David DalleDavid Dalle on CKCU-FM 93.1 in Ottawa, Canadahttps://cod.ckcufm.com/images/ckcu.gifCopyright by Radio-Carleton, Inc.https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/105/index.html2024-03-28T18:00:00ZDavid Dalle 2024-03-28: Passion music with Kaija Saariaho La Passion de Simone and more.https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/105/64579.html2024-03-28T18:00:00Z<a href="https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/105/64579.html"><img align=left src="https://cod.ckcufm.com/images/ondemand.png"></a>For my annual show before Good Friday, I draw upon the incredibly rich tradition of music for and inspired by the Passion story, as well as unexpected music which I find fits the theme. This year we will have one of the more unusual choices, "La Passion de Simone", the 2006 oratorio for soprano, choir, orchestra, and electronics, by Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho. This work is not about Christ, but is composed in the tradition of Passion music. She composed this oratorio about the French philosopher, activist, and mystic Simone Weil. Producer Peter Sellars suggested the subject, while Saariaho had been reading Weil's writings since her youth. The libretto by French author Amin Maalouf brought together the different strands of Simone Weil's short life, which were the focus of the three creative minds behind the Oratorio. Saariaho was "fascinated by Simone's striving for abstract (mathematical) and spiritual-intellectual goals, Peter [was] interested in her social awareness and political activities. Amin brought out the gaping discrepancy between her philosophy and her life, showing the fate of the frail human being amongst great ideas." Saariaho structured the work in 15 Stations, echoing the Passion tradition of the Stations of the Cross.
<BR>
<BR>Simone Weil believed strongly in a sense of self-sacrifice, and in seeking redemption in suffering. She did not care about her own well-being, but in understanding and being attentive to the suffering of others. She travelled to Germany in 1932 to understand the rise of Nazism, and she worked in Paris factories in the lowest positions as an unskilled female labourer to understand the normalization of brutality in modern industry. She wrote against French colonialism in Africa and Southeast Asia. She obtained journalist credentials and joined an international brigade in the Spanish Civil War, where she was injured. Only at the insistence of her parents did she not return to combat. After the Nazi conquest of France in 1940 she wanted to stay in France, despite her Jewish background, and fight in the resistance. She was refused due to her poor health. She left France for the US only because her parents would not leave France without her. She ended up in London in 1943 where she had hopes of joining the Special Operations Executive (SOE) as a radio operator infiltrating France. Her poor health prevented this again. In solidarity, she limited herself to the same inadequate food rations that most French were limited to in occupied France. This only worsened her precarious health and she died in August 1943, only 34 years old. During all this time, she wrote prodigiously on many subjects. In Amin Maalouf's libretto, the comparison with Christ is strongly implied, such as in the Fourteenth Station, where the soloist sings "It was in August forty-three, Mankind didn't know/That a woman sacrificed herself for them/For their lies, their betrayals, their brutality".<BR><BR>This broadcast featured Kaija Saariaho/Dawn Upshaw, Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Tapiola Chamber Choir, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Johann Sebastien Bach transcribed Leopold Godowsky/Carlo Grante, Kamancello, Trio Joubran, Peter Gabriel.David DalleComing up on David Dalle on Thu. Mar. 28https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/105/H2024-03-27T18:00:00ZPassion music with Kaija Saariaho La Passion de Simone and more.David Dalle David Dalle 2024-03-21: Montreal-based saxophonist, clarinetist, improviser, and composer Allison Burik's new allbum of music inspired by Nordic mythology; the Labyrinth of Pietro Locatelli; music from Cuba, Bulgaria and more.https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/105/64488.html2024-03-21T18:00:00Z<a href="https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/105/64488.html"><img align=left src="https://cod.ckcufm.com/images/ondemand.png"></a>Starting off today with a new album from Montreal-based saxophonist, clarinetist, improviser, and composer Allison Burik. Their album "Realm" was inspired by Nordic mythology and the compositions feature Burik playing alto sax, bass clarinet, flute, guitar, and vocals. There are also some electronics on some of the pieces. A fascinating album which we will hear in full (it's fairly short) interspersed with some other music which fits.