am initially being flown out for only one show
(a Klezmer Music Festival in Furth), I'm looking to meet new musicians and hopefully open up the futureto new possibilities.“ Brigitte Dajczer

O.k....there's still more to soliloquy about, but I'll tastefully do that in the next entry.

January 21st, 2007

2007-01-21T21:54:00.000-05:00

So yes, this is the first entry for the year! O.K...it's oddly marked by a way too dramatic picture of yours truly, and may seem a little dull to have been titled the date mentioned above...but let's say all of this is only to grab your attention after my hiatus of over three weeks from blogger land. Besides that, this entry doesn't differ from any other than the fact that it is bitterly cold outside, and we're all in survival mode at this moment. Yes, I have to wear tights underneath my pants and socks, and an extra pair of socks on top of the socks so that I don't feel the cold ground through my cheap Aldo boots of (three years ago) with only 1 centimeter thick rubber soles. But nobody would know anyways, because I take good care of them and I look fashionable. Yesterday, before strutting into Café Noir, I had to choose between my short waistline down coat which was much warmer than my long classic cut wool jacket. (Thank God I had a choice! Last year I didn't.) I went for the down, and my friend Peter kindly reminded me (as I grabbed my coffee) that it would be wise of me to cover my "derrière" as to protect it from the cold. Apparently, your ass and your private organs are as vital as your liver or heart, so keep them as warm as your torso, friends! (deep down, I knew that).

Then there's the instrument issue. After rehearsal this evening, I miscalculated my bus ticket situation and had to walk home with my violin in the cold. Now usually, a 15 min walk is child's play however, I was more worried about the cold's effect on my violin than I was on my legs (the knees were beginning to feel a little bit too stiff for bending). I still haven't opened the case to see if all is o.k.... but I'll trust that it is. So that's it for today, and the sumarry is this: As artists, we're all in survival mode. It's the post-holiday financial slump for everybody. Gigs are at a low, the already tight belt is being tightened a little more and if any of us are smart, we're practicing like fiends, networking on myspace, teaching music, art dance, anything! to pay the bills, going to any show or event we can do some good schmoozing at, and booking shows for the somewhat near future.
P.S. I'm looking forward to turning this entity into a real bonnified web site. So if anybody out there wants to save themselves from reading my blog entries, and charge me as little as possible for their valuable time...please email me. I need to get a real professional web page done...

2006-12-22T14:01:00.000-05:00

Hi!
Salut!

Je vous souhaîtes tous les meilleures vacances du temps des Fêtes, et une bonne nouvelle année qui vous emportera tout ce que vous voulez de la saison 2007!

I wish you all a wonderful holiday season, and I hope the new year will bring you everything that you wish for in 2007!

Peace and love,
Brigitte ;)

Calgary: The City of Winners & Losers

2006-12-20T23:47:00.000-05:00

***Photo courtesy of Contemporary Aboriginal Artist: Terrance Houle (myspace.com/terrancehoule)***

I'm back "home" for Christmas. Yes, I'm in Calgary...the city of only two type of folk: WINNERS and LOSERS. Cowboys and Indians. Do it yourself-ers and lazy ol' bums.

I arrived on Thursday, and immediately filled up that weekend with two Theatre Junction shows hosted by Peter Moller (Calgary) and Dave Clark (Toronto). Sunday evening was the 10th anniversary show of the Rembetika Hipsters. We played the Engineered Air Theatre @ the Epcor Centre for Performing Arts. It was a beautiful evening.

To continue feeling like a WINNER, I am now doing lots of competitive swimming with my Actuarial Analyst sister, Elisabeth Dajczer (B,SC-Math & B.SC-Phys.) and her Masters Club. Just got back from swimming and cannot stop thinking about the workout...

4 x 100 meters freestyle (I wonder if being a winner in Montreal translates itself to naturally being a winner in Calgary)

4 x 75 meters kick (If some creative people in Montreal are dependent on welfare, would they be classified as losers in Calgary, even though they're signed to a record label? What if they're not on welfare, and they're not signed to a label?)

16 x 25 meters IM (Why doesn't anybody in Calgary know who Didier Lockwood is?)

Well, I am enjoying soaking in the winner attitude, and at this very moment...I am seriously considering getting a business degree to give me an edge over my competitors. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

Happy Holidays!

