From Epic Poems to Sultry Songs: Live@365 Brings Vintage Grooves, Age-Old Roots, and Fresh Collaborations to the Acousticly Rich Elebash Recital Hall

In the heart of Manhattan is a striking space of acoustic intimacy and brilliance. Where musicians adore the sound and where audiences can experience global music—from powerful voices to delicate jaw harp—with a sonic intensity difficult to find in large halls or clubs designed for amplification.
It’s the Elebash Recital Hall, the 180-seat home of Live@365 (liveat365.org), a world music series presented by the CUNY Graduate Center and curated by Isabel Soffer/Live Sounds. Now in its second season, the series embraces the intersection of deep tradition and contemporary innovation, welcoming veteran performers and crafting new collaborations from across the planet.
The Live@365 2012-2013 season:
September 20: Crossing Boundaries with the jazz-inflected Bulgarian traditional song of Vlada Tomova,  the lush vocals of Haitian songstress Emeline Michel, and Martha Redbone’s stirring, Native American-influenced neo-soul.
October 24: Bachata Legends Unplugged with the cornerstone of the Dominican Republic’s racy, witty acoustic tradition, Edilio Pareles and special guests.
November 27: West African Griot Summit. An extraordinary chance to hear more than a dozen traditional storytellers, musicians, and oral historians from seven countries finding common ground and trading licks.
March 12: Ancient Persia: Songs and Stories (U.S. debut). Celebrate the Persian New Year with masters of the ancient, living art of Naqqalistorytelling and striking Zoorkhaneh percussion, both rarely heard outside Iran. Artists will recite from the Shahnameh (Book of Kings), Iran’s most beloved 11^th-century epic story.
April 9: Budapest Bar (U.S. debut). A new project by Hungarian Gypsy music darlings, the four-member band invokes the spirit of Budapest’s golden age of cabaret, the 1920s-1950s. The wildly popular band will team up with local cabaret singers, swinging between the sultry and the rollicking.
May 7: Hypnotic Chinese Jaw Harp. Wang Li transformed the local jaw harp traditions of his native region in China into a powerful meditation on silence and breath. Though flowing from his years as a contemplative in a French monastery, Wang Li’s music instantly engages with its profound focus and stunning variety.
All performances held at 7 PM at Elebash Recital Hall, CUNY Graduate Center, at 365 5th Ave (at 34th Street). For tickets, see smartix.com or call 212-868-4444.
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“You can hear every nuance of a voice, every stroke of an instrument,” enthuses Live@365 curator Isabel Soffer, describing the Elebash Recital Hall. “It’s a distinctive atmosphere for performers and audience; listeners are engaged with the artists on the stage. My mission is to create shows that work in this particular environment.”
That powerful unifying thread—the unparalleled sound, the intimate experience—allows the series to present diverse artists with multifaceted visions, from different geographical and musical backgrounds—while retaining a strong curatorial vision. Many of this season’s performances—the gathering of New York’s many West African bards on a single stage, the magical performance of sung Persian poetry, the fresh and contemplative jaw harp of Wang Li—are dream concerts for Soffer, who had been longing for an intimate but acoustically superior place to present performers.
Such small concerts with such high-level international artists would have been difficult without the instigation and ongoing support of CUNY Graduate Center Public Programs department, the organization that developed and launched the series. Hoping to bring a wider variety to its unique Midtown venue, the Graduate Center approached Soffer to create a series that would bring global sounds to the Elebash. The collaboration resulted in a series unlike any other in the city: sounds that thrived in the Hall’s rich acoustics, responsive artists, committed audiences.
It fit The Graduate Center’s mission and vision perfectly. “Our combination of great diversity and public education is unique, and that spirit—as well as the spirit of our academic programs via our Music Department—shows in the series,” explains Andrea Jeyaveeran, The Center’s Director of Public Programs.
“Live@365 suits the theater and the audience,” Soffer reflects. “And it also suits these remarkable artists in a way that no other theater in New York does. It results in very intimate experiences for everyone.”
The Graduate Center is the primary doctorate-granting institution of the City University of New York (CUNY). As a cultural and academic hub for music lovers, it offers a wide array of performances, lectures, master classes, and symposia. Home to a distinguished D.M.A program, as well as a world-class ethnomusicology department, it also houses the Barry S. Brook Center for Music Research and Documentation.
The Graduate Center offers more than 30 doctoral programs across the arts and sciences, and a number of master's programs. It accommodates 33 interdisciplinary research centers and institutes, and provides an extensive array of public lectures, exhibitions, and theatrical events. Further information on the Graduate Center may be found at www.gc.cuny.edu.