<BR><BR>This broadcast featured Allison Burik, Jan Garabek, The Hilliard Ensemble, Kirsten Braten Berg, Anna Thorvaldsdottir/ICE, Johann Sebastien Bach/Collegium Vocale, Orchestre de la Chappelle Royale, Philippe Herreweghe, Pietro Locatelli/Susi Lautenbacher, Mainz Chamber Orchestra, Gunter Kehr, L'Orient Imaginaire, Yuri Yunakov Ensemble, Okan, Barbaro Garcia, La Parranda de Sancti Spiritu, Roldan Carballoso Gomez, Raul Herrera Perez.David DalleComing up on David Dalle on Thu. Mar. 21https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/105/H2024-03-20T18:00:00ZMontreal-based saxophonist, clarinetist, improviser, and composer Allison Burik's new allbum of music inspired by Nordic mythology; the Labyrinth of Pietro Locatelli; music from Cuba, Bulgaria and more.David Dalle David Dalle 2024-03-14: 30 for 30 with the double-reeds of Ustad Bismillah Khan and The Master Musicians of Jajouka! Also, just released Utsav Lal!https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/105/64389.html2024-03-14T18:00:00Z<a href="https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/105/64389.html"><img align=left src="https://cod.ckcufm.com/images/ondemand.png"></a>Continuing my year-long celebration of 30 years on-air at the mighty 93.1 with a look at 30 of the most significant albums in my musical evolution. Today two albums which introduced me to my deep and abiding love of double-reeded instruments. Of course Western music has double-reeded instruments, most well known are most commonly orchestral instruments--oboe, bassoon, English horn etc. There are a number of more obscure double-reeded instruments in archaic folk European traditions, and of course there are the Highland bagpipes of Scotland. The orchestral instruments I knew and loved as part of the larger orchestra, I was unfamiliar with the more obscure folk instruments, and sure I love the bagpipes, but they are definitely niche. At CKCU there is a small studio adjacent to the on-air studio--guests and live music are sometimes in that studio. Back in the mid-90s it was also set up with a CD player and turntable and headphones, where volunteers could listen to the huge library at CKCU. As a Carleton student, I would spend hours listening to music from that library, and that is where I first listened to the Master Musicians of Jajouka's famous 1992 album "Apocalypse Across the Sky" on Bill Laswell's label "Axiom". The back of the album had the group sitting down at the entrance of a cave, with half the group playing drums and half playing the double-reeded ghaitas. The group has three different styles, either the ghaitas, or the lira flute, or singing and the stringed gimbris, all with the dense, powerful drums. There is also a women's group with women singing with drums. But the album opens up with the ghaitas, and what a revelation it was! These piercing, incessant, wailing instruments reach deep into your core and grab your spirit and bring you wherever they go. Musicians use a circular breathing technique which allows them to play the instrument continuously, forever it seems! Their endurance can be incredible. It is no accident that the ghaitas form the foundation of the most intense and powerful Sufi music in Morocco. They open the door to the divine and take you there! Just a few years after I first heard this album, I would make the first of two trips to Morocco, where I heard so much music, including the ghaitas. The ghaitas were like the pied piper to me, I would follow processions through the winding Medinas of Fes late at night helpless before them! I also got a chance to see the Master Musicians of Jajouka here in Ottawa at the Bluesfest, when it used to be much more adventurous.
<BR>
<BR>The other double-reeded album was another surprise for me. In the mid-90s I was already listening to Indian classical music and familiar with many instruments, listening to Ravi Shankar and Shivkumar Sharma and others. I would go to Vaishali's Super Store on Wylie Ave., an Indian grocery store just off Carling (it's still there, across from the Cineplex). Back then, they had hundreds of inexpensive Indian cds in no discernable order, and I would scoop up many of them. One album just had a headshot of an handsome Indian man wearing a Karakul hat, Ustad Bismillah Khan & Party "Shehnai Recital". I did not know what the shenai was (no smartphones back then!). There were no liner notes or pictures or descriptions of a shehnai. I took it home and started listening to it. The drones start with this double-reeded instrument, then the solo shehnai comes in with a long, sustained note. Such a beautiful, rich sound, I was mesmerized! The tabla join and this raga unfolds with interplay between the solo shehnai of Bismillah Khan and the accompanying shehnais of his party. The shehnai instantly became my favourite Hindustani instrument and I picked up every album of his I could. Bismillah Khan was the first to introduce the folk instrument shehnai into classical music, and he lived a long life (1916-2006), but I never had the chance to see him perform, and the shehnai remains an uncommon instrument in classical music. I have yet to hear one live in concert. But I listen to the shehnai all the time, and this first album I heard remains one of my favourites.
<BR>
<BR>These two albums are very significant. In the following decades I always sought out double-reeded instruments, from China, Vietnam, Egypt, Iran, Armenia, Spain, Italy, wherever I can find them. Let them pierce your heart too!