Andrea Revel @ The Green Room

2006-12-11T21:05:00.000-05:00

Andrea Revel is hosting her residency tonight. This event happens one Monday a month and features her amazing song writing talents along with special guests from a variety of backgrounds. Last month, I had the chance to accompany her. Here's a couple of pictures from that evening.

This month, she's got Sage Renolds on the bass and Joellen Housego on the violin. Jade will be starting off the evening. I know it's a little late to be annoucing this, but there will be more monday nights in the new year, along with twelve more months. So if your curiosity is peaked, check out Andrea Revel's web site: www.andrearevel.com and her myspace site: www.myspace.com/andrearevel
'

labrigitte on myspace

2006-12-06T17:55:00.000-05:00

Yes, I'm a little late, I know. But better late than never. So check out my new myspace account by clicking on the links!

For those of you who have been wondering what the hell do I sound like, here's your chance to listen to different projects.

For those of you who wonder just how cool I must be...how many friends I must really have now, go ahead and see how much I'd like you to join my friends network. After all, this is only my second day on myspace...

The official page is under: myspace.com/labrigitte

Cheers!

Burghers of Seoul

2006-11-28T22:50:00.000-05:00

Adad Hannah's "Burghers of Seoul" (medium: video) Check out his link.

Does Art imitate Life? Or is it Life that imitates Art? How about Fashion, Music and/or Influential People? Does Music and Fashion reflect our times, or do musicians and fashion designers pick up on some subtle things and just end up creating works that seem to float on the same theme or feel as their peers? Does an influencial person dictate what's hot and what's not...or does an influential person merely sense which way the tide is going and discretely drifts that way?

It's almost the end of November, and not much time is left before I go to Calgary, Alberta to spend the holidays with my family. I'm looking forward to going snowboarding, and playing with musicians I haven't seen in a while! But before I get carried away, here's a quick itinerary of gigs coming up:

-November 30th: Les Gitans de Sarajevo CD release party for the press
-December 2nd: Les Gitans de Sarajevo official CD release party @ Les Bobards
-December 2nd: Chansons d'Amour et de Noel with Raphaelle Paquette, Janusz Wolny and Magdalena Wolny

More later...

Christian music & Dennis Chambers

2006-11-20T19:54:00.000-05:00

On Sunday, November 19th, I recorded Christian music in the morning, then went to see Dennis Chambers hold a workshop in the evening.
That morning, I woke up and warmed up on the violin before heading to Richard's studio to lay down some tracks for a singer by the name of Janis Clarke. Janis is just wrapping up an album of Christian songs that showcases at times choir boys, a priest and/or even herself singing. Richard brought me in to add a touch of Judaism to her mix. I told Janis that she was making quite a controversial decision by bringing me in and letting me lay down tracks of weeping eastern europeean mystery/misery sounds (aluding to Klezmer) on top of teenage choir boys singing Piejesu. All the more, I agreed with her decision...after all - Judaism, Islam and Christianity have one thing in common...and I'll let you guess what that is.

Once the session was done, I hurried on over to Theatre Corona to see the amazing drummer Denis Chambers give a workshop. Being oblivious to my "violin player" demeanor (probrably due to the instrument hanging off of my shoulder), I was teased by the doormen. "Hey! No violins allowed!" and "Hey! You ain't got rhythm - so don't bother" were the cat calls I got. But I couldn't figure out why they were teasing me so extensively, until Michael, Anes and I sat down. Then I realized that almost all 800 of the spectators were rockers, metal heads, progressive rock lovers and downright nerdy drummers! Holy shit! I had just infiltrated the secret masonry of drummers. And on top of that, the only thing on stage was one massive drum kit! Dennis came on stage and blew us away with a one hour drum solo. Although most of the male spectators were cumming in their pants during his amazing drum rolls and double pedaling,

I was turned on when I saw him play 64th notes on the snare for 6 straight minutes, alternating between ppp and fff within a split second without the metric mesurement of the 64th notes wavering one bit, and at the same time switching from traditional snare grip to today's modern ambidextrous grip. All this to subtly change the sound, texture, tone and dynamics of one snare drum. That really impressed my inner violinist nerd.

