Glas plays the soulful roots music of Macedonia. Off-kilter rhythms, unexpected harmonies, and intricate ornaments come together in a tradition born in an older way of living, when life was lived close to the bone. Songs sprang up around the table and in the fields, with friends and family, at work and at play, and told stories of life lived in hardship. Working as an acoustic duo based in Brooklyn, Vedran Boshkovski and Corinna Snyder create an intimate setting for audiences to connect to vivacious, poignant music from another place and time.
Corinna Škėma Snyder, voice and percussion
Vedran Boškovski, gajda, kaval, and tambura
Jeremiah was raised in a family with deep ties to both its Scottish heritage and its New Hampshire roots. Traditional New England music and dance were a part of his parents and grandparents generations.
After an early formation in classical piano, Jeremiah spent his teenage years playing blues and jazz. Following undergraduate studies with jazz legend Gary Peacock, he studied Indonesian Gamelan, West African drumming, and the music of minimalist composers Steve Reich and Philip Glass. It wasn’t until his mid twenties that Jeremiah began to immerse himself in the world of traditional Celtic and French music, studying accordion with Jimmy Keene and Frederic Paris. He then spent several decades traveling in Europe, doing field research that laid the groundwork for a Master’s degree he received many years later from the New England Conservatory.
In the early 1990s Jeremiah formed two bands: The Clayfoot Strutters and Nightingale. Both bands had strong traditional New England roots and had a deep and lasting impact on the traditional dance scene in New England. In 2003 he formed Le Bon Vent, a sextet specializing in Breton and French music, and as an outgrowth of this ensemble, has formed several duos with individual members including James Falzone, Ruthie Dornfed and Cristi Catt. Since the early 1990s, Jeremiah has recorded over a dozen CDs with Nightingale, the Clayfoot Strutters, Bob & the Trubadors, Le Bon Vent, with Ruthie Dornfeld. His second solo recording, Smile When You’re Ready, was nominated by National Public Radio in their “favorite picks”, and his fifth release, Hummingbird, with Ruthie Dornfeld, received the French music magazine “Trad Mag” Bravo award, as did his CD Goodnight Marc Chagall with Le Bon Vent.
In 2005 Jeremiah started the Floating Bridge Music School, which is devoted to teaching traditional music from the British Isles, Northern Europe, and North America.
Irish fiddle great Kevin Burke celebrates his new CD “An Evening with Kevin Burke: Tunes & Stories” with a unique solo performance at Passim. Recorded in Ireland, Philadelphia, and Kevin‘s adopted hometown of Portland, Oregon, the album’s exceptional fiddle music and engaging stories capture the charm and intimacy of this renowned fiddler’s solo appearances.
One of Irish music’s most beloved players, Burke is a master of the highly ornamented Sligo style of Irish fiddling. A native of London, England, Burkeinherited his love of Irish music from his parents who had emigrated from Sligo County, Ireland. His music career began when he moved to Ireland in 1974 and joined the seminal Irish group The Bothy Band. Since then, Burke has worked with many great artists including Arlo Guthrie, Kate Bush, Tim O’Brien, Christy Moore, Dervish, and Lunasa, and formed the bands Celtic Fiddle Festival, Patrick Street, and Open House. He is a recipient of America’s highest honor in the traditional arts, the NEA National Fellowship Award.
Beth Bahia Cohen is a violinist of Syrian Jewish and Russian Jewish heritage. Inspired at a young age by the sounds she heard at family gatherings, she went on to study with master musicians from Hungary, Greece, Turkey, and the Middle East. She plays the violin, viola, Greek lyras, Turkish bowed tanbur and kabak kemane, Norwegian hardingfele, and Egyptian rababa.
From the mountains of Armenia, to the fields of the Balkans and to the vineyards of Italy, the Nafan Trio musically combines these landscapes into one elaborate canvas: from ancient folksong to new creations, this music will feed your soul. Come experience it for yourself.
Featuring the music of Italy, Bulgaria, Armenia are band members Ara Sarkissian and Fabio Pirozzolo. The trio will pay homage to the wonderful spirit of Roberto Cassan by performing some of his music.
The King’s Busketeers are a high-octane folk & traditional band that began in the shady forest of King Richard’s Faire in Carver, MA sometime in Fall of 2012. Sam and Andy met there and began playing together and amusing the patrons, and the following year Josh was inducted. The trio roamed the groves and shopfronts for a time, and grew to some popularity.
Since then, TKB have been rousing and entertaining the kindly citizens of Massachusetts and Rhode Island with hearty, soulful, traditional tunes alongside wistful ballads, whimsical ditties about double homicides, and a sprinkling of rollicking originals. Always energetic and full of equal parts talent and sparking chemistry, there’s never a dull moment when the Busketeers are out in force.
