Music – Page 19

Barry Sisters recordings now available

Left to right: Yiddish music icons, Merna and Claire Barry, entertained generations of Jewish Americans with their jazzy versions of Yiddish songs. (photo from rsa.fau.edu)

For more than 40 years, the Bagelman Sisters, later known as the Barry Sisters, were the darlings of Jewish entertainment. Their recordings could be found in almost every Jewish household in the 1950s and ’60s. The younger of the two sisters, Merna, passed away in 1976. The older sister, Claire, died on Nov. 22, 2014, in Hollywood, Fla., at 94.

Who were the Barry Sisters?

On the surface, they were two beautiful girls, dressed in the latest fashion, hair perfectly coiffed, singing with sultry voices that could make your heart leap. But their impact was great.

Born in New York, the two sisters were originally known as the Bagelman Sisters. Many saw them as the Yiddish answer to the popular Andrews Sisters in the 1940s. They combined Jewish folk songs and Yiddish theatre ditties with swing arrangements and perfect harmony. When Clara and Minnie changed their names to Claire and Merna, the Bagelman Sisters became the Barry Sisters. The duo has often been credited with creating Yiddish swing, a music genre that did not exist previously.

The glamorous Barry Sisters were regular guests on Yiddish radio programs like Yiddish Melodies in Swing. They toured with The Ed Sullivan Show to the Soviet Union and performed in Israel in October 1962. The popularity of their catchy and jazzy tunes may have paved the way for the Broadway hit Fiddler on the Roof and the klezmer revival of the late 1970s.

The Judaica Sound Archives at the Recorded Song Archives at Florida Atlantic University has 41 recordings by this dynamic duo of Yiddish music, including: “Abi Gezunt,” “In Meine Oigen Bistie Shain,” “Channah from Havannah,” “Bublitchki,” “Dem Neyem Sher” and many others.

For more Barry Sisters recordings, visit rsa.fau.edu/barry-sisters. Due to copyright concerns, only snippets can be heard on the public website, however, full versions are available to users of the RSA Research Station, rsa.fau.edu.

Niels Falch is a PhD candidate at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands and is currently writing a dissertation on the influence of Jewish music in American popular songs. This article appears courtesy of the Recorded Sound Archives at Florida Atlantic University, rsa.fau.edu.

Music is the poetry of life

Local jazz musician Ayelet Rose Gottlieb happily juggles music and babies. “You have to have music, right? Music is life. It’s a necessity. And you have to have kids.” Gottlieb just released her fourth album, Roadsides, and her adorable six-month-old twins, a boy and a girl, don’t slow her down one bit.

photo - Ayelet Rose Gottlieb plays songs from her new album Jan. 16 — Ayelet Rose Gottlieb plays songs from her new album Jan. 16. *(photo from Ayelet Rose Gottlieb)*

The music for all the songs on Roadsides was written by Gottlieb, with lyrics from work by various Israeli and Palestinian poets. “This project accumulated for a long time,” she told the Independent. “There’s lots of pain in Israel now, and nationalism is growing. It’s hard for me. Israel is my country. My mother’s family has lived there for 20 generations. All that time, there was a cultural interchange between Palestinians and Jews. It’s almost gone now.”

She feels that Israel today is missing a bridge between cultures, the connection that was flourishing even in her grandfather’s days. “People of all backgrounds love this land. I believe that it is possible to elevate beyond the hurts of the past decades. We should try to restart the intercultural conversation. The poets I chose for the songs on this album represent such diversity: Israeli and Palestinian, young and old, male and female, Ashkenazi and Mizrahi. In a way, my album is a political statement, that of humanity. We can all coexist in Israel and the more we learn about each other, the more we talk, the better people we are.”

She recalled being a student in Jerusalem at a high school for the arts. “I started writing songs and performing when I was 17. For 10 years, I performed with Arnie Lawrence, the famous American jazz saxophone player. He lived in Israel in the last years of his life, and he became my teacher of jazz. He shaped my thinking. We often performed with Palestinian musicians, both in Israel and Palestine. Music is an international language. With music, you can communicate with anyone. But it was easier then – there was no wall.”

Some of the songs on Roadsides are light and quirky, while others are poignant, driven by emotions. All of them are in Hebrew, either originals or translations from Arabic. “When I compose songs, the text should trigger something inside me,” she explained of her approach. “It doesn’t have to be poetry. It could be a piece of prose, as long as it says something important. The quality of the text is paramount.”

