Past Concerts 2018
Sunday, January 28, 2018 at 7pm
Village Homes Community Center
2661 Portage Bay East, Davis, CA. 95616
$17 in advance, $20 at the door
info: 530-867-1032
or email: info@timnatalmusic.com
Taraf de Akácfa is an international 6 piece ensemble based out of Budapest, Hungary performing Balkan and Eastern European folk music.
The band was formed 5 years ago by travelling street musicians who met in Budapest, and decided to stay there for their common passion and appreciation for this tradition of music. They have performed at weddings, festivals, dance halls and concerts throughout the USA and Europe. After a successful USA tour in 2016, they will return to the USA this January.
Their current formation includes:
Ilka Kisgyörgy (Romania/Hungary) - Vocals
Lulu de la Rue (USA/ France) - Violin
Johannes Olsson (Sweden) - Accordeon
Ion Curteanu (Moldova) - Cimbalom
Isaac Misri (USA) - Guitar
Ábel Dénes (Hungary) - Double Bass
All the way from BUDAPEST, HUNGARY - TARAF DE AKÁCFA
Lulu de la Rue (USA / France) - Violin
Lulu is French-American and lives in Budapest, Hungary. She started playing violin at the age of 6 and grew up in a family of musicians. She has been a member of numerous groups across the globe and has studied at length with folk musicians from Transylvania, Romania, Hungary and the Balkans, including the violinists from Taraf de Haïdouks. In 2014, Lulu and Johannes created the band Taraf de Akácfa.
Johannes Olsson (Sweden) - Accordion
Johannes grew up in the forest in south of Sweden, learning at first diatonic accordion from his grandfather. At the age of 19 he started playing the chromatic button accordion. He is now living as a full-time musician in Budapest, Hungary, where he’s taking part in various different projects. He has worked with many great musicians and performers, including Tcha Limberger and Lajkó Félix
Isaac Misri (USA) - Guitar
Isaac grew up in the USA and was hitchhiking across Europe and Asia for 2 years until he arrived in Budapest, Hungary in 2015 and was immediately captivated by the local folk music. After meeting Johannes and Lulu, he stayed in Budapest learning as much folk music as he could from them. He helped form a local gypsy jazz band which had a successful tour in the USA last year. After the tour he settled in Monterey, California playing with various swing and Eastern European groups in the Bay Area.
Kisgyörgy Ilka (Romania / Hungary) - Vocals
Ilka is Transylvanian, from a family of folk musicians and luthiers. From a young age she always wanted to sing, but it wasn’t until she moved to Budapest in 2014 that she started her singing career. Since then, she has been actively singing Romanian and Hungarian folk music, while continuously learning and discovering it at the same time. It was two years ago that she met Lulu and Johannes and started to collaborate musically with them.
Dénes Ábel (Hungary) - Double Bass
Ábel is from Vác, Hungary. He plays double bass in several groups in Budapest, and just graduated from the Liszt Ferenc Music Academy in Budapest with a major in Jazz Double Bass. When he was a child he played classical cello. In his teenage years, he had a Rock n roll phase and played bass guitar. Now he plays traditional Hungarian folk music with the band Sárarany, contemporary jazz with Horváth Cintia Quintet, and Eastern European and Balkan folk music with Taraf de Akácfa.
Sunday, February 25, 2018 at 7pm
Village Homes Community Center
2661 Portage Bay East, Davis, CA. 95616
$17 in advance, $20 at the door
info: 530-867-1032
or email: info@timnatalmusic.com
Pezhham Akhavass is a world-class percussionist, founder and music director of Akhavass Productions, and modern day virtuoso of Persian percussive instruments tombak and daf.
Born in 1980 in Iran, he began learning youth music theory and tombak at the age of 5. With the support of his father, Pezhham studied tombak with Naser Farhang Far, and Saeid Roudbary. He earned a bachelor's degree in Music from Sureh University of Tehran in 2005, a bachelor's degree in World Music from San Francisco State University (SFSU) in 2016, and he is currently in the Master's program at SFSU.