And the one word of advice that I retained from Denis and that I will use in my own personal practice: When asked how to develop speed and power, he replied "Practice on pillows".

Alix Noel; Concert du musique classique Haitienne

2006-11-07T13:29:00.000-05:00

CONCERT D’AUTOMNE

La SDRMH (Société de Recherche et Diffusion de Musique
Classique Haitienne) vous invite à son concert
d'automne.

Cette année : le pianiste multidisciplinaire ALIX NOEL

et ses invités (Marie Saintonge, Brigitte Dajczer,
Geo Etienne, Clinton Ryder, Marie Fouda et Moise),

le 11 novembre 2006, à 19h, à la
salle Marie-Stéphane de l'Académie Vincent d'Indy. Un
concert original aux rythmes variés. A ne pas manquer.

Cout : 25$
Réservations : 450-677-8418
Lieu : 628 Chemin de la Cote Ste-Catherine (métro Édouard Montpetit)

November 5th, a great night!

2006-11-07T13:05:00.000-05:00

I finally have a picture of the sweet people I have been talking about! Here, from left to right is me, Janusz Wolny, Magdalena Wolny, and Yoland Sirard. This photo was taken minutes before we performed at La Vielle France on Sunday night. And what a divine experience it was! Yoland and Janusz's voices blended like rose water and honey (uh...I don't know how else to say it). Magdalena's virtuous piano solos warmed up the room even more than the blasting heaters @ 25 degrees celcius. I could feel the warmth from the audience as I played, and they responded ferverently to all the pieces we played. I feel so lucky to have met, worked with and gotten to know such kind and great musicians. Thanks guys ;)

Classical & Broadway does La Vielle France

2006-10-31T18:00:00.000-05:00

Allen Baekeland (from the Rembetika Hipsters) and I discovered his funky photo software on his laptop.
NOpe, this isn't about pop art and/or Andy Warhol's mass production of pop culture's icons, nor does the title alude to anything like "Debbie does Dallas" or "Rocko does Prague". (Jeez, what's up with my sense of humour today...)
This is more about pop classics, Broadway hits thus segwaying into my next show at La Vielle France on November 5th. The lineup includes tenor Yoland Sirois, baritone Janusz Wolny, Pianist Magdalena Wolny and the now ever so famous violinist, Brigitte Dajczer.

Some of you may shake your heads at the thought of me shifting away from Eastern European music and playing more North American romantic stuff, but I think it's about time I do so. As one of my violin coaches, Stephane Allard, put it: "You've got to venture into many styles, not just one and its subgenres". O.K. so I'm paraphrasing, this is so not, like, verbatum or anything. Hmmmmmmmmm, come to think of it...maybe he never said anything like that at all. Who knows...but sounds like a good quote to me, no matter where it came from.

Not to worry, I will be throwing a couple solos true to what you know me as: One Csardas, One Gypsy Romance by Boulanger, and a tune that I will never grow tired of (only because I never had the chance to overplay it): Meditations from Thais, J.Massenet.

Capitol Theatre in Moncton, New Brunswick

2006-10-21T17:06:00.000-04:00

Last night we played the Capitol Theatre in Moncton, New Brunswick. Upon entering the theatre for sound check, I was star struck. What a beautiful space! It was built circa 1922 as a movie house, and seats approximately 850 people. A fire in 1926 destroyed the theatre, and it was rebuilt in 1929.

The acoustics were remarkably good so they also produced live theatre shows there. In 1990, the city of Moncton bought it and renovated it. All sorts of shows have come and gone, from Opera to Vaudeville, to today’s never ending flow of artists. The green room walls are riddled with photos of stars that have passed through.

We were honoured to be part of this stage, a stage that has graced Mr.Dress Up, Holly Cole, Nathalie McMaster, to the Unknown comic as well! Our crowd was small but ever so mighty. The tech support was warm and friendly, and by the end of the evening we had unplugged ourselves and were wandering around the theatre serenading our audience, the ushers and the technicians. People were dancing in the aisles, we sounded as good unplugged as on stage, and the evening was a divine experience for all.

Here I am with our Road Manager (road mistress according to bouzouki player Nick Diochnos), Diana Watamaniuk. Please note that it was Nick’s brilliant idea to superimpose faces (look up to the first image) onto the Marquee!