Occasionally, she uses her own lyrics, though not often. She has songs set to passages of artist Wassily Kandinsky’s book on art and Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous speech. Kandinsky, in particular, fascinated her as a subject, as she used to paint as well as compose. “I don’t do it anymore,” she confessed. “But I hear colors. Certain colors resonate with certain notes. It’s a personal interpretation, of course, when you set music to painting or paint to the music.”

Gottlieb’s songs are multifaceted, flowing around their listeners in audio waves, implying pictures and palettes, even if one doesn’t understand the Hebrew. No surprise then that she has fans all over North America. But her heart belongs to Israel, she said. “I fly to Israel a couple times each year, to perform and to connect with my family.” She also records in a New York studio, as a solo performer and as part of the quartet Mycale.

Musical collaborations increase her audience but also broaden her expressive facilities and add to her musical toolbox. She recorded one of the songs on Roadsides as a duet with Israeli pop star Alon Olearchik. Others, she wrote with particular musicians in mind.

Gottlieb also teaches composition, vocals and improvisation. In Israel, she taught at colleges. Here, she gives private lessons and workshops. “I enjoy working with children and adults, but I prefer adults, mature people who know what they want…. I learn a lot when I teach. Sometimes, I would explain a point to my students, and it would clarify the concept for me too. Students often surprise me. They do something unexpected, and I’d see a new perspective, realize a new way of doing things.”

Moving every few years has also helped to keep her creativity fresh. “We lived in New Zealand for a while, in New York and in the U.K.,” she explained. “Compared with New York, where there are many different cultures, Vancouver has a smaller music scene, fewer people to play for, fewer opportunities and venues. I’m still looking for my language here. Resonating with the place and the community is important, but it’s an interesting exploration and a wonderful place to raise babies.”

As for any parent, her children are an integral part of her life, and she plans to incorporate her music into their upbringing. “I dream of having house concerts at our place when the kids are a bit older. They should be exposed to music and art early. Art is playful. To be an artist, you have to keep some of the child in you alive.”

Gottlieb’s Roadsides CD release is Jan. 16 at the China Cloud on Main Street. To learn more, visit ayeletrose.com.

Olga Livshin is a Vancouver freelance writer. She can be reached at [email protected].

Providing an all-access pass

Elka Yarlowe is president and CEO of Access to Music Foundation. (photo by Olga Livshin)

Elka Yarlowe’s love affair with music started when she was very young. “I always listened to music or sang,” she remembered. “When I was four or five, I had my tonsils taken out in a hospital. My mom told me I was a very brave girl and asked me what I wanted as a reward. I said I wanted a piano.”

She got her piano, and her childhood in New York was steeped in notes and melodies. Her mother took her to see musical shows. Her relatives sang in a Yiddish theatre. She studied piano with a private teacher and participated in a school choir. “I was lucky. We had an exceptional musical program in my public school. In Grade 8, I knew I wanted to pursue music professionally,” she told the Independent.

She fulfilled her childhood dream and had a decades-long, successful career as an opera singer. Now, she wants to give an equal opportunity to local children, so they also can pursue a musical career if they choose. As president and chief executive officer of Access to Music Foundation, Yarlowe does what she can to make opportunities available to as many children as possible.

Since 2006, she has been a board member of the Music B.C. Industry Association. “In 2007, the Vancouver School Board made the first of many subsequent budget cuts to music programs,” she said. “In response, we started a charity and funded a music program in one Vancouver school. It wasn’t enough. More cuts followed in 2009. In 2010, I decided to leave the board and concentrate on the charity for music only. We called it Music B.C. Charitable Foundation. Last year, we changed the name to Access to Music.”

Currently, Access to Music funds programs in 20 provincial public schools and three aboriginal schools. “Our main goal is to fund instrument purchases for schools,” said Yarlowe. “Most instruments in the school system are over 20 years old, not fit for proper learning. If you start a hockey team at a school, you can’t have the children play hockey in 25-year-old skates. The same goes for musical instruments.”

According to Yarlowe, music education is a necessity: “Statistics show that children who play a musical instrument usually score 25 percent higher in any other discipline than children who don’t. Music is integral to our understanding of math and science. Any child in a school orchestra gets a fundamental sense of communication and cooperation, discipline and self-respect. Music develops both left and right sides of the brain. It is both science and art.”

Yarlowe lamented the fact that in this province, music programs often get cut first. “Last April, the school board wanted to cut all elementary school music programs. We fought that decision and won. The cut was postponed for one more year. We have a new battle ahead of us,” she said.