<BR>
<BR>The 30 for 30 albums we've heard so far (in order of appearance):
<BR>1. Lustmord "The Monstrous Soul" Side Effects
<BR>2. Ludwig Van Beethoven/Berliner Philharmoniker, Herbert Von Karajan et al. "Symphony No. 9" Deutsche Grammophon
<BR>3. Doudou N'Diaye Rose "Djabote" Realworld
<BR>4. Julius Eastman/Lutoslawski Piano Duo with Joanna Duda, Mischa Kozlowski "Unchained" Dux
<BR>5. The Master Musicians of Jajouka featuring Bachir Attar "Apocalypse Across The Sky" Axiom
<BR>6. Ustad Bismillah Khan & Party "Shehnai Recital" EMI India<BR><BR>This broadcast featured Master Musicians of Jajouka, Ustad Bismillah Khan & Party, Frederic Chopin/Geza Anda, Frederic Chopin/Sviatoslav Richter, Utsav Lal.David DalleComing up on David Dalle on Thu. Mar. 14https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/105/H2024-03-13T18:00:00Z30 for 30 with the double-reeds of Ustad Bismillah Khan and The Master Musicians of Jajouka! Also, just released Utsav Lal!David Dalle David Dalle 2024-03-07: Iranian singer Maliheh Moradi's "Our Sorrow" which addresses the injustice women face in Iran today. Sarathy Korwar "Live in Mumbai".https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/105/64294.html2024-03-07T19:00:00Z<a href="https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/105/64294.html"><img align=left src="https://cod.ckcufm.com/images/ondemand.png"></a>Iranian singer Maliheh Moradi studied tombak and singing from an early age and later attended the Tehran Conservatory of Music, where she studied with such musical titans as Shajarian, Parisa, Hossein Alizadeh and others. She is an accomplished classical Persian singer but she had to face the heartbreaking choice too many Iranian women are forced to make: her country or her freedom. Women are only allowed to perform publicly in Iran as members of an ensemble but there must be at least three females and one male singer present. And no one female can be heard over another, for that would be considered as displaying too much independence. She had no path open as a solo singer--the pinnacle of Persian classical music--in Iran, so she emigrated to the United States. She has since pursued her solo singing career. Her new album "Our Sorrow" is a collaboration with santur player and composer Ehsan Matoori. They delve into the difficulties, injustices, and contradictions of being a woman in Iran and created nine songs with beautiful, evocative poetry. An example is the ninth song "A Tale of Sorrow":
<BR>
<BR>"We reached the end without ever starting,
<BR>Our feathers scattered, without ever flying,
<BR>Forgive us, forgive us, oh luminous face of love.
<BR>Recognize me, I’m a sorrowful tale,
<BR>I’m a dark legend about a burdened night,
<BR>Bitter, gloomy, shattered, poisoned,
<BR>Oh friend! Have you recognised me? This is me.
<BR>We reached the end without ever starting,
<BR>Our feathers scattered, without ever flying."
<BR>
<BR>We will hear the album with some Persian and Canadian compositions mixed in.<BR><BR>This broadcast featured Maliheh Moradi & Ehsan Matoori, Afarin Mansouri, Fjola Evans/India Gailey, Parisa, Anna Thorvaldsdottir/Nordic Affect, Sarathy Korwar.David DalleComing up on David Dalle on Thu. Mar. 7https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/105/H2024-03-06T19:00:00ZIranian singer Maliheh Moradi's "Our Sorrow" which addresses the injustice women face in Iran today. Sarathy Korwar "Live in Mumbai".David Dalle David Dalle 2024-02-29: Black History Month bonus Leap Day show: Florence Price Encore; part three of Burkinabé musician Baba Commandant. 30 for 30 with Julius Eastman.https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/105/64202.html2024-02-29T19:00:00Z<a href="https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/105/64202.html"><img align=left src="https://cod.ckcufm.com/images/ondemand.png"></a>Today we have a bonus Black History Month show! This is only the 2nd time in 30 years I have had five programs in February, the last time was 1996! For this extra Leap Day show, we will have an encore of Florence Price with her 2nd Violin Concerto and part three looking at the music of Burkinabé musician Baba Commandant. I am also continuing my yearlong celebration of 30 years on-air with 30 of the most significant albums in my musical development, today with Julius Eastman.
