Tamar Ilana, centre right, and the Ventanas will perform at the Vancouver Folk Music Festival, which takes place July 18-20. (photo from the Ventanas)
It is no wonder that the music of Tamar Ilana and the Ventanas is eclectic, with influences from around the world. Ilana has not only traveled the world, studying in both Canada and Spain, but performs with a group of talented musicians whose expertise and interests are as wide-ranging as her own. When she and the Ventanas play at the Vancouver Folk Music Festival next weekend, July 18-20, they will offer, as their name suggests, “windows into other lands and cultures.” And, they will have you up dancing.
Born in Toronto, Ilana lived in the heart of the city with her mother, Dr. Judith R. Cohen, an ethnomusicologist and performer specializing in Judeo-Spanish (Ladino) songs. She studied French and graduated high school with a bilingual diploma. “However,” she told the Independent, “I also feel like I grew up in Spain.”
Explained Ilana, “I began accompanying my mother on her field trips when I was 4 (my first trip was to Israel), and then Spain when I was 5. I have had a few homes in Spain over the years. First, Ribadavia, Galicia, where I would roam the castle grounds (now closed to the public) and contemplate the small length of the old graves there, and how short people must have been. Then Hervás, Cáceres, which will forever be ‘mi pueblo.’ When I was 12, I met a family there who took me in as their own and, when my mom would romp all over the peninsula, studying, researching and traveling, I would often stay in Hervás with my ‘family’ there, and join up with my mom for shows. It is in Hervás that I really feel I learned Spanish, grew up a lot, and became a lot of who I am today.”
At 14, Ilana went to Ibiza with her mother, who “was retracing Alan Lomax’s footsteps from 50 years previous.” Since then, Ilana has spent many summers there, she did her third year of university in Barcelona, and studied flamenco in Seville for a year. “So, really, Spain is my other home,” she said.
“My father is part Native Canadian (Cree-Saulteaux), part Romanian and part Scottish. I have not lived with him since I was a baby, but we are close and he has always been a big part of my life. He came to visit me in Barcelona and Seville both times I lived there. He is not a musician but he is a huge supporter of the arts and my life. He says he is my No. 2 fan (my mother being No. 1, hahaha). Both my parents definitely support me as a performer.”
“Science, although I do love it as well, was almost just a form of rebellion from music! But I have now accepted music as who I am.”
Despite being surrounded by music, and performing from a young age, Ilana graduated from University of Toronto with a B.Sc. in biology and worked in the field briefly. “Science, although I do love it as well, was almost just a form of rebellion from music!” she said. “But I have now accepted music as who I am.”
The list of countries to which Ilana has traveled is long. “I used to complain a lot about traveling and performing … and I said that, when I grew up, I wanted to be ‘normal,’ with a house, a car, a 9-5 job. But, I guess, deep down, I always enjoyed the actual singing part. Now, singing, performing and traveling are just so much a part of me that even when I tried to change myself with my biology degree and then working 9-5 for two years in renewable energy, I felt like an imposter. Now, I feel like myself.”
Ilana began her study of flamenco when she was 8, captivated by a performance by Esmeralda Enrique (in Toronto): “I said to my mom, ‘I want to do that,’ and she said, ‘So go talk to her.’ I did, and I began studying dance with her that same year. I have been immersed in the flamenco world ever since.”
When studying in Barcelona in 2007, Ilana did a workshop with Montse Cortés, and “fell in love with flamenco singing.” She said she felt like all the parts of her life were being pulled together.
“Flamenco is everything,” said Ilana. “It is sorrow, it is happiness, it is love, it is death. It is every emotion you could possibly feel all together. It is also technically difficult, which is a good challenge. Flamenco is amazing in that if you speak ‘flamenco,’ you can get on stage with anyone else who speaks ‘flamenco’ and do a whole show without ever speaking to each other in any common tongue.”
Ilana continues to study with Enrique, and sings with her company. She also teaches dancing and singing out of Enrique’s studio, the Academy of Spanish Dance in Toronto.
Though she was working with fantastic people, her mind and soul were on her music and dancing, “what I was going to sing, what I was going to wear, who would be doing the show with me, how to promote it.” So, she left her job, sold her car, left everything she had dreamed of having as a child, and went to Seville.
The path has required courage on more than one occasion. After graduating U of T, she worked as co-campaign coordinator of the Green Energy Act Alliance. Once the act was passed, she was offered a promotion by the nonprofit with which she was working, “but it did not feel right,” said Ilana. Though she was working with fantastic people, her mind and soul were on her music and dancing, “what I was going to sing, what I was going to wear, who would be doing the show with me, how to promote it.” So, she left her job, sold her car, left everything she had dreamed of having as a child, and went to Seville.
“I felt like I was singing flamenco but, really, I felt like I did not know what I was doing, and the only way to know what I was doing would be to go immerse myself in that culture for an extended period of time,” she explained. “It was difficult. The first day at the Fundación Cristina Heeren Escuela de Arte Flamenco was hard – the other singers were so good! Up until then, I had felt like I was a good singer, but that day I felt like I had never sung before in my life! I came home crying. I cried many times at that school – sometimes I was even told I would never be able to sing flamenco because I was not from there! But those hard words actually contributed to the power of flamenco singing, and I began to sing stronger and with more confidence and more knowledge.