She explained that schools in the least economically advantaged areas of the province are affected most by these cuts. “Wealthier schools will continue to fund music through the parents’ efforts. That will create a disparity between poor and rich; deepen the divide. That’s why we fund the poor schools. We’re trying to level the playing field for all schoolchildren, to give all students equal access to musical education. Music is a catalyst for personal and social change. It’s part of organic education. Everyone needs it.”

Access to Music also offers mentorship programs, scholarships and intensive music clinics, and works with LGBTQ, at-risk and street-involved youth. “We offered our songwriting program to kids who face multiple barriers,” she said. “Some of them struggle with addiction. Others were victims of abuse or ran away from home. Many told me that music keeps them together, away from crime or suicide…. One gay boy wrote on his Facebook that participating in our song competition changed his life. Another street kid entered the Capilano jazz program, even though he still lives on the street. We try to provide barrier-free access to music for as many as we can. Today, about 8,000 children benefit from our programs. In the last several years, we purchased instruments for over $100,000. The need in this province is great.”

Many local organizations support the foundation with monetary donations or time, including Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. Next April, 100 music students from Surrey and Burnaby will have “a day of play” with the VSO. “All day long, the kids will have intensive sessions with the VSO musicians,” Yarlowe explained. “Then they will meet Maestro [Bramwell] Tovey. And, in the evening, they will have a treat – they will see a live show at the Orpheum. For many of them, it will be their first live classical music performance and the first visit to the Orpheum. When I was at school, our music teacher arranged for us to go to the Lincoln Centre once a year for a music show or an opera. We want to give such an opportunity to [more] local students. We want to be able to reproduce the event with the VSO every year, and maybe have similar events in Victoria, Okanagan [and] Prince George.”

Passionate about the foundation, Yarlowe insisted, “Music is not a frill or icing on a cake. It’s a necessity. Everyone who ever played an instrument or sang a song enjoyed it. Everyone has a personal connection to his music, no matter if it’s classical, rock or jazz. If you put an instrument into someone’s hands, chances are high those hands would never pick up a gun.”

The recent city initiative Keys to the Streets, which encountered an enthusiastic response in the majority of Vancouverites, disappointed her. “I went crazy when I learned about it. I know it’s good to give anyone a chance to play on the street, but to think of all these pianos [potentially] ruined in the rain. I’d put them in schools around the province instead. For the cost of just moving those pianos to and from locations, I could probably buy 20 clarinets for 20 school orchestras.”

One of her duties as foundation president is asking for money. “People spend lots of dollars so their kids could learn hockey. Why not to learn music? There is a much better chance that a child could make music his profession, make a living from it than from hockey. Much lower chance of injuries or concussions, too.”

Access to Music has become Yarlowe’s personal crusade, her tikkun olam. “There is a proverb: ‘You’re not required to finish the work but you’re not allowed to turn your back on it.’ That’s my guideline. I have three great passions in my life: my family, my faith and my music. I may not be able to fund all the schools for all the music programs they need, but it doesn’t give me, any of us, permission to stop the efforts. I feel like all my life was a build up for my work with the foundation.”

To learn more about the foundation, visit accesstomusic.ca.

Olga Livshin is a Vancouver freelance writer. She can be reached at [email protected].

Ten years of chanting

The Chanting and Chocolate band, from left: Charles Cohen, Lorne Mallin, Charles Kaplan, John Federico and Martin Gotfrit. (photo from Dave Kauffman)

On the last Sunday of every month, you can find a group of people gathered around a band of musicians, chanting Hebrew text to the rhythm of beautiful, rich melodies of the likes of Rabbi Shefa Gold and Rabbi Andrew Hahn (also known as the Kirtan Rabbi). It is a deceptively simple concept with surprisingly diverse results.

These harmonies of chant, through the repetition of just a few words, seem to have the power to carry you away from the daily hustle and bustle into a realm of music and spirit. This is Chanting and Chocolate, Lorne Mallin’s creation, which just celebrated its 10-year anniversary.

“In the summer of 2004, I began a two-year training called Kol Zimra (Voice of Praise) with Rabbi Shefa Gold of Jemez Springs, N.M.,” said Mallin about how Chanting and Chocolate came to be. “During our first gathering, Shefa encouraged us to create chant circles where we live and so, on Nov. 28th of that year, I began offering monthly evenings of sacred Hebrew chanting in Vancouver, initially called Evenings of Jewish Chant, which were then held at Sourcepoint shiatsu centre on Heather Street.”

This became a monthly tradition until Mallin moved to Uganda to live with the Abayudaya Jews in 2009. Not one to let geography, language or architectural challenges stand in his way, he was intent on sharing his passion for Jewish chant with the Abayudaya.

