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Something Nordic This Way Comes

Journey... fortune cookie
Today’s fortune: “A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.”

Music of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden — huzzah!  I couldn’t be more excited about this year’s Nordic Christmas Revels as I anticipate the first meeting of our adult chorus this evening.  Each year we select a new theme, begin our planning, and then hold auditions in May to select the adult chorus for our December production.  After the “casting” is complete, we join for one rehearsal in June to meet, greet, and sing together for the first time.

So, when I opened my fortune cookie today at lunch, I found the message to be particularly meaningful: “A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.”

As music director, this is a pretty special night for me — I get to hear the nascent sound that I have the privilege of shaping and refining for this year’s Christmas Revels.  I usually select a few songs from the show to try out with the group, and we rehearse them together.  While I am working, Artistic Director Roberta Gasbarre is watching, the costumers are measuring, and many other details are starting to fall into place behind the scenes.  Many, many things will happen over the summer, and then we will really begin the journey in September.

There are more auditions to come, so our “circle” is not quite complete — we audition teenagers and children in September — but, tonight is when it all starts to become real for me.  The “journey” to the Northlands begins with tonight’s “single step.”

 

 

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Dancing (and singing) children

Children dancing
The Christmas Revels children’s chorus learning the “podaraki” dance from tradition-bearer Olga Vonikaki.

This year, the children will not only sing in Greek, Bulgarian, Turkish, Croatian, and English… but they will also dance! Our children’s directors Kat Toton and Jenni Voorhees (along with children’s stage manager, Emilie Moore) couldn’t do all of this without help from our amazing specialists and tradition-bearers.

Last Wednesday, the kids had a visit from Olga Vonikaki who taught them the Greek podaraki dance, and I was lucky enough to get to watch the process.  The children worked hard (and had lots of fun) learning the new dance–one of three that they will perform in the show.  During previous rehearsals, Larry Weiner (another of this year’s tradition-bearers) taught the children two other dances for the show.

Olga is the perfect teacher for our Washington Revels kids.  She was born in Kavala, Greece, where she studied Greek dancing and performed with many groups across the country. Since moving to the the US more than twenty years ago, she has been teaching Greek traditional dancing, specializing in leading children’s dance groups, one of which won the silver prize at the East Coast Greek Youth Competition.

Our Christmas Revels children range in age from 8-11, and come from Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia.  Each year in September, we select about 14-16 from the total of 60+ who audition. And, in addition to selecting children for The Christmas Revels, we also select 25 additional children for our May Revels chorus.  The kids begin rehearsing in mid-September on Wednesday afternoons and join the Adult and Teen choruses during one weekend rehearsal in October, and another in November.  Soon after that, in December, everyone will be together each and every night for an entire week.

These kids are looking and sounding great already… and soon they will be fully costumed by Cecily Pilzer (their own costume designer)!  The children usually “steal the show” each year, and this one will likely be no exception.

Learn more about the 2013 Christmas Revels: Echoes of Thrace
View the Schedule of Performances and Purchase Tickets

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May Day! May Day!

The Foggy Bottom Morris Men bringing in the May (May 1, 2012)
The Foggy Bottom Morris Men bringing in the May (May 1, 2012). Photo by Elizabeth Miller.

Happy May 1st to all… how have you spent your May Day so far?  I was lucky enough to get up at 6:00 am, travel down the street to the Takoma Park Gazebo, and watch three morris teams do their very best to “bring in the  May.”  It was raining, but this did not prevent some very spirited dancing and waving of hankies (as shown on the right).  And, it seems that what they did this morning really worked!  The sun is now shining and the temperature is rising.

On hand were the Foggy Bottom Morris Men, the Rock Creek Morris Women, and the Arlington Northwest Morris (recently featured as part of our “Madrigals, Morris, and Maypole” event at the National Arboretum last Saturday).

Many other Washington Revels friends were playing in the band (Charlie Pilzer, Jennifer Cutting, Alan Peel, Jim Besser, and more… ) and many others (like me) were cheering on the dancing.  I held my umbrella in one hand, and Arlo’s dog leash in the other and just enjoyed the fun.

Since Jennifer Cutting and I both work at the Library of Congress, I wanted to share a link to a wonderful video (with lots of interesting links for more information) entitled, Bringing in the May, featuring Jennifer, who is a specialist at the American Folklife Center.  Check it out!

The Rock Creek Morris Women bringing in the May (May 1, 2012) at the Takoma Park Gazebo.
The Rock Creek Morris Women bringing in the May (May 1, 2012) at the Takoma Park Gazebo. Photo by Elizabeth Miller.

