{"id":42356,"date":"2023-10-12T18:12:18","date_gmt":"2023-10-13T01:12:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=42356"},"modified":"2023-10-14T09:18:42","modified_gmt":"2023-10-14T16:18:42","slug":"tzimmes-helps-close-festival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2023\/10\/12\/tzimmes-helps-close-festival\/","title":{"rendered":"Tzimmes helps close festival"},"content":{"rendered":"

Left to right, Tzimmes\u2019s Saul Berson, Yona Bar Sever and Moshe Denburg perform in the Ukrainian Hall Community Concert and Social on Nov. 5. <\/em>(photo from Heart of the City)<\/em><\/p>\n

A festival favourite, Tzimmes, will perform at the 20th Annual Downtown Eastside Heart of the City Festival, taking part in the Nov. 5 Ukrainian Hall Community Concert and Social, which closes out the 100-plus live and online events that take place at more than 40 venues over 12 days.<\/p>\n

Presented by Vancouver Moving Theatre with the Carnegie Community Centre, the Association of United Ukrainian Canadians and other community partners, this milestone year of the festival \u2013 with the theme \u201cGrounded in Community, Carrying it Forward\u201d \u2013 starts Oct. 25.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have performed at DTES Heart of the City Festival on several occasions over the years,\u201d Tzimmes founder and band leader Moshe Denburg told the Independent<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u201cNovember 2008 was the first time and, two years later, in October 2010, we performed again. We were invited a few years ago, in the fall of 2020, but couldn\u2019t make it due to a scheduling conflict.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition, said Denburg, a small group from the Vancouver Inter-Cultural Orchestra (VICO), which Denburg founded, played the festival in 2011. \u201cThe repertoire was, of course, intercultural, but included klezmer and Hebraic pieces as well,\u201d he said. \u201cEvery time we played the festival, there was a truly welcoming atmosphere, and I would like to say it is an honour to be part of the mitzvah <\/em>(good deed) that Heart of the City is performing for the neediest amongst us.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFor 20 years, the Heart of the City Festival has been grounded in the Downtown Eastside and focused on listening and learning from the cultural practices of the community,\u201d notes the press release. \u201cThe festival works with, for and about the Downtown Eastside community to carry forward our community\u2019s stories, ancestral memory, cultural traditions, lived experiences and artistic processes to illuminate pathways of resistance and resilience.\u201d The festival\u2019s mandate \u201cis to promote, present and facilitate the development of artists, art forms, cultural traditions, history, activism, people and great stories about Vancouver\u2019s Downtown Eastside.\u201d<\/p>\n

The closing event at which a trio of musicians from Tzimmes will play \u2013 Denburg (lead vocal\/guitar), Yona Bar Sever (lead guitar\/backup vocal) and Saul Berson (clarinet\/flute\/saxophone) \u2013 will also feature the Barvinok Choir, Dovbush Dancers and the Vancouver Ukrainian Folk Orchestra. The concert will be opened by cultural speaker Bob Baker of the Squamish Nation and DTES resident, artist, poet and community activist Diane Wood will read \u201c100 Years of Struggle\u201d by the late Sandy Cameron, an historian and poet, among other things, who was very involved in the Downtown Eastside.<\/p>\n

About what the Tzimmes trio will play at the concert, Denburg said, \u201cThe Tzimmes repertoire is always made up of Jewish music in the larger world context. So, there will be aspects of klezmer and Yiddish song (European), Ladino (Judeo-Spanish\/Mediterranean), and pieces in a more Middle Eastern style as well. If anyone wants a primer on our repertoire, they can visit our YouTube page:\u00a0@BigTzimmesProductions<\/a>. Have a look\/listen to \u2018Dror Yikra,\u2019 \u2018Cuando\u2019 and \u2018Moishe\u2019s Freylakh,\u2019 and you\u2019ll get an idea of what\u2019s to come.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Independent<\/em> last spoke with Denburg in 2021 about Tzimmes\u2019s then-new two-CD album The Road Never Travelled<\/em>. Since that interview, the group released, in 2022, a remixed and remastered version of their first album, calling it Sweeter and Hotter<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn 2020, as we were creating our fourth album,\u00a0The Road Never Travelled<\/em>, I realized that there was almost enough material for a second disc, but it needed a few more pieces,\u201d said Denburg. \u201cAround that time, my dear friend and band mate, Yona, suggested that I try to remix our debut recording. We always felt that we were constrained by a simpler technology back in 1993, and that certain aspects of the mix could be improved \u2013 vocals could be clearer, instruments brought into better relation and so on. Looking around, I found a fine facility in Red Bank, N.J., that specialized in transferring old reel-to-reels to a digital format. The tapes of\u00a0Sweet and Hot<\/em>\u00a0were 27 years old, but they transferred wonderfully to digital tracks.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn the second disc of\u00a0The Road Never Travelled<\/em>,\u00a0we included several remixed liturgical pieces from\u00a0Sweet and Hot<\/em>,\u201d Denburg said, noting that the group continued the process and worked on every track of their 1993 debut album. He said, \u201cThe result, we believe, is an enhanced version of\u00a0Sweet and Hot\u00a0that does not compromise the original at all; in fact, we humbly submit, the result of all this work is that the sweet parts are even sweeter, and the hot stuff even hotter!\u201d<\/p>\n

The closing concert\/social of the Heart of the City Festival \u2013 called Building Community: 20 Years of Friendship \u2013 takes place at the Ukrainian Cultural Centre, with doors opening at 2 p.m. and the concert at 3 p.m. Tickets ($30\/$20) are available at eventbrite.ca<\/a>.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

\"photo<\/a>
Among the many Heart of the City events is a month-long exhibit at Carnegie Community Centre of photographer David Cooper\u2019s work for the festival over its 20 years. (photo from Heart of the City)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Among the many other events taking place during Heart of the City is an exhibit of photographer David Cooper\u2019s work for the festival over its 20-year history, curated by Vancouver Moving Theatre co-founder Terry Hunter. (For more on Cooper, see jewishindependent.ca\/capturing-community-spirit<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

Cooper will attend the Nov. 1, 4 p.m., opening reception in the third-floor gallery at Carnegie Community Centre. The exhibit, which runs to Nov. 30, will feature two to four photos from each of the festival\u2019s 20 years, displayed chronologically with the festival poster for each year.<\/p>\n

Organizers said Cooper provided guidelines for selecting the images: \u201csimple, elegant, expressive images with energy, movement and\/or emotion that represent the cultural and social diversity of the festival\u2019s programming and people.\u201d The exhibit also will include photos of festival participants who have passed away.<\/p>\n

For more information, visit heartofthecityfestival.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Left to right, Tzimmes\u2019s Saul Berson, Yona Bar Sever and Moshe Denburg perform in the Ukrainian Hall Community Concert and Social on Nov. 5. (photo from Heart of the City) A festival favourite, Tzimmes, will perform at the 20th Annual Downtown Eastside Heart of the City Festival, taking part in the Nov. 5 Ukrainian Hall […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":42468,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[788,785,989],"tags":[22657,21830,140,20913,284,7272,2747,20832,4180],"class_list":["post-42356","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music","category-performing-arts","category-visual-arts","tag-carnegie-community-centre","tag-david-cooper","tag-downtown-eastside","tag-heart-of-the-city-festival","tag-klezmer","tag-moshe-denburg","tag-photography","tag-tzimmes","tag-world-music"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42356"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42356\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42468"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}