“At the mud-brick synagogue in the village of Nabugoye Hill, I led Shefa’s Nishmat Kol Chai, using the Luganda translation of ‘The breath of all life blesses you,’ ‘Okuusa kwebilamu kukutendereza.’ I tried to start a chant circle but, at the first announced session in the shul, I drummed and chanted alone until there was one arrival – a clucking hen skittered into the room.”

Fifteen months later, and back in Vancouver, Mallin and his band started the monthly evenings again.

“One regular participant brought tea and some baking to celebrate,” he recalled. “I noticed people enjoyed the opportunity to linger and get to know each other, so I began baking triple-chocolate brownies and rebranded the evenings Chanting and Chocolate. Two years ago, we moved to Or Shalom Synagogue at Fraser Street and East 10th Avenue.”

Beyond the good it does to its participants (naches to the soul and an uplifting of the spirit), Chanting and Chocolate is also a tikkun olam project on another level: the musicians perform for love, with the proceeds from admissions going to support the education of four Abayudaya orphans.

So, after a decade, what is it about Chanting and Chocolate that keeps Mallin going?

“For me, nothing creates a space for connecting with the Divine like chanting. The chants combine short sacred texts, beautiful melodies and deep spiritual intention. They often last 10 minutes, which strengthens the intention and clears the mind. After each chant, we give time for inner silence and connection, which is the most profound experience of the practice of chanting.”

Although Mallin has been the driving force behind this monthly undertaking, bringing it together and making it happen is very much a group effort.

“I am very grateful to my beloved teacher Shefa, the holy Kol Zimra community, Or Shalom, our band – Charles Cohen, John Federico, Martin Gotfrit and Charles Kaplan – and the lovely people who come to chant with us.”

While Mallin and the band have recorded little so far, they are planning to record their first CD in February, so stay tuned. In the meantime, to experience a unique kind of musical Yiddishkeit, attend the next Chanting and Chocolate, which will be held at its regular venue on Sunday, Dec. 28, at 7:30 p.m., with Rabbi Laura Duhan Kaplan as a special guest. Since no previous singing or chanting experience is needed, all you need to bring is some kavanah and yourself. And maybe a friend.

For more information, visit chantingandchocolate.com.

Mendes joins Tapper on 100.5 FM

Marcus Mendes in Yemin Moshe, Jerusalem, last year. (photo from Marcus Mendes)

Marcus Mendes has joined Alan Tapper in hosting The Anthology of Jewish Music, which airs Sundays, 10 a.m., on 100.5 FM and coopradio.org. Mendes will be playing a variety of genres of Jewish music: traditional, pop, religious and especially Israeli artists.

Recently, Mendes was a volunteer at the Isaac Waldman Jewish Public Library. For a couple of years, as a child, he lived on Kibbutz Gesher Haziv and Kibbutz Dorot. He spent another year in Israel when he was 17, he recently visited there and will be traveling to the country again next year.

“I’m completely in awe of Alan’s dedication to bringing us this great show of Jewish music every week for the last 34 years,” said Mendes. “The man deserves a star on a walk of fame. If I could play a theme song, it might be the Knack’s ‘My Sharona!’ except I’d replace those words with, ‘Alan Tapper!’ and sing them with feeling!”

Cultivating composers

For the past eight years, Turning Point Ensemble (TPE) has taken their Creating Composers music education program into schools across Metro Vancouver. This year, the program has expanded and, with the support of the B.C. Arts Council’s Youth Engagement grant program, Creating Composers will travel to more remote communities in the province.

The announcement was made by the program’s founder, Jeremy Berkman, who is TPE’s new director of education and community outreach. What’s the Score! will take members of the ensemble to Prince George and Terrace to work with young creative artists ages 13-18 to give them the skills to be a composer. The workshops will not only focus on creative composition in general, but will focus on orchestration by augmenting the Turning Point Ensemble with members of the local musician community and the guidance of two of the province’s most renowned composers for orchestral forces, Jeffrey Ryan and Rodney Sharman. The Prince George concert will take place on Dec. 7, 2 p.m., in Vanier Hall with Sharman, TPE mentor composer, and a Terrace concert will take place in April.

In Vancouver, the orchestration workshops will now include nearly the entire Turning Point Ensemble collaborating with Vancouver Pro Musica to develop and present a program of new compositions as part of Pro Musica’s annual Sonic Boom Festival that will be performed March 29.

The Creating Composers youth music education program returns to schools in Metro Vancouver in 2015. The ensemble members love taking part in it, and are excited to welcome Mark Haney and Dorothy Chang as mentor composers this year.