“My singing and my understanding of flamenco changed drastically that year (2010-2011), and I returned in 2013 with a Chalmer’s Professional Development Grant to study for another three months. My goal when I first went to Seville was to learn a cante libre (form with no rhythm) and I learned many, which I still sing today, such as ‘Granaína.’”
Although Ashkenazi, Ilana grew up surrounded by Sephardi music and culture, it being her mother’s specialty. “She is a preserver of many old songs that almost no one sings anymore,” said Ilana. “To her, these precious songs are treasures to be guarded dearly.
“I did not grow up religious,” she added, “but we always celebrated the High Holidays with my extended family, and sometimes went to shul. My mother likes going to the synagogue of the Indian Jews here in Toronto sometimes because she is ever interested in different musical cultures and how different communities celebrate, sing and dance according to their customs.
“We often lit candles and sang the prayers on Shabbat, and we traveled to Israel many times as I was growing up…. I recently returned to Israel after many years, this time with Taglit Birthright, and I stayed to visit my cousin and also to play some flamenco in Tel Aviv with friends I had met in Seville.
“Although I am not religious, I feel like the Jewish people are my family, and that there is a common understanding somehow between us all, no matter where we are from in the world. I find this feeling difficult to explain to non-Jews sometimes, but it is a deep feeling I have.”
“Although I am not religious, I feel like the Jewish people are my family, and that there is a common understanding somehow between us all, no matter where we are from in the world. I find this feeling difficult to explain to non-Jews sometimes, but it is a deep feeling I have.”
Before she went to Seville, Ilana was performing with various groups in different projects – a glimpse of her website shows that she still has a host of projects on the go – and, while she was away, these musicians “formed a collective dubbed Fedora Upside-Down (based on the fact that many are buskers, and the idea was to bring folk and world music to the streets to make it more accessible to the general public). It truly felt as though all my worlds had collided, and everyone was just waiting for me to come home and fit right in. And I did!”
From a flamenco rehearsal with Dennis Duffin, Ilana was connected with Mark Marzcyk, leader of Lemon Bucket Orkestra (LBO). The trio was joined by LBO percussionist Jaash Singh and, said Ilana, “We jammed all of summer 2011, in the heart of Fedora Upside-Down, our community and best friends and colleagues. By the time the fall came around, we started being invited to play shows and we called ourselves Ventanas, which means ‘Windows’ in Spanish, after the idea that we are a series of windows into other lands and cultures.”
The only part missing, she said, was an oud player. Singh suggested his friend Demetrios Petsalakis. “He appeared in my kitchen and it was as though he had been there all along!” said Ilana. “We invited him out to our weekend gig … and he showed up and played all the tunes with no charts and barely a rehearsal, just picking them up on the fly. And so, our original quintet was formed.”
Though Ilana dances on some of the pieces, the transition between dancing and singing can be hard, so Ilana invited Ilse Gudiño to join the group, and LBO dancer Stephania Woloshyn also was a guest performer many times. “These are the seven members on our debut self-titled EP,” noted Ilana.
Alexandra Talbot joined when Gudiño had a baby, and now tours with them, and “violinist, composer, friend and Fedora Upside-Down colleague Jessica Hana Deutsch” is also on this tour, as is percussionist Derek Gray.
“Our creative process is always changing,” explained Ilana. “Basically, I am the leader and can make the final call on things. But, since I play with such talented musicians and each one of them knows their styles and cultures so incredibly well, I really just trust their judgment on most things. Mark has a gifted ear for arranging, so especially at the beginning, we would follow his suggestions. Demetrios has a certain ability to compose music that sounds as if it is an old, traditional song, and
Dennis always adds a flamenco feel to it with his voicings and rhythmic changes. Everyone really brings their musical lives to the table and we take it from there. Anyone can suggest a song, teach it, and everyone’s input is heavily taken into consideration before anything is set in stone. Basically, everything is a group decision, and it works surprisingly smoothly.”
The Ventanas’ appearance at the Vancouver Folk Fest is part of a cross-Canada tour and, said Ilana, “Right now, I am planning on going to WOMEX in October to make some important connections and also meet with a few friends there to plan our first European tour. We plan on performing in Spain, Portugal, France, Italy and Germany in the next year. We might even make it to Greece. WOMEX is in Galicia this year, which will bring me right back to when I was 10 years old and traveling there a lot.”
While Ilana has never been a member of LBO, she has been their guest in various shows, and she has “shared many stages with them, traveled and performed with them.” As it happens, LBO will also be at the Vancouver Folk Fest and, said Ilana, “Ventanas and Lemon Bucket will join forces at VFMF. Come and see how!”
For more about the Ventanas, visit ventanasmusic.com. For the full lineup of Folk Fest performers and other information, visit thefestival.bc.ca.
