David Dalle
Thursday September 25th, 2014 with David Dalle
Waed Bouhassoun on oud and singing; contemporary take on Moravian folk music; Kiran Ahluwalia's new album

In stark contrast to the horrific civil war in Syria (and Iraq), we will hear an exquisite, lonely voice from Syria sing of absence, sorrow, and divine love. Waed Bouhassoun is a gifted singer and Oud player from southern Syria, starting off as a child prodigy singing and accompanying herself on the Oud since she was 7. She settled in Damascus after graduating from the conservatory in Damascus where she started an all-female group with which she toured extensively. She composes and sings songs based on classical poetry from poets such as Jala ad-Din Rumi, Wallada bint al-Mustakfi, Ibn Zaydun. We will also hear a new recording from the NYC based group Dalava, which is led by singer Julia Ulehla. She is the great-granddaughter of the Czech musicologist Vladimir Ulehla who made an in-depth study of Moravian folk music in the first half of the 20th century, particularly from the village of Straznice. Julia Ulehla took 11 of the folk songs he recorded and made a dramatic mix of contemporary and folk arrangements of them for two violins, guitars, bass and her singing with a few other unexpected instruments. As well the upcoming new album by Kiran Ahluwalia "Sanata: Stillness" which continues her interest in the music from the Sahel and Sahara regions of North Africa, particularly the Tuareg music of groups like Tinariwen with whom she performed with at the Festival in the Desert in Mali and. Lastly, we finish with a string quartet from Czech composer Leos Janacek, unexpectedly drawing upon themes earlier in the show, this work, like all the compositions from his last decade was inspired by his obsessive, life-changing platonic love for a young woman. This quartet was also his protest against the horrendously misogynistic late novella from Leo Tolstoy "The Kreutzer Sonata". In the quartet, Janacek tries to musically portray the perspective of the tragic, doomed wife in the novella.