In brief, TPE musicians and mentor composer help students develop creative ideas to write a composition in a supportive learning environment that includes a dialogue with the artists, who will then interpret and perform the young composer’s work. In addition, Remy Siu is TPE’s emerging composer in residence, assisting with the Creating Composers programs, as well as coordinating a competition for young composers.

Music is a universal language and students can develop confidence through self-expression, regardless of economic, language or cultural barriers. TPE provides the catalyst to spark the interest in music or the arts in general.

For more information on the ensemble, its programs and performances, visit turningpointensemble.ca.

World musician at Rothstein

On Dec. 5, Lenka Lichtenberg will perform traditional and original songs at the Rothstein Theatre, self-accompanied on piano, guitar, harmonium and percussion. (photo from lenkalichtenberg.com)

Three new CDs in three years made in three different regions of the world, garnering at least as many awards and even more nominations. Toronto-based Lenka Lichtenberg has been on creative fire. She sent the Independent greetings from Prague earlier this month, as she was preparing for a concert there, and early next month, she will be in Vancouver.

The group Art Without Borders is bringing Lichtenberg here for a Dec. 5 solo performance at the Norman and Annette Rothstein Theatre.

According to its website, the nonprofit organization has two missions: “it strives to promote an understanding and appreciation for Czech culture through the arts both within and without the Czech community” and “it endeavors to cultivate dialogue between Canada and Central Europe.”

Lichtenberg’s work certainly forms cultural connections, and it greatly expands upon the dialogue. Consider only her most recent recordings, all of which bring together top-notch musicians from around the world to create music that blends multiple languages, cultures, melodies and rhythms: Songs for the Breathing Walls (2012) with the help of many international artists, Embrace (2013) with Canadian world-music group Fray and Lullabies from Exile (2014) with Israel’s Yair Dalal.

In addition, on her website, Lichtenberg has a virtual museum that displays some of what she has discovered about her family. Born in Prague, she didn’t find out she was Jewish until she was 9 or 10 years old. “It took me awhile to learn about my roots, as my mother did not say much about it; she did not know herself,” writes Lichtenberg. “My mother, while 100 percent Jewish, was brought up a Catholic by her family who left Judaism one by one. My great-grandmother described herself as ‘without faith’ already in 1919, and my grandmother and grandfather left Judaism some three to four years later. There were no signs of Jewish roots in the households, Christmas was celebrated. Not a completely atypical Czech Jewish urban family, I believe; assimilation was widespread. Then, the Holocaust … and my family was murdered. As an adult, I began learning.

“The activities of the past 25 years of my life, since my first trip to Masada, have largely been an attempt to learn about, and honor, my heritage in ways available to me: as a Yiddish singer (picking up Yiddish as an adult) and musician, composer of music built in one way or another on Jewish traditions, and a singer of beautiful liturgy. My 2010-2012 project Songs for the Breathing Walls was the most determined milestone in my quest to honor and connect with the past – via the history of the wider Jewish community of Czech and Moravian lands.”

The album Songs for the Breathing Walls connects that past with the future, preserving traditional Hebrew liturgy and poems in contemporary arrangements that were performed live in 12 different synagogues, or buildings that were once synagogues or used as such (nine Czech and three in Moravia). The recordings were made from July 2010 through July 2011. “The journey ended in Terezin, where my mother’s family was incarcerated; for the first time, I walked in the halls of the building where my mother had lived for two and a half years,” writes Lichtenberg in the liner notes. Appropriately, the memorial prayer El Maleh Rachamim was recorded there. Several of the recordings are prayers from the Yizkor service, but they mix with an Adon Olam based by Dalal on a melody of Babylonian Jews, an Avinu Malkeinu arranged by Lichtenberg and other holiday or weekday prayers.

Mourning and hope, sadness and joy cohabitate easily in this beautiful, moving and meaningful recording, the idea for which came to Lichtenberg in 2009. Performing on consecutive days in synagogues in Plzen and in Liberec, she noticed a difference in sound, ambience and feeling, “a unique character stemming from something deeper than mere acoustics … perhaps something left behind by those who built these structures and filled them with their lives.” Her hope is that, in listening to Songs for the Breathing Walls, people “will be able to hear the ‘breathing walls’ as well, embracing those who lived among them, love, suffered, prayed for peace. Perhaps then, their memory will live on….”