<BR>
<BR>Price's 2nd violin concerto was composed in 1952 just a year before her unexpected death. It was never published nor performed and was unknown until it was found in 2009, in a collection of her manuscripts discovered in a home where she used to reside. Since then, it has been published and received several performances and recordings. We will hear a live recording made with violinist Randall Goosby with the Philadelphia Orchestra and Yannick Nézet-Séguin. Perhaps this work represents her late style--it is in a single, rhapsodic, movement, with many sudden and unexpected changes in mood and character. It must be wonderful for a violinist to play, and it is certainly wonderful to listen to.
<BR>
<BR>The third album by Baba Commandant is probably his funkiest, though still showing Afrobeat and 70's Mandingue influences all joining with traditional Burkinabé music.
<BR>
<BR>I first heard the music of composer Julius Eastman with a 2014 recording featuring two of his pieces, performed on four pianos by four Polish pianists and released on a Polish label--an unexpected source for one of the most obscure and fascinating American composers. Eastman was born in 1940 and lived an uncompromising life as a militantly Black and gay activist. This certainly made his life in the rarefied, almost exclusively white career of a contemporary composer very difficult. You can read and hear a lot more of his incredible music in my three part special from 2019:
<BR>https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/105/41649.html
<BR>https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/105/41770.html
<BR>https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/105/41880.html
<BR>
<BR>His music was in the minimalist tradition, but it is perhaps the most maximalist minimalist music! Full of huge, thick textures from the four pianos, extremes in dynamics, power, and emotion. If we have time, we will hear both works from the album, "Evil N*" from 1979 and "Gay Guerrilla" from 1980. The former is music of seething, righteous rage, music for Black Lives Matter from 45 years ago! The latter is music of incredible strength and fortitude. This 2014 album is the most recent on my list of 30. When I first heard this album it took my breath away, I listened to these pieces constantly for weeks, opening up a whole new world of music.
<BR>
<BR>The 30 for 30 albums we've heard so far (in order of appearance):
<BR>1. Lustmord "The Monstrous Soul" Side Effects
<BR>2. Ludwig Van Beethoven/Berliner Philharmoniker, Herbert Von Karajan et al. "Symphony No. 9" Deutsche Grammophon
<BR>3. Doudou N'Diaye Rose "Djabote" Realworld
<BR>4. Julius Eastman/Lutoslawski Piano Duo with Joanna Duda, Mischa Kozlowski "Unchained" Dux<BR><BR>This broadcast featured Baba Commandant & The Mandingo Band, Pale Tioionte, Kambire Tiaporte, Da Gboro Ale, Orchestre Yamba Yamba Beto Ba, Julius Eastman/Lutoslawski Piano Duo-Emilia Sitarz, Bartek Wasik with Joanna Duda, Mischa Kozlowski, Florence Price/Randall Goosby, The Philadelphia Orchestra, Yannick Nezet-Seguin.David DalleComing up on David Dalle on Thu. Feb. 29https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/105/H2024-02-28T19:00:00ZBlack History Month bonus Leap Day show: Florence Price Encore; part three of Burkinabé musician Baba Commandant. 30 for 30 with Julius Eastman.David Dalle David Dalle 2024-02-22: Black History Month: the Symphonies of Florence Price; When the sun goes out-music of unbearable beauty and spirituality.https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/105/64109.html2024-02-22T19:00:00Z<a href="https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/105/64109.html"><img align=left src="https://cod.ckcufm.com/images/ondemand.png"></a>Today we finish the cycle of Florence Price's symphonies with her 4th symphony composed in 1945. You can listen to her 1st and 3rd symphonies on the two previous shows. Her 2nd symphony is currently lost, though perhaps not lost forever. Her 4th symphony as well as many other unknown manuscripts were found in a house in Illinois in 2009 which Price had used as a summer home six decades before. I am so happy it was found, as this is my favourite of her three extant symphonies. It has thoroughly rich and dramatic orchestration, highlighting so many different instruments, demonstrating her mastery of the orchestra. It also features several Black spirituals interwoven in the symphonic texture. It definitely places her in the pantheon of major American symphonic composers. This recording, like the other two symphonies we heard, is by the Philadelphia Orchestra with Canadian conductor Yannick Nezet-Seguin. They are coming to Ottawa and performing this symphony at the NAC on April 18th, however, it is sold out.