(Guest blogging from Methodius Valtiotis: Salut, tout le monde qui lisent la blague de labrigitte! Brigitte’s solo during Melina’s Bath Part Two was a jaw-dropping mofo. That is all.)

Rembetika Hipsters @ Halifax Pop Explosion

2006-10-20T16:57:00.000-04:00

Beginning of the evening...

O.K….I’m in the rental van with The Rembetika Hipsters. We’re on our way to Moncton, New Brunswick after having played a rippin’ and roarrin’ night at The Sea Horse Tavern as part of the Halifax Pop Explosion. I’m not sure how “pop”-ish Greek Rembetika music is (also known as the Greek blues) but hey, we got the crowd dancing on the floor and on the tables, as well as slobbering drunk and dancing all over each other. Victor, the owner of this fine establishment was buying us drinks by the end of the night in a vain attempt to not let us stop playing. Mission Accomplished!

The Halifax Pop Explosion, one of Canada’s most respected emerging music, art and media festival, is now in its 14th year. Besides bringing out the Rembetika Hipsters, Jazz East is also presenting Juan de Marcos’ Afro Cuban All Starts. Mix in pop explosion acts like Hotchiwitchi (Halifax), Joel Plasket, K-OS (Toronto), and many more artists, you’ve got yourself a flavour sensation weekend.

It’s my first time in Halifax, and I must say that I’m touched by the warm reception we’ve received, the fresh and positive energy exuding from its inhabitants, as well as their reckless abandon in the art of partying. Rock on my friends. I’ll be back on Saturday night to play with the infamous Whiskey Rabbi and his band, Geoff Berner.

October News

2006-10-11T16:45:00.000-04:00

Up to now, October has been a wholwind of events! Lots of gigs and lots of news as well.

First off, our trumpet player (and all round multi-instrumentalist) Miron Rafajlovic (aka Mima) was in town and played with us in Chicoutimi, and has created a new myspace account for Les Gitans de Sarajevo @ myspace.com/lesgitansdesarajevo (Check to the right and click on Les Gitans de Sarajevo!). Mima also found out that he'll be part of a whole new musical journey that involves touring and playing many instruments. Congratulations Mima! We are proud of you ;)

Secondly, I will be replacing my violin mentor, Carmen Piculeata, this friday October 13th at a benefit concert for La Fondation Humanitaire de Laval, which will take place in the concert hall André-Mathieu (La Maison des Arts de Laval). I have the honor of playing with the virtuoso pianist Magdalena Wolny, baritone singer Janusz Wolny and coloratura soprano Raphaelle Paquette.This is bound to be an exciting evening...with a repertoire of 24 songs, 3 violin solo pieces and 10 days for me to learn this all new repertoire.

O.k...that's it for now...more later!

Romani Yag Benefit Show

2006-09-30T08:47:00.000-04:00

Here we are, at last year's Romani Yag Festival...

This Tuesday, October 3rd, there will be a benefit show at Le Divan Orange (www.ledivanorange.org) for the Romani Yag Gypsy Festival. This festival is the first event of its kind in Quebec. “Romani Yag,” or “Gypsy Fire,” is a unique chance to discover Romani (Gypsy) culture.

There will be three groups playing:
-Caravan
-Les Imposteurs
-Les Gitans de Sarajevo

This fundraiser is to help secure the second edition of the Romani Yag Gypsy Festival
in the Fall of 2007, and a special Romani Yag event in May 2007. Show starts at 8pm. Check out the web site for more information: www.romaniyag.com

Fall: Upcoming shows

2006-09-15T23:25:00.000-04:00

Here's a few projects/shows I'll be partaking in this fall...

Les Gitans de Sarajevo will release their long awaited fourth album this fall, titled "OPA!". Although there isn't an official release date yet, we will be selling CDs off the stage from October on. In my opinion, this is the best album yet...so keep your ears & eyes open!

