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is an
eclectic blend of five of the Bay area's most individual
and sought
after
musicians. With a myriad of successful music careers
between them,
these
five dynamic performers have joined their unique and
diverse talents to
form what is being called a wildly playful ensemble.
Clockwise from the
lower left: Santuri player Robin Petrie has
recorded and toured
extensively, playing and singing Celtic and European folk
music. Nicole
LeCorgne specializes in Middle Eastern and Balkan
percussion. Bon
Brown Singer is well known as a vocalist and the
original artistic
director of the Kitka women's chorus. Shira Kammen
tours here and
abroad as a medieval and early music vocalist and
instrumentalist.
Accordionist Nada
Lewis has led several renowned Balkan and klezmer
ensembles in the
Bay area. Together their repertoire is as diverse as their
experience,
with music that travels from Finland to Israel and spends
quite a bit
of
time in the Balkans along the way.
SHIRA KAMMEN received her degree in music from UC Berkeley and studied medieval fiddle (vielle) with Margriet Tindemans. A member for many years of Ensemble Alcatraz, Project Ars Nova, and Medieval Strings, she has also worked with Sequentia, Hesperion XX, the Boston Camerata, and the King's Noyse, and is a founder of Class V Music, an ensemble dedicated to performance on rafting trips. She has performed and taught in the U.S., Canada, Europe, Israel, Morocco and Japan, and on the Colorado and Rogue Rivers. Shira collaborated with John Fleagle, and works with the groups Fortune's Wheel and the Sirius Ensemble. NICOLE LeCORGNE began her musical
studies
in Minneapolis,
Minnesota, where she received her B.A. in World Music
and Dance, and
worked
with oriental dancer and choreographer Cassandra Shore.
She also played
with a number of folk and rock groups, Heart of the
Beast Puppet and
Mask
Theater, composed for modern dancer Gerry Girard, taught
classes and
workshops
and was a full time member of Tandava Slinky, an
improvisational
acoustic
trio. She moved the the Bay Area in 1995 and has since
worked as a
percussionist
with Susu and the Cairo Cats, Slavko Silic, George and
Tony Lammam,
Djerdan
and several other local groups. She has been accompanist
and resident
drum
teacher for Oasis Dance Camps. Nicole has traveled to
Egypt, Turkey and
Lebanon to study, and is completing a Ph.D. degree at
this time.
NADA LEWIS is originally from
Stockton,
CA, where
she became interested in folk music, playing guitar,
banjo, clarinet,
and
piano. She graduated from UC Berkeley, where she was
active in the
Balkan
folk dance scene. She founded the Silver String
Macedonian Band, the
first
Balkan revival music ensemble on the west coast, and
later co-founded
the
Romanian-Serbian group Hatsegana. Nada has played and
recorded with
Klezmorim,
co-directed Balkan Pacific, and performed with Troika
Balalaikas. She
has
performed solo at Kerrville Folk Festival in Texas, and
for many years
has taught accordion workshops at music camps. She has
been to eastern
Europe collecting music and instruments in Bulgaria, the
former
Yugoslavia,
Romania, and Greece.
ROBIN PETRIE has been performing
popular
and seldom-heard
music on the hammered dulcimer since 1980, and has
toured extensively
in
the British Isles, New Zealand and Japan. She has also
recorded both
solo
and collaborative projects with DNA Records, Flying
Fish, and Gourd
Music,
as well as publishing a collection of Victorian
Christmas carols
through
Mel Bay. Her instructional video, An Introduction to
the Hammered
Dulcimer,
is available through Lark in the Morning. Robin is
regularly
featured and interviewed in music magazines including
Dulcimer Players
News and Dirty Linen. At home in California and at
events
around
the country, Robin is highly sought out as a teacher,
workshop leader
and
session player.
BON SINGER, the artist formerly
known as
Bon Brown,
has done extensive research in the field of women's
vocal folk music in
the Balkans and elsewhere. She directed the
internationally acclaimed
women's
vocal ensemble Kitka for 14 years. Bon has been
recognized by experts
such
as Dora Hristova, the director, and Kalinka Zgureva, a
soloist of the
Bulgarian
radio and television women's vocal choir, a.k.a. Le
Mystere Des Voix
Bulgares,
as the foremost director of Bulgarian music in America.
Bon is also a
cantorial
singer for several congregations in California.
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