And, if you are interested in more May rituals and merriment… come and see the Washington Revels performing at the National Cathedral Flower Mart this Saturday (May 5, 2012).  Our show will run from Noon to 1:00pm, will feature some great May music (with a musical surprise… so you have to come to experience that), a mummer’s play,  and the wonderful Revels children, tweens and teens.  We will process to the front steps of the National Cathedral, crown our May Queen, sings songs and rounds (including audience participation) and after the show, we will process to the Maypole for some dancing!  Learn more about our May Revels at:  http://revelsdc.org/shows-events/may-revels/

 

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Happy 194th Birthday, Frederick Douglass!

The Washington Revels Jubilee Voices, including Andrea Blackford, left, sing "Oh Freedom" at the Frederick Douglass National Historical Site's 194th celebration of Douglass's birth. The event was held in a tent on the grounds of the historic Douglass home in Southeast Washington.
The Washington Revels Jubilee Voices, including Andrea Blackford, left, sing "Oh Freedom" at the Frederick Douglass National Historical Site's 194th celebration of Douglass' birth. The event was held in a tent on the grounds of the historic Douglass home in Southeast Washington. Photo by Sonya Doctorian, The Washington Post

February is another month of holidays–Valentine’s Day, and of course, Presidents Day, which celebrates the birthdays of Presidents George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.  But there is another famous birthday in February–that of the former slave, orator, and abolitionist, Frederick Douglass.  In fact, Carter G. Woodson and the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, which originated what was once called “Negro History Week,”  chose the second week  of February in 1926 for the observance in order to honor the birthdays of  Lincoln and Douglass. (In 1976, “Negro History Week” was expanded to become what we know as “Black History Month”).

Saturday, February 11th, 2012 was a celebration of the 194th anniversary of Frederick Douglass’ birth, and the Washington Revels Jubilee Voices marked that occasion with a performance at his former estate, Cedar Hill, in Southeast Washington.  The group shared songs, stories, and readings from Mr. Douglass’ time, including the stirring reading,  “Men of Color! To Arms!” an essay used to encourage African American men to join the Union Army.

The famous leader of the abolitionist movement died in February 1895 at age 77.  Born into slavery, Douglass escaped to spend his life fighting for justice and equality for all people. His tireless struggle, brilliant words, and inclusive vision of humanity continue to inspire and sustain people today.

The theme of this year’s event was “Abolition,” and featured programs on Frederick Douglass’ work, as well as the ongoing fight against slavery today. US Ambassador CdeBaca delivered the keynote address, and winners of the annual oratorical contest, open to students across the country, recited excerpts from a Frederick Douglass speech.

Learn more

 

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Marking the Shortest Day of the Year

Winter Solstice Tree of Light
Winter Solstice Tree of Light (courtesy of eiLight.com)

This post is a reprint of  “The Shortest Day” by Paddy Swanson (Artistic Director, Revels, Inc.). It was published on December 21, 2011 in the Revels Winter Newsletter.

In our own time the Winter Solstice is indissolubly linked with the festival of Christmas, though it was not always so. The myths of the festival are so deeply embedded within us that we no longer ask why we bring an evergreen into the house or decorate with candles or hang mistletoe. We take these things for granted as we plunge into the hectic preparations for Christmas and the New Year. Overall there is a heightened sense of something significant happening at a fixed point on the calendar. For some it is Christmas night, for others it is watching the ball drop in Times Square. The commercial frenzy of gift buying is fueled by references to holly and stars and carols and the streets are illuminated by strings of twinkling lights. Sometimes the blurring of images can distort the meaning of the event that is being celebrated.

Underneath it all the unifying event is the arrival of the shortest day of the year. Perhaps in response to some primal human anxiety our common ancestors marked out the shortest day as the turning point in the year’s cycle of warmth and plenty and cold and scarcity. Over history major feasts and celebrations have accumulated around this time, sacred and secular – Yule, Christmas, Saturnalia, Midwinter – over the years amassing volumes of literature, custom, ritual, music and dance. It is from this great bounty of compressed emotion and meaning that we find the core material for our shows. The Christmas Revels format includes sacred and secular traditions from a wide collection of cultures and presents them in the context of celebration of the shortest day of the year. One of Susan Cooper’s lines in a Revels mummers’ play presents the great mystery of life and death very simply. When the call goes out for a doctor to bring the dead hero back to life, a boy answers,

 There is no doctor can bring this man to life,
His dying was a mystery and did not come from strife. 
So let the blessed mistletoe about him,
and about him,
and about him go, 
And bring him back among us – so.