-September 16th : somewhere in Brossard...eastern european style...
-September 30th : Les Bobards (www.lesbobards.qc.ca), Montréal,Québec
-October 3rd: Romani Yag Fundraiser event, Le Divan Orange, Montréal, QC
-October 5th - 8th : ECCE MUNDO in Chicoutimi, Québec
-October 28th : Café Lavatière, Joliette, Québec

The Rembetika Hipsters will be swinging out east, beyond Montréal into the maritime provinces...These guys may be based in Calgary, Alberta, but even the greeks from Anatoli's on Skopelos Island where blown away when they heard us play the true greek blues: Rembetika music.

-October 19th : Halifax Pop Explosion
-October 20th : The Capitol Theatre, Moncton, New Brunswick

There's a fresh new group taking shape in the form of "N'Hommad". Band leader, Minah, is seen here minutes before the debut show we played last thursday @ Les Bobards. Come check N'Hommad out at La Kémia (4115, rue St-Denis, Mtl) on September 29th. Show starts at 8pm.

The Whiskey Rabbi and his lamb fetus

2006-08-31T17:58:00.000-04:00

So I'm currently on tour with Geoff Berner, playing shows, selling CDs, socially drinking with the fans, discovering holistic healing (thanx Colleen), and promoting Mr.Berner's new Instructional Booklet: HOW TO BE AN ACCORDION PLAYER.
On monday night we played La Sala Rosa in Montreal, and I was paired up with fiddler Diona Davies to form a new string section and deliver a dynamic/complimentary performance as Geoff's new gypsy orchestra.

Diona and I hit it off instantly, and I was a little disapointed to see her leave early the next morning for NYC.

As a trio, Geoff, Wayne Adams (percussion) and I are currently in Ottawa. We did an interview at the legendary CTV studios, where our host Eric introduced me to my childhood idle Carolyn Waldo (sports caster and Olympic Gold Medalist in Synchronized Swimming). We then walked the hall of fame (or is it shame?) and saw pictures of CTV's golden era of television, back in the day when Alanis Morrisette stared in "You can't do that on Television" which inspired today's American hit "Nickelodeon TV" and back when Pierre Elliot Trudeaut was being interviewed, or W5 was still a show worth being watched. (And most of this is way before my time)...

So now we spend most of our hours rehearsing, getting ready for tomorrow's Black Sheep (le mouton noir in Wakefield, Quebec) gig, and the final heavy hitter: The Toronto Ashkenaz Festival of New Yiddish Culture. Last night we played, drank two bottles of red wine and a little bit of porto. Today we rehearsed sober and exhausted, and this evening we were invited to play a few tunes at the University of Ottawa's Grad lounge: Cafe Nostalgica, where John Carroll hosted the jam.

As for the Whiskey Rabbi's tiny lamb fetus, well...you can find out more about it in his Instructional Booklet, that you can buy directly from his website: www.geoffberner.com

FADO -traduction littérale : Destin, chanson Populaire du Portugal, au thème souvent mélancolique.

2006-08-23T19:33:00.000-04:00

Récemment, j'ai eu des nouvelles d'un cher ami et musicien incroyable, Luis Fernandes. Luis est Portuguais, et grâce à une bourse de l'UNESCO et un stage avec Musiques Multi Montréal, il a pu passer quelques mois à Montréal en 2004 afin de rencontrer et collaborer avec des musiciens d'ici. Nous nous sommes rencontrés à l'Apero des Festivaliers, et c'est grâce à lui que j'ai eu mon premier goût du Fado. Juste avant la fin de sa résidence, Luis à enrégistré 6 titres au Studio 12 de Radio Canada sous le cadre de l'émission "Des Musiques en Mémoire". Intitulé "L'Envers du Fado avec Luis Fernandes", Il était accompagné par Nicolas Caloia à la contrebasse, la voix de Marta Raposto, et moi au violon.

Ces jours-ci, Luis joue dans sa formation "Toques do Caramulo", et est le coordinateur en gestion culturel et programmation de l'Association Culturel D'Orfeu. Je sais qu'il fait beaucoup plus qu'on peut saisir à la surface, et dès que j'aurai plus d'informations sur ses aventures, j'en rajouterai!

Vous pouvez visiter le site www.dorfeu.com pour plus d'information en Portuguais!