<BR>https://nac-cna.ca/en/event/33729<BR><BR>This broadcast featured Bill Withers, Florence Price/Philadelphia Orchestra, Yannick Nezet-Seguin, Ralph Vaughan Williams/Academy of St Martin In The Fields, Sir Neville Marriner, Johann Sebastien Bach/Pablo Casals, Ballake Sissoko & Vincent Segal, Kasse Mady Diabate with Toumani Diabate and Bassekou Kouyate, John Coltrane, McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Garrison, Elvin Jones.David DalleComing up on David Dalle on Thu. Feb. 22https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/105/H2024-02-21T19:00:00ZBlack History Month: the Symphonies of Florence Price; When the sun goes out-music of unbearable beauty and spirituality.David Dalle David Dalle 2024-02-15: Black History Month: the symphonies of Florence Price; part two of Burkinabé musician Baba Commandant.https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/105/64022.html2024-02-15T19:00:00Z<a href="https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/105/64022.html"><img align=left src="https://cod.ckcufm.com/images/ondemand.png"></a>We continue this month's look at the symphonies of American composer Florence Price and Burkinabé musician Baba Commandant. You can look at the playlists and listen to the two previous shows to learn more about them. Florence Price composed nearly 300 works. Sadly, her second symphony has been lost. Her fourth symphony, as well as many of her other works were only found in 2009 in a house which she used to live in, over six decades earlier, so there is hope her second symphony will someday be discovered. Today we will hear her third symphony. This work was completed in 1940 and is very different from her first symphony. Her first symphony was quite indebted to Dvorak's 9th symphony, but her third is more original and a bit more modern than the first. Its mysterious opening makes me think of Wagner's Parsifal, however it soon becomes her own music, rich in mid-century American imagery and is full of solos from various instruments. The second movement was described as "majestic beauty" in the Detroit Free Press after its premiere in 1940. The third movement, like in all her symphonies, is based on the West African "Juba" dance. The fourth a brilliant scherzo. This symphony is full of life, beauty, and drama. It is clear, she deserves a place as a significant American composer.<BR><BR>This broadcast featured Florence Price/Philadelphia Orchestra, Yannick Nezet-Seguin, Baba Commandant & The Mandingo Band, Yan Kuba Saho, Super Biton, Rail Band.David DalleComing up on David Dalle on Thu. Feb. 15https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/105/H2024-02-14T19:00:00ZBlack History Month: the symphonies of Florence Price; part two of Burkinabé musician Baba Commandant.David Dalle David Dalle 2024-02-08: Black History Month: the symphonies of Florence Price; new music from Mali; African Cup of Nations finalists.https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/105/63919.html2024-02-08T19:00:00Z<a href="https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/105/63919.html"><img align=left src="https://cod.ckcufm.com/images/ondemand.png"></a>Today we will start a cycle of Florence Price's symphonies. Florence Price composed four symphonies and almost 300 works, including concertos, orchestral works, songs, and pieces for solo instruments. Price was born in 1887 in Arkansas and was taught music by her mother. She was a prodigious music student, performing piano at the age of 4 and composing by the age of 10. After high school, she attended the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. She ended up in Chicago as part of the Great Migration north in the late 1920's. She continued her studies in instrumentation, composition, and organ, as well as other studies. In the 1930's she began achieving success as a composer, and her first symphony, composed in 1931-32, won a prize. It was premiered by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 1933, becoming the first major orchestral work by a Black American woman performed by a major orchestra. This work is in a traditional Romantic idiom with four movements, and it was heavily indebted to Dvorak's 9th symphony which shares the same e minor key. Dvorak's famous work was composed in 1893 while he was director of the National Conservatory of Music of America in New York City. He had become familiar with Black American Spirituals from a Black student at the conservatory, the composer Harry Burleigh, who sang these Spirituals to him. Dvorak was convinced the true American school of music would come out of this Black tradition. He was also influenced by Native American music, which he found similar to Black American music, most likely in shared pentatonic scales. All these elements were developed in Dvorak's 9th symphony, and they are also present in Price's symphony. However, Price did add her own unique voice, such as the third movement (in all her symphonies) was a Juba, based on a West African dance with body and hand clapping, which was brought over during the trans-Atlantic slave trade and practiced on plantations. Price was well regarded, especially in Chicago, but she died in 1953 and her music fell into total obscurity. Many of her compositions, including her fourth symphony, were only discovered in 2009 in an old house in Illinois which Price had used as a summer home. Saved from oblivion, her rich quintessentially American symphonies are worthy of standing alongside those of other canonic American composers such as Aaron Copland.<BR><BR>This broadcast featured Florence Price/Philadelphia Orchestra, Yannick Nezet-Seguin, Bounaly, Yelemba d'Abidjan, King Wasiu Ayinde Marhshal I, Fatai Rolling Dollar, Namian Sidibe.David DalleComing up on David Dalle on Thu. Feb. 8https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/105/H2024-02-07T19:00:00ZBlack History Month: the symphonies of Florence Price; new music from Mali; African Cup of Nations finalists.David Dalle David Dalle 2024-02-01: Black History Month with the first of a three part look at Burkinabé musician Baba Commandant. 30 for 30 with Doudou N'Diaye Rose "Djabote".https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/105/63824.html2024-02-01T19:00:00Z<a href="https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/105/63824.html"><img align=left src="https://cod.ckcufm.com/images/ondemand.png"></a>During Black History Month we will be hearing from many Black artists, including a 3-part look at Burkinabé musician Baba Commandant (stage name for Mamadou Sanou). Baba Commandant was a singer and donso n'goni player. The donso n'goni is a 6-string harp, superficially similar to the kora, traditionally played by hunter societies in Wassoulou and Mandingo cultures in West Africa: Mali, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, and Guinea. Baba Commandant had his own band which played a unique style fusing Afrobeat, Funk, 70's Mandingue guitar, and traditional Burkinabé Mandé music. Tragically, he died aged only 50 last November from malaria in his home town.