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Distant Migrations, Close Voices: Vlada Tomova Sings at the Urbane Edge of Tradition on Tour this Fall and on Balkan Tales

http://www.worldmusicwire.com

All roads lead to the Balkans, and Bulgarian-born, Brooklyn-based singer Vlada Tomova hears it.

The region welcomed mysterious wanderers from Inner Asia; Greeks and Romans trading in the East; bands of weary migrants on a road that stretched from Rajastan to Andalusia. The lines of ancient movement across the peninsula are audible and tightly bound to one another, like the lives in a village.

Embracing sounds far outside the confines of tradition, Tomova has distilled years of learning songs from traditional singers and modern songwriters to tellBalkan Tales. Her arrangements fearlessly embrace flamenco flourishes and Indian resonances, Brazilian flair and Romany rhythms. Yet her mutable, flexible voice evokes the stark, rich spirit of Balkan mountainsides and byways, the old paths and deep roots of thousands of years of cultural conversation.

Joined by globetrotting kaval (traditional Bulgarian flute) master Theodosii Spassov and an avant-worldly band including alter-sitarist Chris Rael, Tomova brings this elegant balance to New York, Boston, and Chicago in late October 2011.

“The Balkans have something very unique that mixes well with other musics because of its complex and long history,” explains Tomova. “And it’s very emotional for me; it’s about connecting to the places, the ancient villages I’ve loved since childhood. It’s about home.”

***

Tomova recalls sitting at a modest kitchen table on a recent song-finding trip to Bulgaria. She had brought the members of her choir, Yasna Voices, to a remote pomak village, people whose ancestors had converted to Islam. There, Tomova and the American vocalists had met up with a pair of singers who were the real deal.

Across from her sat two older women who had been life-long singing partners. Traditionally, two girls start finding the close, vibrating intervals of old songs together and will continue blending their voices until death do them part. They could feel each other’s timing without a glance, sense what to say as the other improvised lyrics.

This commitment and intimacy moved Tomova deeply. “Those two women were so close, and they relied so much on each other, in an unspoken, down-to-earth, unquestioning way, which you could hear in their singing, the two voices flowing together as one,” Tomova reflects. “I wish we could find much more of that kind of interdependence, trust, and connectedness in the different layers of our everyday life today, especially in large cities, and in the Western world.”

The layers of Tomova’s own life reveal a similar spirit of interconnection. Though raised around traditional music in her native Bulgaria, she and her generation rebelled against the state-sponsored folk heard on the airwaves. It wasn’t until Tomova came to Berklee to study jazz that she discovered a completely different approach to Bulgarian and Balkan traditions, an approach that began with a spontaneous song at a Boston party and ended with concerts at Carnegie Hall and musical trips to the Bulgarian countryside.

Not content to simply sing the roots—though she is now an accomplished and respected performer and singer of Bulgarian traditional music—Tomova often collaborates with other globally-minded musicians (like Balkan Beat Box) and lends her mutable, expressive voice to installations, from a recent King Tut exhibit to the Turin Winter Olympics.

The delicious tension between tradition and bold experimentation echoes in Tomova’s songs like the close intervals loved by Bulgarian singers. It vibrates in the flamenco guitar and hand percussion that reframes the traditional Bulgarian tune, “Momche,” and in the Greek-gone-Brazilian ballad to a beloved daughter, “Augoustos.”

A set for Tomova’s Balkan Tales is just as likely to include a Russian gypsy ballad as an edgy sitar line, or to follow a full-throated village song with a complex, globally savvy extrapolation of a folk-inspired jazz number. Take “Women’s Dance,” a tune composed by Milcho Leviev, an eccentric and brilliant musician defector from socialist Bulgaria whom Tomova tracked down in Los Angeles.

Tomova’s unexpected arrangements evolved in close collaboration with her fellow musicians at Berklee and in New York’s vibrant scene, as well as from Tomova’s own feel for vocal color, ornamentation, and distinctive harmonies. This fall, the band will include Spassov, a wildly talented traditional flute player who can easily leap borders and genres; he’s worked with everyone from Indian tabla innovator Trilok Gurtu and flamenco piano star David Peña Dorantes to film music icon Ennio Morricone.

On one of his many world tours, Spassov showed up at one of Tomova’s shows and jumped in to jam with her band, and a musical friendship began. “I’ve wanted to play with Teodosii again for years,” Tomova smiles.

The diverse sounds and multifaceted musicians Tomova has brought together reflect not only the complex interchange between peoples across the Balkans; they also resonate with Tomova’s new roots in a global metropolis.

“I have dug deep into Balkan music, but I also have all these other parts in me now,” Tomova notes. “And wherever I go, even if I’m back singing in that small village somewhere in Bulgaria, I bring those other worlds with me. My band and our performances reflect that.”