Upcoming Shows

2006-08-10T16:41:00.000-04:00

Geoff Berner is a singer/songwriter from Vancouver, Canada. At the end of the month, I will be joining him for a few shows in Ontario and Quebec:

August 26-27 - Peterborough, ON - Peterborough Folk Festival

August 28 - Montreal, PQ - La Sala Rosa, with Wax Mannequin

Sept. 1 - Wakefield, PQ - The Black Sheep, with Wax Mannequin

Sept. 2 - Toronto, ON - Ashkenaz Festival of Jewish
Culture, Harbourfront Center

Feel free to check out his website: www.geoffberner.com

Pedja's back in town, Eastern European Style

2006-08-08T00:09:00.000-04:00

So I'm stumbling home drunk...it's about a 1/2 hour sway uphill from the drinking hole we were all at-to what I call home. All I have to do is keep my head down, avoid all the homeless guys on St-Denis, walk straight in my flip flops, and stop hickuping. Forget calling a cab, I can't afford it (and if Pedja knew, he would've insisted on paying).
Yes: Pedja's back in town for a couple of weeks before his next leg of touring, and of course he's insisted that he take Anes, Georgi and I out for drinks (for old & good times' sake of course!) You see, before his lucky break Pedja was in Les Gitans de Sarajevo. Although perceived as some of Montreal's most talented musicians, and yes...decently successful bands, we would all suffer the January-February blues together....

...For Pedja, the winter blues were the stress of scraping up enough money for the rent and student loan payments, for Anes it was the lack of money and the soft call of Bosnia and the deep feelings of nostalgia that come with his homeland, for Georgi it was the lack of money, sunlight, and women. And for me, it was also the lack of money, sunlight and a buildup of angst in regards to my never ending diet of lentils and rice. After all, the Hydro bill started to cut into my food budget.
But now it's August, and Pedja's back in town, wearing brand new American sneakers, nice jeans and finally free of those horrible unfashionable scholar sweaters he used to wear. Now he's got healthy weight on him, a funky hairstyle and some weird happy glow. Yes, he is suckling the tit of one of this province's finer institutions, and shares his wealth with his friends. God Bless Him.

I've been told that I should work on being a better Courvah (whore)...that is, to hustle the gigs a little more...and it is during the hard winter times (and it's easy to reflect on this casually in the month of August) that I'm dying to be a great Courvah so that I too can find a beautiful tit to suckle on.
And if ever I am lucky enough to have my talent heard by those who can afford to hire me and pay me much more than the 600$ I barely scraped together last February (oh how I hope it doesn't happen again next year) may I share my new found wealth with the musicians that kept me warm during the winter, and taught me all that I know about music.

Gnawa El Montreal en Français

2006-08-04T17:32:00.001-04:00

Voici la formation Nazir et le groupe Salaam. Nous étions 9 musiciens à jouer au festival des Rythmes du Monde à Montréal. Je suis la petite fourmie habilée en blanc...

La musique était du Gnawa, et le lieu était directement sur le Quai Jacques-Cartier au vieux port de Montréal. J'ai été invité a jouer avec la formation pour 3 titres. Le Festival des Rythmes du Monde était dans son troisièmme cadre à Montréal, et on jouaient en pleine canicule enveloppée d'une couche d'humidité. On faisait l'ouverture pour trois grandes divas de Montréal: Monica Freire, Muna Mingole, et Sandra Campinelli. On est arrivé sur le site à 14h pour le test de son...une production qui a durée un record de 3 heures! Mais je ne doit pas trop me lamenter...mon piezo pickup s'est auto-détruit et les techniciens de son m'ont fournis avec un micro-clip Shure. En plus de tout ça, ils ont eu beaucoup de patience avec moi par rapport aux petit coups de larson que je les fournissaient des moniteurs...grâce à ma nouvelle découverte du micro-clip. À la fin de tout ça, j'ai pu me débrouiller et me trouver un beau son...et ton au violon.

Maintenant, parlons du spectacle! On a commencé à 19h30. Au début il n'y avait pas beaucoup de monde, mais au fur et mesure qu'on jouaient, le monde s'accumulait devant de la scène. Vers la fin de notre set, l'avant de la scene était bien peuplée, l'énergie s'est escaladé en vrai trance gnawa, et tous les 9 musiciens se sont rendus à la musique...en une collectivité totale.