In all of Lichtenberg’s music, the memory and traditions of those who have lived before can be heard – they are celebrated, and merge with the memories, traditions and passions of Lichtenberg and the artists with whom she collaborates. A completely different mood infuses Embrace than Songs for the Breathing Walls, yet it too crosses temporal, cultural and geographic borders. Recorded in Toronto with Fray, co-led by percussionist Alan Hetherington, Embrace features lyrics inspired by religious texts, folk tales, poems, family and friends, with melodies rooted in the Middle East, North America, South America and India.

Lichtenberg is at home in many languages and musical styles, and every release highlights her talents, and those of the musicians with which she works, Lullabies from Exile being another example. It is one of the most distinctive collections of lullabies you’ll ever hear. With songs recorded in Israel, Canada and Czech Republic, it brings together Babylonian and Yiddish music, songs sung to Dalal and Lichtenberg by their mothers, literally intertwining them in eight medleys, each arranged from a song from each of their traditions.

As explained on Dalal’s website, the collaboration on this CD “was born before a joint concert in Kosice, Slovakia, when Lichtenberg played the album’s opening lullaby, ‘Yankele,’ for Dalal to see if he could accompany her on oud. Soon, Dalal was playing an Iraqi lullaby from his childhood [‘Wien Ya Galub’] that connected to Lichtenberg’s Yiddish song with a remarkably natural intuition…. While most of these lullabies are in Judeo-Iraqi Arabic and Yiddish, the concept grew to include songs in Czech, Slovak and Hebrew in order to reflect the artists’ personal histories, as well as English, to acknowledge the experience of the English-speaking Diaspora.” The CD also includes two non-medleys.

When the Jewish Independent first interviewed Lichtenberg (“Eclectic Jewish music,” Dec. 15, 2006), it was about her third CD, Pashtes/Simplicity, a collaboration with Brian Katz, in which she set the Yiddish poetry of Simcha Simchovitch to Jewish, jazz, Brazilian and other melodies. Having performed previously “in lounges, bars, in a rock band, more bars, and a cruise line,” she explained what she realized in Israel: “… I needed to change my direction and truly embrace my roots, my identity, which at that time was barely visible. I decided to ‘do Jewish.’ Being a musician, it meant dropping the kind of music I made my living with up to then in Canada and starting from scratch as a Jewish singer…. I concentrated on Yiddish, as I felt it would be closer to my true identity than Hebrew, even though my family, my mom and grandma, Holocaust survivors, didn’t speak a word of Yiddish. [They were] totally assimilated, as [were] most Czech Jews.” Lichtenberg, who had also been studying cantorial music for several years by 2006, described her experience with Jewish music as being “a growing process.”

While it is tempting, having listened to these latest recordings, to say that Lichtenberg’s Jewish music is all grown up, so to speak, written and performed with a confidence and skill that is remarkable, she seems like someone who will continually push herself to keep growing, experimenting in each new project. And, of course, she has several on the go. For more information about Lichtenberg, visit lenkalichtenberg.com. For tickets to her Dec. 5, 8 p.m., solo concert at the Rothstein Theatre, visit arwibo.org ($25) or the theatre box office at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver ($28).

Special night with VSO

Michael Fish initiated a unique VSO-JFSA collaboration, which will see JFSA clients attend the symphony on Nov. 15. (photo from Michael Fish)

“There is a direct relationship between cultural experiences and good health. Whether it’s participation in the arts or appreciation for the arts, there is an emotional response for those who engage in these experiences,” said Joel Steinberg, president of Jewish Family Service Agency (JFSA).

Steinberg was offering this observation in the context of a unique opportunity that JFSA has to help 200 clients attend a special concert of music by Jewish composers performed by the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra (VSO) at the Orpheum on Nov. 15.

Michael Fish, who has been a board member for the VSO for four years, wanted to encourage more Jewish community involvement with the symphony.

“In an effort to promote the VSO, as well as bring our community more into the fold, I decided to try to do something special,” Fish told the Independent. “With the support of the VSO’s conductor and musical director, Bramwell Tovey, the VSO agreed to put together a concert of all Jewish composers that I could use as a vehicle for my goal.”

Fish continued, “I then approached Jewish Family Service Agency and asked if they would be interested in sending some of their clients to an evening of Jewish music with the VSO. Knowing that many of their clients would not have the means to purchase a ticket for themselves, I took it upon myself to raise the funds from within the Jewish community to make it happen. I was thrilled at the fantastic response.”

According to Steinberg, Fish has used his advocacy very effectively for JFSA. In addition to organizing this concert, Fish secured a full page in VSO’s Allegro magazine recognizing “Friends of JFSA,” thereby helping JFSA communicate its mission to VSO patrons.

