The Budapest Café Orchestra play a wonderful mix of Eastern European dance tunes, gypsy music, Kletzmer, even variations on classical tunes. None of the band are actually from Budapest but how they explain this and their general banter is great fun. As I have said before, the National Centre for Early Music needs a decent … Continue reading Haringey on the Danube!
The Dodo Street Band perform it in spades! Skilful and versatile, they gave us toe-tapping jolly tunes and daft banter to warm us up on the day we had been threatened with freezing rain and blizzards. Fortunately those didn’t materialise, just heavy rain. The NCEM has been granted £144,200 some of which will be used … Continue reading Did you know Celtic Gypsy Klezmer is a thing?
Definitely feeling Christmassy now, thanks to The York Waits! There is somehow something very festive about crumhorns, shawms, sackbuts and rebecs! Yes, we’ve been to the National Centre for Early Music and actually seen some early music for once – usually we see what I suppose you’d call World Music and occasionally the two coincide, … Continue reading Goday, My Lord Sire Christemas
We had a lovely evening yesterday at the wonderful NCEM listening to Moishe’s Bagel and their superb mix of klezmer music with jazz and Latin influences – toe-tapping one moment, break-your-heart plaintive the next. They even played a really stomping rumba – I suspect they could play anything and it would sound terrific. The line-up … Continue reading Moishe’s Bagel are always fabulous!
We knew She’ Koyokh were good having seen them before and having seen them again we still don’t know how to pronounce their name but I really recommend them! I can’t remember the line up from the previous occasion but it didn’t include Çiğdem Aslan the singer, although she did feature on the album we … Continue reading Can’t get enough kletzmer!
Sklamberg and the Shepherds are a trio who play Eastern European Klezmer with such infectious jollity that not only were the audience clapping along, but a group of ladies started dancing – a sprightly, circular dance we have seen them perform at concerts of a variety of different bands at the National Centre for Early … Continue reading Sklamberg and the Shepherds
Koshka are a trio, Lev Atlas and Oleg Ponomarev on violin and Nigel Clark on guitar, playing Russian gypsy folk, sometimes sinuous and haunting, sometimes jazzy and foot-tapping, always excellent, at least going by last night’s concert at the National Centre for Early Music (NCEM) in York. We also had a listen to them on … Continue reading Russian musicians play faster when it’s cold!
…or it is according to Otava Yö, the really rather bonkers St Petersburg group we saw last night at the NCEM. I suppose you would call them folk – their songs involved the aforementioned pancakes and also street cleaners and your girlfriend washing her white legs in the river, so definitely an eclectic mix and … Continue reading The sun is a pancake…
Another great concert at the wonderfully accessible NCEM. We’ve seen Joglaresa before playing medieval Spanish/Jewish songs – this time it was medieval Christmas music from France, Spain, Italy, Scandinavia as well as English, using traditional instruments and it was utterly gorgeous! They are sold out for their other concerts in the north but if you … Continue reading Joglaresa
Söndörgő are a Hungarian group, comprising three brothers, their cousin and a school friend who play folk tunes from Hungary and other countries on various sized tambura – a mandolin-like instrument – and also on the flute, clarinet, drum, double-base and various other exotic instruments as well as vocals now and then too. Sometimes quiet … Continue reading Fabulous music venue!
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