May you have a very merry Christmas and a happy Solstice and “Great joy to the new!”

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Meet Melissa Carter

Melissa, Howard and the Guitarras Doradas in The Christmas Revels, Andalusian Treasures
Melissa, Howard and the Guitarras Doradas in The Christmas Revels, Andalusian Treasures. Photo by Sheppard Ferguson.

Melissa has been my assistant music director for The Christmas Revels for many years, but this year I have finally gotten her back on stage … playing guitar!   Because of the theme of the 2011 Andalusian Treasures show, we decided to form a large group of guitarists to play on several of the Spanish pieces.  Melissa expressed her interest in being on stage, the fabulous costume folks found her a gorgeous costume, and voila!  The group is called “Guitarras Doradas” and includes Melissa, Howard Bass, Bobby Gravitz, Jake Hendren, and William G.M. Hoffman (you can also catch Bobby and Bill in the mummer’s play).  Melissa brings her background of both guitar and early music to the show (she is a graduate from the College of Music at Florida State University with a degree in musicology with focus on Early Music).

So, to learn more about Melissa, here are some fun facts:

  1. She grew up in a haunted house (not sure where that was, so you will have to ask her).
  2. She has lived in Ankara, Turkey for three years as a child, and then near Catania, Sicily for three years when she was in her early 20’s.
  3. Her mother was Spanish — the family was from Oviedo in Asturias.  Her father is Welsh and English – and her branch of the Carter family is part of the Carters who were one of the “First Families of Virginia.”
  4. She has always been involved in the arts — she danced ballet for 8 years in childhood and adolescence and played the viola starting at age 9.  She began guitar at 10, and then switched from viola to violin!
  5. Over the years, she has had a love/hate relationship with the guitar.  Melissa says, “At age 11 I put my guitar under my bed for a year, certain I would never be able to REALLY play because I couldn’t make the chord changes in ‘Yesterday’ fast enough.  I pulled it back out at 12 and tried again.  I got it by the time I was 13.”
  6. By age 15, it was decided… she would learn classical guitar in time to pass an audition to college.
  7. Melissa also sang with various choirs in college, and had the thrill of singing Beethoven’s 9th with the Atlanta Symphony conducted by Robert Shaw.  However, after getting nodes on my vocal chords, she joined the Collegium Musicum and learned to play baroque recorder and krumhorn (and she still loves playing the krumhorn to this day).

Don’t miss this year’s fabulous guitarists… only five more performances remain.

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Meet David Buchbut

David Buchbut playing the riq. Photo courtesy of Layali El Andalus.
David Buchbut playing the riq. Photo courtesy of Layali El Andalus.

David is the third member of this year’s guest musical ensemble, Layali El Andalus (along with Rachid Halihal and Daphna Mor).  He is the group’s “beat keeper,” playing the riq, dumbek and frame drum. I would describe David as a “gentle giant” — bean-pole tall and thin with a warm smile and a quiet countenance.  But, when he picks up one of his percussion instruments, all of that changes.  In this year’s show you will hear David’s percussion beat strongly supporting the full company (of about 80 singers and instrumentalists) in pieces like “Seven Ways to Cook an Eggplant” and delicately bouncing along with the children’s chorus as they sing and play on stage.

In looking around for some basic facts about David, I found a wonderful article entitled “Mr. Tambourine Man,” by Dan Friedman.  Below is a terrific description of the instruments that David plays…

The tambourine, or “riq” as it’s called in Arabic, is actually, despite its Western connotations of preschool classrooms, a staple of classical Arabic music. Unlike kids or folk dancers who shake or clap it, classical musicians hold it vertically and still, at knee level.  Like the larger bongolike dumbek, there are three major categories of sound: the “dum” the “tak” and the “kat.” But on the riq,each note can be varied not only by the tension and pace of the hand or the number of fingers applied, but also by the amount of accompanying jingle, the tautness of the drum skin and the amount of resonance the player allows any given beat or sequence.

It has been an amazing lesson for me to watch and hear the many sounds that a skilled player can draw from this instrument.  David has also been warm and welcoming to chorus percussionists like Guen Spilsbury (who is playing his frame drum on a couple of pieces) and our “staff percussionist” and sound effect’s man, Don Spinelli.  And with five more performances remaining to this year’s Christmas Revels, you have many opportunities to come and hear him too!