“Many people do not realize that about 10 percent of our clients are non-Jewish,” said Steinberg. “They are mostly users of home support and counseling services, both of which are fee-for-service and help generate critical revenues for our organization to support our other programs. This is a great opportunity for JFSA to raise its profile in the general community while benefitting our clients.”

According to Alan Stamp, JFSA’s director of counseling, the agency sporadically provides “tickets for inclusion” to clients who are in need and who have identified an interest in the arts. The program is managed by JFSA social workers on a case-by-case basis. One of the challenges with the existing system is that tickets are often donated last minute by supporters of JFSA who realize that they will not be able to use them. It can be difficult to match tickets with clients, many of whom face mobility challenges, on short notice. This event with VSO is on a different scale.

Silkie Wong, who works in development and communication at JFSA, has been assisting the department’s director, Audrey Moss, with coordinating the project from the JFSA side. Wong noted that JFSA organizes transportation where possible to ensure that clients can attend, as some of their clients find it difficult to get out on their own. Wong pointed out why this type of event is important: “This is a unique and meaningful experience. Attending cultural events enables our clients to live life, not just survive it.”

Steinberg hopes this avenue for inclusion, initiated by Fish, will spur others to step up and bring such more initiatives forward. “We hope that we will have an ongoing partnership with VSO, and that more of our friends connected to other organizations will help us open more doors and build similar partnerships,” said Steinberg.

Fish considers this is a win-win situation. He is excited about the beautiful music that both JFSA clients and members of the greater community will share, as well as the concert’s potential to raise the profile of VSO in the Jewish community. He summed up by saying, “The musicians will be playing to a larger audience, JFSA’s [clients and] patrons will enjoy a great evening, and perhaps the VSO will pick up a few patrons along the way. What could be better than that?”

To learn more about this concert, visit jfsa.ca.

Michelle Dodek is a freelance writer and community volunteer living in Vancouver.

Orkestars at Vogue

Members of Orkestar Slivovica include Susan Gerofsky, fourth from the left. (photo from Caravan World Rhythms)

Caravan World Rhythms presents Boban & Marko Markovic Orkestar on Oct. 18 at Vogue Theatre. Opening for Boban & Marko is a collaboration between local bands Orkestar Slivovica and Jack Garton’s Demon Squadron. The main level of the Vogue will be turned into an open dance floor for the whole evening. There will also be reserved seating available for those who prefer to sit and watch.

Boban & Marko, the quintessential Balkan brass band, comes back to Vancouver after again being crowned “Leading Band in Serbia,” a title to which they have been named multiple times since the late 1980s. Their music, performed by a 13-piece strong orchestra, is defined by their gypsy lineage, while giving a nod towards other musical and cultural backgrounds related to Romani traditions. Aside from their numerous awards, the group has performed and been featured in films.

Vancouver’s homegrown Balkan brass band, Orkestar Slivovica, includes Jewish community member Susan Gerofsky. The eight-12-piece brass ensemble plays and sings a diverse repertoire, from insanely fast dance tunes to heart-wrenching songs, often in crooked rhythms and exotic scales. Gerofsky plays tenor horn and accordion and contributes vocals, but she also plays baritone horn and other brass instruments, pennywhistle and piano, and has dabbled with banjo, fiddle and ukulele.

Gerofsky has been involved with folk music and dance for many years, starting with youthful experiences doing Israeli and international folk dancing and working as a volunteer at the Mariposa Folk Festival in Toronto.

When not playing with the band, Gerofsky is a tenured assistant professor in the department of curriculum and pedagogy in the faculty of education at the University of British Columbia. She holds degrees in languages and linguistics as well as mathematics education, and worked for 12 years in film production, eight years in adult education (including workplace and labor education) and eight years as a high school teacher with the Vancouver School Board. Gerofsky has been involved in interdisciplinary research and teaching involving embodied, multisensory mathematics education, garden-based learning, applied linguistics and film. She has studied, researched and taught in England, Brazil, Italy and Cuba. She speaks several languages.

Collaborating with Orkestar Slivovica are special guests Demon Squadron, spearheaded by the musician, songwriter and showman Jack Garton of Maria in the Shower. Their sound is rooted in reggae, funk and folk, and includes the backbone trio of Amrit Basi on drum set, Michael Alleyne on bass and Garton on accordion, trumpet and voice. The trio welcomes frequent collaborators on saxophone, trombone, organ and backup vocals.