Pharos Ensemble is named after “φάρος” the Greek word meaning “lighthouse”. The ensemble shines light on the rich heritage of Greek traditional music. It consists of five highly acclaimed musicians and educators, who study their musical traditions in depth and present them in the United States and around the world. The ensemble’s goal, besides performing this music, is to reach, inspire and educate the youth about the values carried by Greek traditional music.
The music of Fru Skagerrak takes you on a journey through Scandinavia; from lowlands to mountains, from slow airs to lively polkas, in major and in minor, and everything in between. Fru Skagerrak- ”Lady Skagerrak” – are three master musicians – one from each Scandinavian country: Maja Kjær Jacobsen from Denmark, Elise Wessel Hildrum from Norway and Anna Lindblad from Sweden.
In 2011, these three globetrotting musicians met for the first time at Tønder Festival, Denmark’s biggest Folk Festival, in a roaring session that had engulfed the backstage bar. Through the mayhem of tunes you could feel a certain Scandinavian groove, and in that moment the connection between these three fiddlers was clear. After meeting at Tønder Festival for three consecutive years, Fru Skagerrak finally saw the light of day in August 2014.The trio brings together the diverse traditions from each of their homelands, which surround the Skagerrak strait. Through a repertoire of traditional tunes, new compositions, and songs in their respective languages, they express their kinship and love of their shared heritage. The result is an explosion of the sounds that exist in Scandinavian music today.
Fru Skagerrak is:
~ Anna Lindblad (Sweden): Fiddle, 5 -stringed fiddle and song
(also known from LYY (S), Folk All-in Band (SE))
~ Elise Wessel Hildrum (Norway): Fiddle, recorder, viola and song
(also in Gudbrandsdølenes Spelemannslag (NO))
~ Maja Kjær Jacobsen (Denmark): Fiddle and song
(also known from Maskineri, and Maja Kjær Jacobsen Kvartett)
Amos Libby (oud, vocals)
Amos Libby began his study of Middle Eastern music and oud technique with the late oud master and composer Udi Alan Shavarsh Bardezbanian, and has continued his study of his oud and Arabic and Turkish music through regular and extensive travel to meet with teachers in the Middle East and Turkey. Amos has studied oud in Morocco with Ustaadh Yusuf Madani of the Conservatoire Nationale de Musique Arabe in Rabat. Amos travels periodically to Turkey to study Ottoman classical and Turkish contemporary art music with Istanbul Conservatory veteran and oud and yayli tanbur master Osman Nuri Ozpekel, and has also studied in Istanbul with renowned oud virtuoso Necati Celik.
Eric LaPerna (percussion, nay)
Eric LaPerna has been a percussionist since 1987. He has studied African rhythms with Nigerian drummer Alani Ogunladi, Armenian, Greek and Turkish rhythmic systems with Alan Shavarsh Bardezbanian, and Riqq, Tabla, Duff and the Iqa’at with Master Arabic percussionist Michel Merhej Baklouk. He was the lead percussionist of the late Alan Shavarsh Bardezbanian’s Middle Eastern Ensemble and is a founding member of Okbari Middle Eastern Ensemble and Alhan Arabic Ensemble. Eric also studies the nay (Middle Eastern reed flute) with Ali Jihad Racy, Bassam Saba and Boujemaa Razgui.
Mal Barsamian (clarinet)
Mal Barsamian’s musical career began when he was four years old playing the dumbeg (hand drum) with his father, Leo Barsamian, at an Armenian picnic. Barsamian comes from a family of oud (lute) players across multiple generations. He has gone on to become a sought-after oud player and clarinetist as well as on other instruments such as dumbeg guitar, bouzouki, and saxophone in Armenian, Greek, and Middle Eastern communities for over 35 years throughout the country. He performed with the late Esber Korporcu, an important figure in Boston’s Middle Eastern music community, and has also appeared with Mehmet Sanlikol’s Dünya organization.
Mark Simos, associate professor in songwriting at Berklee College of Music, is a renowned songwriter, composer and tunesmith, teacher and writer. Over four-plus decades, Mark’s songs and “tunes from imaginary countries” have stretched musical boundaries with innovative melodies and harmonies and intricately crafted lyrics, bringing a contemporary sensibility to “neo-traditionalist” forms.
Over one hundred and fifty of Mark’s compositions have been recorded by artists, including Americana supergroup Alison Krauss and Union Station, Ricky Skaggs, Del McCoury, and Laurie Lewis. He’s co-written with artist/writers such as Lisa Aschmann, Australian rock icon Jimmy Barnes, Catie Curtis, and the Infamous Stringdusters’ Andy Hall. He’s featured on many recordings as a fiddler and guitar accompanist, and has recorded an acclaimed song-cycle album, Crazy Faith, and four albums of original and traditional fiddle music.
At Berklee, Mark creates innovative curriculum in 360° songwriting, collaboration and co-writing, guitar techniques for songwriters, and tunewriting, and leads Berklee’s American Old-Time Ensemble. He also continues to perform and teach at workshops, camps, festivals, and retreats worldwide.