<BR>
<BR>We will also continue my look at 30 of the most significant albums for my musical development for my 30th year on-air at CKCU. Today we feature the great Senegalese drummer Doudou N'Diaye Rose and his astonishing 1992 album "Djabote". He leads 50 drummers and 80 singers. The power, richness, and beauty of this album took my breath away when I first heard it 30 years ago. It still does.<BR><BR>This broadcast featured Baba Commandant & The Mandingo Band, La Famille Dembele, Oumou Sangare, Djiguiya, Fulgence Compaore, Doudou N'Diaye Rose.David DalleComing up on David Dalle on Thu. Feb. 1https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/105/H2024-01-31T19:00:00ZBlack History Month with the first of a three part look at Burkinabé musician Baba Commandant. 30 for 30 with Doudou N'Diaye Rose "Djabote".David Dalle David Dalle 2024-01-25: Silent Tears - The Last Yiddish Tango; Taraf Syriana, and more!https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/105/63724.html2024-01-25T19:00:00Z<a href="https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/105/63724.html"><img align=left src="https://cod.ckcufm.com/images/ondemand.png"></a>On today's show we will be looking at several Canadian albums which showcase how cultures move around, interact, and create something new. The first album we will look at is "Silent Tears - The Last Yiddish Tango" by the Payadora Tango Ensemble. This 2023 album takes poetry mostly written during the 1990's by a group of women, all Holocaust survivors, and residents of Toronto's Baycrest Centre for Geriatric Care. It was a form of therapy for these aging women who experienced unimaginable horror in their youth. Some of the poetry is also by Molly Applebaum, who wrote a memoir based on her diary about being hidden in terrible and abusive conditions during the Holocaust in Poland. She emigrated to Canada in 1948 and is 93 now. I thought it was an interesting concept to set these poems to Tango music, but I had not realized that Tango music was very popular in Poland during the interwar period from 1918 until 1939. Polish Tango was mostly composed and performed by Jews, and had influences from Klezmer. This entire fascinating world was driven into oblivion by the Holocaust. Most of the music is by Canadian violinist Rebekah Wolkstein, but there are also some compositions by Artur Gold, one of the most popular composers of Polish Tango during the 20's and 30's. He was murdered in Treblinka in 1943.
<BR>
<BR>The other album we will focus on is by Taraf Syriana, an ensemble of musicians from Syria, Lebanon, Morocco, Moldova and elsewhere. Most of them now reside in Montreal. Their self-titled 2022 album features a meeting of Arabic, Romani, and Eastern European music--mostly instrumental with a few songs sung by Romanian Dan Armeanca and Syrian-Canadian Ayham Abou Ammar.