The Oct. 18 show starts at 8 p.m. Tickets, $42 (general admission)/$52 (reserved seats), are available in person at Highlife Records, Banyen Books or Boemma Deli; online at caravanbc.com; or by phone, 1-855-551-9747. For music and more, visit bobanimarko.com, orkestarslivovica.org or jackgarton.com/demonsquadron.

Taking pianos to the streets

Sean Pacey dabbles at the keys in Burnaby, near the Shadbolt Centre for the Arts. (photo from Sean Pacey)

Keeping a business afloat for more than four decades is accomplishment enough, but to keep it in the family is especially noteworthy. “My grandfather and his oldest son started the shop in the 1970s,” said Sean Pacey, the current owner of Pacey’s Pianos on Broadway. “In the 1980s, my father took over. When I was 18, my father gave me the keys and walked away.”

The young Pacey was well qualified for the job. “My mom has a small manufacturing business, and I helped her since I was 11,” he recalled. “I’d come home from school and answer the phones. At 13, I started working at tradeshows, representing her company all over the world. We traveled to Germany, China, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, Hong Kong and many cities in North America.”

Later, already the owner of the piano shop, Pacey got his diploma in business and marketing from the University of British Columbia.

It’s been a little over a dozen years since he accepted the keys to Pacey’s Pianos. In that time, he has expanded the company, and it offers more services and events than it did in his grandfather’s and father’s days, including charitable enterprises. One of these charities is Support Piano, the Vancouver version of Street Piano.

The Street Piano movement started in 2008 in England and has spread worldwide. More than a thousand pianos have been installed outdoors in 45 cities across the globe. Anyone who wants can play them. Some impromptu players are professional musicians, others are children learning to play or adults who learned in the past but, for various reasons, abandoned their music. The freely available pianos entice many hidden musicians out of the woodwork.

Vancouver picked up the initiative last year, when City Studio installed three instruments in public spaces during the summer. This year, the number has increased manifold: City Studio installed 10 pianos, and Pacey partnered with the studio, donating 12 more pianos for the project. However, he wasn’t satisfied with simply leaving a piano on a street corner. He wanted communities to unite around the instruments, to claim ownership of their urban landscape and its music.

“We engaged in similar projects since 2009 but not on such a scale,” he said. “For this project, we decided to match each piano we installed with a certain group we wanted to showcase. Every opening was a musical event. The involved group painted the piano, and there was a concert by a professional musician.… For me, it is a strictly nonprofit venture; it is about doing something beautiful.”

Pacey’s sponsorship groups came from all over Metro Vancouver and included neighborhood kids from a summer camp, seniors with mental disabilities and terminally ill children. “We picked iconic locations that meant something to us,” he explained. “I had a dream to have my instruments everywhere – in a public park, on a lake shore, on a mountain, under the Skytrain, at a music festival.”

He made his dream come true. The pianos with his shop’s mark are standing on Grouse Mountain and under the Skytrain station in Surrey. They offer their black and white keys to anyone who wants to play in Richmond and East Vancouver, Burnaby and Squamish. One of his pianos allows pianists to entertain visitors beside the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver.

“I drive through the spots of our pianos and, everywhere, people are playing. It’s amazing,” he said.

To inspire more participants, Pacey organized a video competition. “People play our pianos, film themselves and upload their videos on our website. We’re going to select a winner and award him or her $400 plus an opportunity to play with the Lions Gate Sinfonia.”

For Pacey, the project is a collaboration between the city, the people and the music world, and his pianos are conduits of connection. He drew performers for the opening and closing ceremonies for each instrument from the wide pool of professional piano players. Some of them are his personal friends, others he met through his shop or his several musical charities.

Philanthropy plays an important role in Pacey’s life. He wants to give to the community, so he contributes much to various nonprofits – and not just money or his pianos but his time and energy, too. He sits on the boards of several local organizations, including Lions Gate Sinfonia Orchestra.

His “baby” charity is the Piano Teachers Federation, which he founded in 2009. “I wanted to make it easier for piano teachers and students to find each other, to find the right fit,” he explained.

The database of the federation is extensive and covers many areas of the city. He personally interviewed every teacher member before adding him or her to the database. Some of them played during the opening ceremonies of Support Pianos, and other members will play at the closings.

“Our Facebook page for Support Pianos already has over 1,500 likes,” he said. “And it’s only been since the beginning of July.”

The pianos are going to grace their public locations until the end of September. “We’ll have a closing ceremony for each one,” he said, “before we collect them. If any of the instruments are in good condition, we might reuse them next summer.”

To learn more – and to upload a video submission – check out supportpiano.com.

Olga Livshin is a Vancouver freelance writer. She can be reached at [email protected].