Read more from this article at: http://www.forward.com/articles/110998/#ixzz1foldNbiU
Learn more about Layali El Andalus at: http://www.layalielandalus.com/

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Meet Tina Chancey

Tina Chancey with Rachid Halihal and Daphna Mor. Photo by Elizabeth Fulford Miller.
Tina Chancey (right) with Rachid Halihal and Daphna Mor. Photo by Elizabeth Fulford Miller.

Actually, I met Tina Chancey back in 1983, when she played viola da gamba with the Washington Bach Consort (a group that I sang in at the time).  Who would have thought that all of these year’s later, we would be making music together again?

Tina is the “bowed string” musician in Trio Sefardi (along with Howard Bass and Susan Gaeta) — they are featured in this year’s Christmas Revels.  While Trio Sefardi is a fairly new group, Tina also directs HESPERUS, the world-traveled early/traditional music ensemble dedicated to bringing the past alive through collaborations between early music and film, theater, dance and world music–sounds a bit like Revels doesn’t it?

So… what does Tina play? She plays early and traditional bowed strings from rebec, Pontic lyra and vielle to viola da gamba and Old Time and Irish fiddle. And, on these instruments she plays roots music from Sephardic and blues to early music and jazz standards.

In this year’s show, Tina is not only playing… she has also arranged “Ocho Kandelikas,” (written by Sephardic singer, Flory Jagoda) for our chorus and brass (and, it has audience participation too), and wrote the fabulous brass arrangement for our “Eggplant” song (this one, you really have to experience in person!).

It has been a real joy for us to collaborate with Tina again this year during the development of this wonderful show (she last appeared with the Washington Revels in 1999 as part of our “Celestial Fools” show), and it will be a joy for all of you to experience  her musical arrangements and to hear her play.

To learn more about Tina, visit:

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Meet Susan Gaeta

Susan Gaeta in her costume of many colors.
Susan Gaeta in her costume of many colors. Photo by Elizabeth Fulford Miller.

Susan Gaeta is the vocalist/guitarist in Trio Sefardi, one of the two specialist music groups performing in this year’s Christmas Revels.  Susan is an important member of a new generation of musicians who are exploring the rich and varied traditions of Sephardic music.

Originally from Connecticut, where her grandfather played clarinet in a Klezmer band and acted in Yiddish theater productions, Susan lived in Buenos Aires, Argentina, for eight years, where she performed classic jazz and traditional Argentine folk songs. After moving back to the United States, Susan continued her explorations in jazz, and has toured extensively with legendary Sephardic singer Flory Jagoda, a National Heritage Fellow.

She also sang with Colors of the Flame, a trio of musicians dedicated to preserving Sephardic songs. In 2002, Susan was selected to participate in The Virginia Foundation for the Humanities “Master-Apprentice” program. Her recording, From Her Nona’s Drawer, includes Susan’s interpretations of a dozen songs from the repertoire of Flory Jagoda.

In this year’s Christmas Revels, Susan will not only sing Sephardic music, but she will also be featured in several Spanish pieces, including the song that the Sevillanas is danced to, Algo se muere en el alma, cuando un amigo se va (or, “El adios”).

Learn more about Susan Gaeta by visitng her Web site.

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Meet Howard Bass

Howard Bass playing some flamenco guitar in this year's Christmas Revels
Howard Bass playing some flamenco guitar in this year's Christmas Revels. Photo by Elizabeth Fulford Miller.

Howard plays lute and guitar and is part of Trio Sefardi–one of our specialist groups for this year’s Christmas Revels.  Howard has studied guitar in Cleveland, Ohio, Washington, DC and Alicante, Spain!  (he even played for the King and Queen of Spain at the Smithsonian Institute in 1976 and at the White House in 1978).  Howard is not new to Sephardic music (although Trio Sefardi is actually a fairly new group); he was a founding member of La Rondinella, which has three recordings on the Dorian Discovery label, with a new retrospective recording just released this November — Sephardic Songs: An Anthology.  For many years, Howard has also worked extensively with Sephardic singer/composer Flory Jagoda (whom he accompanied on her latest recording, Arvolika) and early music singer Barbara Hollinshead, with whom he recorded an album of Elizabethan lute songs and solos entitled Loves Lost… and Found; their new recording of 16th and 17th century French songs and lute solos will be released in early 2012.

In this year’s Christmas Revels, Howard will be playing both lute and guitar, and will be playing everything from Renaissance and Sephardic music to some Flamenco (for our Sevillanas dancers).

Learn more about Sephardic music and the history of the Sephardic Jews on the new La Rondinella Web site.