Pezhham worked professionally in his 20s with the renowned Persian vocalist Shahram Nazeri from 2000-2007. He has recorded and performed with many master world-class musicians such as, Hossein Alizadeh and Aliakbar Moradi as well as many great world musicians from different cultures, including world-renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma. Pezhham was the featured percussionist on the 2010 Masters of Persian Music tour of the United States. He had the honor of performing in some of the most prestigious venues and festivals.
In addition to tombak and daf, he is knowledgeable about Persian instruments setar, tanbour and oud and has studied other percussion instruments including: Indian tabla with the guidance of legendary Ostad Zakir Hussain, kanjira and gatam. Pezhham now lives in the San Francisco, where he teaches, performs, produces concerts and gives educational demonstrations on Persian classical music and Persian instruments.
An Evening of
Persian Classical Music
After many attempts to bring to our music series one of my favorite music genres, The Classical Music of Iran, known as RADIF.
I'm very delighted to host a concert featuring two of Iran younger generation of musicians who carry on this great musical tradition and are on the forefront of its constant evolution.
Behfar Bahadoran is a musician from Iran and holds his bachelor degree in FineArts from Maryland Institute College of Art. He moved to the United States in 2005 and developed his career as a musician and a music instructor in the greater Washington D.C. Area. He has performed at many prestigious venues including the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco, Lincoln Center in New York City, Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., Freer Shackler Gallery at the Smithsonian Museum, Metropolitan Museum of Art, in New York City and many more. He studied violin with maestro Homayoun Khorram and Iranian percussion instruments with Ramin Rahimi and Arsalan Sedigh. Behfar has also performed as a percussionist, composer, and a tar player (a traditional lute shaped instrument from Iran) with many well known musicians such as Kaze Davoudian, Majid Derakhshani, Dawn Avery, Amadou Kuyateh, John Wubbenhorst, and Pezhham Akhavass. He continues his journey in the field of art and music by performing and composing music and creating artwork in different media.
© 2010 Content; Gil Medovoy© Design: fidlweb
Sunday, April 29th, 2018 at 7pm
Village Homes Community Center
2661 Portage Bay East, Davis, CA. 95616
$17 in advance, $20 at the door
info: 530-867-1032
or email: info@timnatalmusic.com
DIMITRIS MAHLIS
Dimitris is a multi-instrumentalist and composer based in the Los Angeles area. Since coming to LA, Dimitris' skills on oud, guitar and other stringed instruments have led him into a rich variety of performing and recording experiences. Dimitris has had the good fortune to receive training in both Western and Eastern musical systems. His style is known as both soulful and original. He currently studies with oudist Ustad Necati Celik from Istanbul, Turkey.
Some recent recording credits include: lal meri - "lal meri", "O Samanos" Dionisis Savopoulo-Thanasis Papakonstantinou, "Huun Huur Tu" with Carmen Rizzo, "Vino" with Robi Draco Rosa, and "Jostejoo" with Mamak Khadem. Dimitris also contributed music to Michael Apted's documentary The Power of the Game and is featured on the soundtrack of the film Clash of the Titans 2.
Dimitris has performed and toured throughout the world with artists such as A.R.Rahman, Axiom of Choice, Dionisis Savopoulos, Niyaz, Freddie Hubbard, Thanasis Papakonstantinou, Kevyn Lettau, Russell Ferrante and others.
He composes all the original music for his projects including 4 albums with Wahid, "Prana" with the trio, Prana and "Aphrodite Moves On" with his electric quartet, Babaghanoush.
An Evening with
WAHID – Beyond Tradition
WAHID is a musical dialogue between Chris Wabich on frame drums and Dimitris Mahlis on oud, approaching composition and improvisation in a daring, genre-defying way.
Both in his compositions and playing, Greek-born Mahlis skillfully draws from Greek, Persian, Carnatic, and Western jazz traditions; in his hands, the Oud deftly transforms into a multi-dimensional stringed instrument echoing these traditions.