Je vous invite à voir le site de Salaam: www.gnawamontreal.com

Between: Living in the Hyphen

2006-07-29T13:55:00.000-04:00

I'd like to introduce you to a great documentary film maker and very good friend of mine: Anne Marie Nakagawa. Anne Marie is visiting Montreal (she is based in Calgary, Alberta, Canada), promoting her film "Between: Living in the Hyphen". On Thursday July 27th, she screened her work as part of an evening at the Goethe Institute organized by the United Nations Association of Canada. The evening was a launch called "A Sense of Belonging", and it is part of a national inititive to promote diversity and to combat prejudice and racism.

Feel free to go to the NFB website (www.nfb.ca) and check out the film. It is very well produced, its content is insightful enough to touch anyone (no matter their background), and it is a very beautiful film to watch.

Every musician's month of July is riddled with...

2006-07-27T11:13:00.000-04:00

JULY - Every musician's month of July is riddled with a mess of gigs, small tours and general playing frenzy...well, it is in my circles, if you're looking at Montreal's World Music scene. In July, we suddenly transform from money tight hungry players into overworked fiends: everybody's playing with everybody else. If a band doesn't have a tight tour itinerary, the players are bound to be sneaking away on their day off to play that extra gig.
And so July was that for me. I played the usual gigs with my Eastern European gypsy band, Les Gitans de Sarajevo, and topped it off playing with other artists : Juan Carranza at the Montreal Flamenco Festival (www.juancarranza.com), Hassan El Hadi (www.hassanelhadi.net), some Jewish parties and other private functions. Les Gitans de Sarajevo played Detroit city's Festival of Colors. It was an amazing experience and I met some great musicians from Amp Fiddler's project. We got to see Amp Fiddler (www.ampfiddler.com) perform and boy, so much groove can definitely soothe a Canadian's soul...real good! I also had the chance to do some small session works for a short film by Clyde Paquin, some arabic pop/groove stuff with Cheb Dino, and I also went into the studio to work on some of my own stuff with the ever so sweet and amazingly supportive Richard Soly. Richard does sound for the Montreal Opera and has worked extensively with string musicians. He definitely knows how to mic my violin. I will keep you posted on when the recording will surface!

The last gig of the month of July will be performed on Old Montreal's Quai Jacques-Cartier with "Nazir et le groupe Salaam" (Morrocan Gnawa music: www.gnawamontreal.com). This performance is part of Montreal's "Festival des Rythmes du Monde" and on Friday, July 28th we will also be playing along side artists such as Monica Freire, Sandra Campanelli, and Muna Mingole. Show starts @ 7:30pm and goes late. Check out the website: www.rythmes.tv and come if you're in town!

June: The definition of the word Inertia

2006-07-27T09:33:00.000-04:00

The definition of the word "Inertia" can be summed up as:

An object that is in motion stays in motion while an object that is stationary remains stationary.

So here I am, stationary, attempting to get this blog thing accelerated into some kind of motion. Yup, May was a while back but we're here now, so shut up! If there was anything worth writing about, it happened in the months of June and July.

JUNE - I toured Greece with Alberta, Canada's Super Greek Band: The Rembetika Hipsters. We spent ten days there, playing a few shows (notably Anatoli's Restaurant on Skopelos Island) and had the chance to see the great Greek legendary clarinet player Petro Lukas perform at private club in the heart of Athens. Of course, we had to make our way up north to the province of Epiros, where we visited Niko's birthtown Polidrosso (a village only two mountain ranges away from Albania). We gave an epic performance at the only commerce in this town of 200 residents, The Kafeneio. We were rewarded with much lamb, french fries and lemons, salads and Raki. Alberta CBC Radio listeners will be able to hear a special "audio postcard" of the Rembetika Hipsters' recent Greece excursion. The short radio documentary will be aired on Radio 1's "The Key of A" Saturday, August 5 at 5 PM, and on Radio 2's "Our Music" Sunday, August 6 at noon. The Rembetika Hipsters wish to thank to CBC's Frank Rackow for piecing it together from the recordings we made while travelling in Greece.
I came back to Montreal happy, relaxed and ten pounds heavier. You can check out the Rembetika Hipsters' website at www.rembetika.com

2006-05-23T15:52:00.000-04:00

Adad told me to write something.