Distant Migrations, Close Voices: Vlada Tomova Sings at the Urbane Edge of Tradition on Tour this Fall and on Balkan Tales

All roads lead to the Balkans, and Bulgarian-born, Brooklyn-based singer Vlada Tomova hears it.

The region welcomed mysterious wanderers from Inner Asia; Greeks and Romans trading in the East; bands of weary migrants on a road that stretched from Rajastan to Andalusia. The lines of ancient movement across the peninsula are audible and tightly bound to one another, like the lives in a village.

Embracing sounds far outside the confines of tradition, Tomova has distilled years of learning songs from traditional singers and modern songwriters to tell Balkan Tales (Kuker Music; October 18, 2011). Her arrangements fearlessly embrace flamenco flourishes and Indian resonances, Brazilian flair and Romany rhythms. Yet her mutable, flexible voice evokes the stark, rich spirit of Balkan mountainsides and byways, the old paths and deep roots of thousands of years of cultural conversation.
Joined by globetrotting kaval (traditional Bulgarian flute) master Theodosii Spassov and an avant-worldly band including alter-sitarist Chris Rael, Tomova brings this elegant balance to New York, Boston, and Chicago in late October 2011. 
“The Balkans have something very unique that mixes well with other musics because of its complex and long history,” explains Tomova. “And it’s very emotional for me; it’s about connecting to the places, the ancient villages I’ve loved since childhood. It’s about home.”

***

Tomova recalls sitting at a modest kitchen table on a recent song-finding trip to Bulgaria. She had brought the members of her choir, Yasna Voices, to a remote pomak village, people whose ancestors had converted to Islam. There, Tomova and the American vocalists had met up with a pair of singers who were the real deal.
Across from her sat two older women who had been life-long singing partners. Traditionally, two girls start finding the close, vibrating intervals of old songs together and will continue blending their voices until death do them part. They could feel each other’s timing without a glance, sense what to say as the other improvised lyrics.
This commitment and intimacy moved Tomova deeply. “Those two women were so close, and they relied so much on each other, in an unspoken, down-to-earth, unquestioning way, which you could hear in their singing, the two voices flowing together as one,” Tomova reflects. “I wish we could find much more of that kind of interdependence, trust, and connectedness in the different layers of our everyday life today, especially in large cities, and in the Western world.”

The layers of Tomova’s own life reveal a similar spirit of interconnection. Though raised around traditional music in her native Bulgaria, she and her generation rebelled against the state-sponsored folk heard on the airwaves. It wasn’t until Tomova came to Berklee to study jazz that she discovered a completely different approach to Bulgarian and Balkan traditions, an approach that began with a spontaneous song at a Boston party and ended with concerts at Carnegie Hall and musical trips to the Bulgarian countryside.

Not content to simply sing the roots—though she is now an accomplished and respected performer and singer of Bulgarian traditional music—Tomova often collaborates with other globally-minded musicians (like Balkan Beat Box) and lends her mutable, expressive voice to installations, from a recent King Tut exhibit to the Turin Winter Olympics.
The delicious tension between tradition and bold experimentation echoes in Tomova’s songs like the close intervals loved by Bulgarian singers. It vibrates in the flamenco guitar and hand percussion that reframes the traditional Bulgarian tune, “Momche,” and in the Greek-gone-Brazilian ballad to a beloved daughter, “Augoustos.” 
A set for Tomova’s Balkan Tales is just as likely to include a Russian gypsy ballad as an edgy sitar line, or to follow a full-throated village song with a complex, globally savvy extrapolation of a folk-inspired jazz number. Take “Women’s Dance,” a tune composed by Milcho Leviev, an eccentric and brilliant musician defector from socialist Bulgaria whom Tomova tracked down in Los Angeles.

Tomova’s unexpected arrangements evolved in close collaboration with her fellow musicians at Berklee and in New York’s vibrant scene, as well as from Tomova’s own feel for vocal color, ornamentation, and distinctive harmonies. This fall, the band will include Spassov, a wildly talented traditional flute player who can easily leap borders and genres; he’s worked with everyone from Indian tabla innovator Trilok Gurtu and flamenco piano star David Peña Dorantes to film music icon Ennio Morricone.

On one of his many world tours, Spassov showed up at one of Tomova’s shows and jumped in to jam with her band, and a musical friendship began. “I’ve wanted to play with Teodosii again for years,” Tomova smiles.

The diverse sounds and multifaceted musicians Tomova has brought together reflect not only the complex interchange between peoples across the Balkans; they also resonate with Tomova’s new roots in a global metropolis.

“I have dug deep into Balkan music, but I also have all these other parts in me now,” Tomova notes. “And wherever I go, even if I’m back singing in that small village somewhere in Bulgaria, I bring those other worlds with me. My band and our performances reflect that.”