3 time Grammy nominee, Chris Wabich, created the world's first bass frame drum set specifically for Wahid. His unique setup conveys an extraordinary undercurrent of rhythm and bass harmonic function allowing the duo to create new sonic potential.
Together as Wahid, they create a sensitive language conveying the full-spectrum of human emotion and experience.
CHRIS WABICH
From Los Angeles, Chris Wabich is known as a versatile and original voice on the drumset. The variety of artists he works with reflects his diversity as both musician and producer.
His drumming is heard with Ludacris, Sting, Leonard Cohen, Stanley Jordan, Brian Johnson (AC/DC) Sheila E., Mark Murphy, the Zappa Family, Larry Koonse, Turkish superstar Omar Faruk, Boogsie Sharpe, Prog Rock legends Kevin Ayers (Soft Machine), Mike Hoffman (Tony Williams Lifetime), Richard Sinclair (Caravan).
A few soundtracks include "Malcolm in the Middle", "American Idol", "Better Homes and Gardens", and "Wild California" IMAX.
More recently, Chris has been arranging and producing projects including Billboard charting hits for Margo Rey/John Oats (of Hall and Oats), Ty Taylor from Vintage Trouble, and the Beatles show, "Both".
2016 launches a new CD of Chris' quintet, "Thelonious Monkey" followed by a series of intense production and songwriting for winning artists from "American Idol", "The Voice" and "So You Think You Can Dance".
Old and New
Cookie Segelstein - Violin, Viola
Joshua Horowitz – Chromatic Button Accordion
Stuart Brotman - Bass, Basy, Tilinca, Baraban
Veretski Pass will be playing an improvised program of old and new pieces. The new pieces will feature recently unearthed music from the collection of Sophia Magid, a Ukrainian Jewish musicologist who worked under Stalin and collected rare and beautiful music that has has not been heard since she recorded them from Jewish villagers. The entire program brings a fresh new perspective to the genre, “klezmer music” and is bound to surprise and delight their audience.
In Eastern Europe, the roots of World Music go back centuries. Jews and
Moslems, Magyars, Rumanians, Ukrainians and Roma played music together in an atmosphere of sharing, in a multicultural area where professional musicians had to know as many musical styles as the diverse languages of the people with whom they lived and worked. Across the Veretski Pass, the mountain pass in theCarpathians through which Magyar tribes into crossed into the Carpathian basin in 895 AD, and through which the emigrating Jews first settled in Transcarpathia, the musical traditions were as varied as the people who lived there.
Taking it’s name from this cultural hotbed, Veretski Pass offers a unique and exciting combination of virtuosic musicianship and raw energy that has excited concertgoers across the world. With colorful instrumentation, unique arrangements and compositions, Veretski Pass plays "Old Country" music; music with origins in the Ottoman Empire, once fabled as the borderlands of the East and the West. In a true collage of Carpathian, Jewish, Rumanian and Ottoman styles, typical suites contain dances from Moldavia and Bessarabia; Jewish melodies from Poland and Rumania, Hutzul wedding music from Carpathian-Ruthenia, and haunting Rebetic aires from Smyrna, seamlessly integrated with original compositions. Much of this rare music has been gleaned from field recordings gathered by the musicians in numerous trips throughout Europe, as well as from family members.
Often touring in Europe, they have twice been chosen as ambassadors
representing traditional Jewish Instrumental Music of Eastern Europe for the German World Exhibition of Klezmer History (Klezmerwelten) and have headlined the Jewish Music Festival of the University of London. They recently performed at the prestigious Concertgebouw Concert Hall in Amsterdam to a sold out audience with a standing ovation, and their CDs have repeatedly been on the 10-best recordings lists of journalists. Cookie’s unique violin style was featured for a Jewish wedding scene on HBO’s “Sex and the City” and Josh and Stu’s compositions provided the music for Jes Benstock's award-winning film “The Holocaust Tourist."