<BR>
<BR>All this and a lot of other wonderful music!<BR><BR>This broadcast featured Payadora Tango Ensemble, Henryk Gold's Orchestra, Yiddish Glory, Pablo Ziegler, Taraf Syriana, Frederic Chopin/Robert Goldsand, Jerzy Petersburg/Mieczyslaw Fogg, Ali Jihad Racy & Simon Shaheen, Ahmad Al Khatib & Youssef Hbeisch, Gilad Atzmon Orient House Ensemble.David DalleComing up on David Dalle on Thu. Jan. 25https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/105/H2024-01-24T19:00:00ZSilent Tears - The Last Yiddish Tango; Taraf Syriana, and more!David Dalle David Dalle 2024-01-18: Yiddish Glory, lost Jewish songs of WWII, with guest Professor Anna Shternshis. Farewell to Rashid Khan.https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/105/63621.html2024-01-18T19:00:00Z<a href="https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/105/63621.html"><img align=left src="https://cod.ckcufm.com/images/ondemand.png"></a>A special show today as I am joined by guest Professor Anna Shternshis, who is Professor of Yiddish studies and the director of the Anne Tanenbaum Centre for Jewish Studies at the University of Toronto. She was instrumental in recovering lost songs from Soviet ethnomusicologist Moisei Beregovsky, who wrote down hundreds of new Yiddish songs in the Soviet Union during WWII. These songs were written mostly by amateurs, Jewish soldiers in the Red Army, Jewish wives and mothers working on the home front, as well as refugees and survivors of Nazi terror in Poland and Ukraine. Beregovsky hoped to publish these songs after the war, but he was swept up in Stalin's 1952 anti-Jewish purges and sent to the Gulag, where he died thinking the songs were lost forever. In the late 90's, some unmarked boxes were found in the Vernadsky National Library of Ukraine in Kiev. These contained mostly handwritten copies of the songs. Professor Shternshis and Russian musician and Slav expert Psoy Korolenko collaborated in the recovery of these songs. Some had music written, but most were just lyrics. Many of these recovered songs were constructed, sometimes using popular Soviet Yiddish tunes from the 1920's and 30's, and with a few interesting and unexpected choices like a song by Alfred Schnittke. Eighteen of these songs were recorded and released in the album "The Lost Songs of World War II" by the ensemble Yiddish Glory, in 2018. They will be performing these songs at the NAC Fourth Stage next Thursday, January the 25th.
<BR>https://nac-cna.ca/en/event/35483<BR><BR>This broadcast featured Yiddish Glory, Mieczyslaw Weinberg/Quatuor Danel, Ustad Rashid Khan, Anand Gopal Bandopadhyay, Jyoti Goho.David DalleComing up on David Dalle on Thu. Jan. 18https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/105/H2024-01-17T19:00:00ZYiddish Glory, lost Jewish songs of WWII, with guest Professor Anna Shternshis. Farewell to Rashid Khan.David Dalle David Dalle 2024-01-11: In the Throes of Love, Sufi music from Sindh and Punjab, Bachhttps://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/105/63533.html2024-01-11T19:00:00Z<a href="https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/105/63533.html"><img align=left src="https://cod.ckcufm.com/images/ondemand.png"></a>Today we will hear a lengthy set of music, bookended by the two sides from the 2022 compilation "Ishq Ke Maare - Sufi Songs From Sindh and Punjab, Pakistan". This compilation was compiled from 2013-16 in a variety of places: shrines, living rooms, and remote rural areas by Arshia Fatima Haq. It features Qawaali and other forms of Sufi music, mostly unknown musicians united in their desire for mystical union with God. "Often, the songs unfold into an organic recursion of longing, isolation, and despair, only to be redeemed by an almost erotic promise of union with the divine entity. The singers themselves are 'ishq ke maare' - in the throes of love." -Arshia Fatima Haq<BR><BR>This broadcast featured Ustad Aacher and Company, Kalyam Sharif Qawwali Troupe, Meeh Wasaiyo, Fatah Daudpoto, Jai Raam, Basheer Haidara and Nazira Bano, Johann Sebastien Bach/Alice Harnoncourt, Walter Pfeiffer, Concentus Musicus Wien, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Ramazan, Johann Sebastien Bach/Christopher Hirons, Monica Hugget, Catherine Mackintosh, The Academy of Ancient Music, Christopher Hogwood, Shazia Tarannum, Babu, Sain Juman Shan and Fakirs, Ghulam Arshad, Unknown singer, Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan & Party.David DalleComing up on David Dalle on Thu. Jan. 11https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/105/H2024-01-10T19:00:00ZIn the Throes of Love, Sufi music from Sindh and Punjab, BachDavid Dalle David Dalle 2024-01-04: 30 for 30. Celebrating my 30th year on CKCU with 30 of my most significant albums.https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/105/63434.html2024-01-04T19:00:00Z<a href="https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/105/63434.html"><img align=left src="https://cod.ckcufm.com/images/ondemand.png"></a>2024 marks three decades for me on-air here at CKCU! To mark the 30 years, over the course of 2024 I will be featuring 30 of the most significant albums in my life. Since these are albums which have been crucial to my musical development, they will be biased towards older albums.
