SANDA WEIGL, INNA BARMASH & SHOKO NAGAI: INTERNATIONAL WOMEN OF MYSTERY.
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Celebrate International Women’s Day with a dose of mystery! Join an ensemble of intrepid New York musicians – Romanian-born vocalist Sanda Weigl, Lithuanian-born vocalist Inna Barmash, Japanese-born accordionist and pianist Shoko Nagai, and fadolínist Ljova for a globe-trotting set in a panoply of languages, celebrating love, tragedy, and humor.
SANDA WEIGL
Sanda Weigl first heard Gypsy music as a young girl outside the police station across the street from her home, where Gypsy families would camp, sometimes for days, awaiting the release of loved ones. Though Weigl herself is not Roma, her life has been similarly nomadic. In the early sixties, exiled with her family from Romania, she settled in East Berlin and studied theatre and singing with her aunt, Helene Weigel, Bertolt Brecht’s widow. She later joined a state-sanctioned rock band called Team 4 (the group included a future East German deputy minister of culture). She was eventually expelled from East Germany and moved to West Berlin, where she worked in the theatre with Robert Wilson, among others. In the early nineties, with Wilson’s encouragement, Weigl relocated to New York and began performing Gypsy songs around town with an assortment of excellent downtown musicians.
SANDA WEIGL
Sanda Weigl first heard Gypsy music as a young girl outside the police station across the street from her home, where Gypsy families would camp, sometimes for days, awaiting the release of loved ones. Though Weigl herself is not Roma, her life has been similarly nomadic. In the early sixties, exiled with her family from Romania, she settled in East Berlin and studied theatre and singing with her aunt, Helene Weigel, Bertolt Brecht’s widow. She later joined a state-sanctioned rock band called Team 4 (the group included a future East German deputy minister of culture). She was eventually expelled from East Germany and moved to West Berlin, where she worked in the theatre with Robert Wilson, among others. In the early nineties, with Wilson’s encouragement, Weigl relocated to New York and began performing Gypsy songs around town with an assortment of excellent downtown musicians.
INNA BARMASH
Inna first started singing in Yiddish back in her home city of Vilnius, Lithuania as a child in the late 80s. After immigrating to the US with her family in 1991, Inna has continued singing in Yiddish, Russian and other languages with numerous klezmer and folk groups in the NY area. She is the vocalist of the chamber folk band Ljova & the Kontraband and co-leads the gypsy dance party band Romashka.
SHOKO NAGAI:
Shoko Nagai is a versatile musical artist who improvises and performs with world-renowned musicians on piano and accordion and composes original scores for films and live performances. As a teenager in her native Japan, Nagai was trained on Yamaha's electronic organ, the "Electone," to perform popular music. Since moving to the U.S. from Japan and studying classical, jazz music, and compositions at Berklee, she has adapted her mastery of the keyboard to prepared piano, accordions, and other keyboard instruments, often inspired by the minimalist approach of composer Toru Takemitsu. Whether she is performing Klezmer, Balkan or experimental music, Nagai is a charismatic presence onstage, who hypnotizes audiences with her intense focus and virtuoso sound.
LJOVA:
LJOVA (Lev Zhurbin) was born in 1978 in Moscow, Russia, and moved to New York with his parents, composer Alexander Zhurbin and writer Irena Ginzburg, in 1990. He divides his time between composing for the concert stage, contemporary dance & film, leading his own ensemble LJOVA AND THE KONTRABAND, performing with and composing for TRIO FADOLÍN, as well as a busy career as a violist, fadolínist & musical arranger. Among recent projects are commissions from the City of London Sinfonia, The Louisville Orchestra, a new work for Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble, a string quartet for Brooklyn Rider, a clarinet quintet for Art of Élan, and works for The Knights, Sybarite5 and A Far Cry, as well arrangements for the New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, tenor Javier Camarena, conductors Gustavo Dudamel and Alondra de la Parra, songwriters Ricky Martin, Natalia Lafourcade and Carlos Vives, composer/guitarist Gustavo Santaolalla and Osvaldo Golijov. Ljova frequently collaborates with choreographers Aszure Barton, Damian Woetzel, Christopher Wheeldon, Katarzyna Skarpetowska (with Parsons Dance).
RECORDINGS BY SANDA WEIGL on BARBES RECORDS:
RECORDING OF INNA'S 'YIDDISH LULLABIES & LOVE SONGS PROJECT':
$20 suggested
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