Sunday, May 20, 2018 at 7pm
Village Homes Community Center
2661 Portage Bay East, Davis, CA. 95616
$17 in advance, $20 at the door
info: 530-867-1032
or email: info@timnatalmusic.com
Veretski Pass
Old and New
Sunday, September 23rd, 2018
Village Homes Community Center
2661 Portage Bay East, Davis, CA. 95616
$21 in advance, $25 at the door
info: 530-867-1032
or email: info@timnatalmusic.com
An Evening of Persian Classical Music
Featuring, Pezhham Akhavass on Percussion, Behfar Bahadoran on Tar
and Farzin Dehghan on Kemenche
Pezhham Akhavass, is a world-class percussionist, founder and music director of Akhavass Productions, and modern day virtuoso of Persian percussive instruments tombak and daf.
Born in 1980 in Iran, he began learning youth music theory and tombak at the age of 5. With the support of his father, Pezhham studied tombak with Naser Farhang Far, and Saeid Roudbary. He earned a bachelor's degree in Music from Sureh University of Tehran in 2005, a bachelor's degree in World Music from San Francisco State University (SFSU) in 2016, and he is currently in the Master's program at SFSU.
Pezhham worked professionally in his 20s with the renowned Persian vocalist Shahram Nazeri from 2000-2007. He has recorded and performed with many master world-class musicians such as, Hossein Alizadeh and Aliakbar Moradi as well as many great world musicians from different cultures, including world-renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma. Pezhham was the featured percussionist on the 2010 Masters of Persian Music tour of the United States. He had the honor of performing in some of the most prestigious venues and festivals.
In addition to tombak and daf, he is knowledgeable about Persian instruments setar, tanbour and oud and has studied other percussion instruments including: Indian tabla with the guidance of legendary Ostad Zakir Hussain, kanjira and gatam. Pezhham now lives in the San Francisco, where he teaches, performs, produces concerts and gives educational demonstrations on Persian classical music and Persian instruments.
Behfar Bahadoran is a musician from Iran and holds his bachelor degree in Fine
Arts from Maryland Institute College of Art. He moved to the United States in
2005 and developed his career as a musician and a music instructor in the greater Washington D.C. Area. He has performed at many prestigious venues including the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco, Lincoln Center in New York City, Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., Freer Shackler Gallery at the Smithsonian Museum, Metropolitan Museum of Art, in New York City and many more. He studied violin with maestro Homayoun Khorram and Iranian percussion instruments with Ramin Rahimi and Arsalan Sedigh. Behfar has also performed as a percussionist, composer, and a tar player (a traditional lute shaped instrument from Iran) with many well known musicians such as Kaze Davoudian, Majid Derakhshani, Dawn Avery, Amadou Kuyateh, John Wubbenhorst, and Pezhham Akhavass. He continues his journey in the field of art and music by performing and composing music and creating artwork in different media.
Farzin Dehghan is an emerging Kamancheh virtuoso hailing from Isfahan, Iran. Despite his young age, his magnificent talents have taken him from New York to Beijing to Nashville where he has performed the music of diverse cultures throughout the United States and Internationally with renowned artists such as Aynur Dogan, Simon Shaheen, Abigail Washburn, Sandeep Das, Mike Block, Wu Man, Idan Raichel, Shane Shanahan, and Alireza ShahMohammadi. He has been mentored by world-renowned Iranian Classical Music master Kayhan Kalhor and has also studied Arabic Classical Music with the Palestinian Oud and Violin virtuoso, Simon Shaheen.
Recently, Farzin was invited as a Fellow to the prestigious OMI International Arts Center Music Residency. He also traveled to China to perform at the World Music Asia 2017 festival and teach at the International schools in Beijing."
Two of the three musicians that will be featured in September, where here in March they will be joined by a third musician coming from the East Coast. The price change is to THIS event only in order to help differ traveling cost of one of the musicians.