<BR>
<BR>This week, we will hear from two of these albums. The first is from the Welsh electronic musician Brian Williams, who records under the name Lustmord. His 1992 album "The Monstrous Soul" was the 2nd album of his that I heard (the first being "Heresy" from 1990). I loved both albums, but, a sign that my show would be unusual, is that I used the entire 6 minute ominous, repeating opening track from "The Monstrous Soul" as my theme for the first six months of my show. It made more sense when the show began at 2am rather than now at 2pm, but we hear it today for nostalgia's sake!
<BR>
<BR>The main feature today will be one of my favourite works of music, arguably my favourite piece of music. I fell in love with Beethoven's 9th as a teenager. However, this is not that first, generic, recording of the 9th that I first heard, this recording is with the Berliner Philharmoniker and Herbert Von Karajan. This was the first great recording of the 9th I listened to, and is still one of my favourite performances.
<BR>
<BR>There have been oceans of ink spilled about Beethoven's 9th, and I certainly can't summarize everything here! But I will comment on one less discussed aspect of the 9th symphony. Beethoven was a revolutionary, radical composer, and his 9th symphony was his most radical work. It is, without doubt, the single most influential piece of music in the last 200 years, but the 9th was and remains divisive among many music lovers. It is the radical choral finale, the infamous "Ode to Joy", which has split many listeners. Ironically, since the text of Friedrich Schiller's poem calls for unity and the brotherhood of man (I apologize, Schiller was an 18th century poet, it was standard to refer to all humanity solely in male terms). From its legendary premiere in Vienna, 200 years ago in 1824, the choral finale has divided listeners.
<BR>
<BR>This split has continued to the current day. In general, more conservative music listeners had trouble with the choral finale, while more liberal listeners found the choral finale to be the greatest moment in music. But here is the unusual thing--for most of those listeners who dislike the finale, almost all of them will sing the highest praises of the first three, instrumental, movements. For example, when I was working on my music degree, I had a professor tell me the first movement was a supreme example of sonata form, but the finale was terrible voice writing. This was a common complaint, how unnatural and difficult the vocal writing is (perhaps why Verdi did not like the finale). But what a bizarre complaint! The world of great music is mostly very difficult to perform as well!
<BR>
<BR>This odd situation has led to another strange story. A persistent myth has arisen that Beethoven had been seriously thinking of an instrumental finale instead of the choral finale. This suited the listener who thought the first three movements were perfection, but could not grasp the finale. This idea was made popular around 1850, when a viral pamphlet was published stating that Beethoven had intended an instrumental finale. I believe this had significant, unexpected, repercussions. For example, Brahms' first symphony, composed only a few years later in 1854, had a large dramatic finale with a main melody very reminiscent of the "Ode To Joy". I cannot believe that was an accident, that, at least subconsciously, he was "fixing" Beethoven's 9th with this instrumental end. To the most bold, open, and radical composers in the 19th century, Beethoven's 9th, particularly the "Ode To Joy", was an overwhelming revelation which set them on a path, not to compose derivative copies of Beethoven (like too many of Brahms' attempts), but to try and envision where Beethoven was headed. This included composers such as Berlioz, Liszt, Wagner, and Bruckner. Beethoven had dreamed of setting Schiller's poem to music since he was a young man, and the music had already been preordained in his Choral Fantasia from 1808 (rarely heard, but wonderful, piece which sounds like a draft for the "Ode To Joy"), so it was hardly a whim that Beethoven composed the "Ode To Joy". So sit back, and be thrilled by the journey from the violence and drama of the first movement, the relentless Totentanz of the scherzo, the impossible, escapist utopia of the adagio, to all be rejected in the finale with the irresistible call to seize Earthly, real joy in this life! Beethoven's 9th.<BR><BR>This broadcast featured Lustmord, Ludwig Van Beethoven/Janet Perry, Agnes Baltsa, Vinson Cole, José van Dam, Wiener Singverein, Berliner Philharmoniker, Herbert Von Karajan, Bara Gisladottier & Skuli Sverrisson, Msaki x Tubatsi, Ebo Taylor & The Sweet Beans, Nemours Jn-Baptiste, Kassav, Le Groupe Haiti Cherie, Bonga, Ali Farka Toure, Iftin Band, Franco et le TPOK Jazz.David DalleComing up on David Dalle on Thu. Jan. 4https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/105/H2024-01-03T19:00:00Z30 for 30. Celebrating my 30th year on CKCU with 30 of my most significant albums.David Dalle