Sunday, November 18, 2018 at 7pm
Village Homes Community Center
2661 Portage Bay East, Davis, CA. 95616
$17 in advance, $20 at the door
info: 530-867-1032
or email: info@timnatalmusic.com
A NIGHT OF TURKISH SUFI MYSTIC MUSIC, DANCE, POETRY AND IMAGES:
Featuring Latif Bolat & Ms. Serap Yilmaz
Latif Bolat plays Turkish Folk Music and devotional Sufi songs which are called Ilahi and Nefes, from the Anatolian peninsula. The lyrics of Ilahis or Nefeses are taken largely from the great mystic poets Yunus Emre, Niyazi Misri and many other ancient troubadours of Turkey. The program also includes sacred ballads composed by Latif Bolat. Throughout the program, devotional poetry will be recited from 13th Century Sufi poets Yunus Emre, Rumi, and images of Turkish people and scenery will be reflected on a screen.
During the concert, Ms.Serap Yilmaz, a devotional dancer called Whirling Dervish from Turkey will also present this 800 years old dance tradition over Latif Bolat’s music. Serap Yilmaz is a Turkish Whirling Dervish from Istanbul. She has been taking part in many spiritual events especially in England with her poetry reciting and Whirling. This will be her debut in North America as a devotional dancer during Latif Bolat's performances.
One of the most well-known Turkish musicians in the US, Bolat possesses a vast repertoire, ranging from Sufi devotional songs and Turkish Folk music to classical pieces. Now residing in New Mexico and Turkey, Mr.Bolat has presented his music all across America, Canada, India, Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, Singapore, Bulgaria, Turkey, Philippines, England and many other international locations. In addition to his Carnegie Hall concerts and lectures, he has recorded 4 very successful CDs, made many TV and radio appearances and composed music for the PBS Documentary “Mohammed: Legacy of a Prophet” and George Lucas’s TV series “Young Indiana Jones”. He is also the co-author of a Turkish Sufi poetry book titled “Quarreling with God” which is published by White Cloud Books (Oregon, 2008).
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LATIF BOLAT
http://www.latifbolat.com (for music, picture and further information)
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Turkish Singer, Composer and Scholar of Turkish Music and Folklore
Latif Bolat is a native of the Turkish Mediterranean town of Mersin. After receiving his degree in folklore and music at Gazi University in Ankara, Turkey, he taught traditional music throughout the country. He then went on to manage Ankara Halk Tiyatrosu, a musical theater company, which performed traditional musical plays. Mr.Bolat also received further degrees in Turkish History and Middle East Religion and Politics from Ankara University and an MBA from San Francisco State University.
His recent performance and teaching engagements include:
* Educational concerts-lectures at Carnegie Hall in NYC.
Soundtrack music for George Lucas Studio's "Young Indiana Jones".
PBS documentary “Mohammed: Legacy of a Prophet”.
* Released 4 successful CDs in the US, Co-authored the Turkish mystic Sufi poetry translations and anthology book: “Quarreling with God: Mystic Rebel Sufi Poems of the Dervishes of Turkey”.
* Festivals across the World: All India Sufi and Mystic Music Festival, Edinburgh Middle Eastern Spirituality Festival, Alaska Folk Festival, London Festival of Islamic World, Monterey World Music Festival, Boulder World Music Festival, Singapore World Music Festival at the Esplanade, Lotus World Music Festival in Bloomington, Vancouver Spiritual Music Festival, Memphis in May Festival, Carnegie Hall Global Encounters Festival, Canberra National Festival in Australia, Urkult Festival in Sweden and others.
* Concerts and conferences at many institutions including, the United Nations, Oxford University, SOAS-London, Leeds University, University of California at Berkeley, Monash University in Melbourne, University of Chicago, Georgia Tech, UCLA, Stanford University, UC Santa Barbara, University of Southern California, San Francisco State University, University of Washington, Arizona State University, University of South Carolina, Claremont College, University of Colorado at Boulder, Oberlin Conservatory in Ohio, University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign, Brigham Young University and many others..
* The California Art Council rewarded Mr.Bolat with a grant for his contributions to the preservation of Turkish traditional music. Turkish Ministry of Culture sponsored his Turkish Sufi poetry translations project titled “Quarreling with God”. He also leads educational Cultural tours to Turkey for the past 10 years.
