SEVDAH SONGS will be presented on Friday, June 1, 2012 9 PM. SEVDAH SONGS is a collaboration between Merima Ključo and Eva Salina Primack. Merima is a Bosnian-born contemporary concert accordionist, and Eva is a singer with many years of experience in traditional music, particularly from Eastern Europe.
Merima and Eva have recently begun working together, using Merima’s song cycle, SEVDAH SONGS, as the foundation, and expanding the repertoire to include source songs from many neighboring Balkan traditions. Their performance at Alwan for the Arts will be the US debut of this collaboration.
SEVDAH SONGS is a song cycle by Merima Ključo composed between 2006-2008. It consists of arrangements of well-known and well-loved songs that have been handed down through the generations in Bosnia, and compositions based on this tradition. It is scored for contemporary accordion and voice, with the voice adhering more closely to the traditional song melodies. Ključo’s conceptual idea is to introduce a new, radical approach to accordion playing, creating a context for modern contemporary music to meet traditional song.
Merima Ključo, accordionist, performs internationally as a recitalist and has been guest soloist with orchestras, including the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Holland Symphonia and the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra. As a soloist, she has participated in a number of renowned festivals, including the St. Magnus Festival (Scotland), the City of London Festival, the Gaudeamus Festival (Amsterdam) and the Gubaidulina Festival. She is a member of the Checkpoint KBK (with Iva Bittova and David Krakauer) and Serendipity 4 (with singers Theodore Bikel and Shura Lipovsky and pianist Tamara Brooks), and has worked with MusikFabrik, the Asko/Schönberg Ensemble and the Nederlands Blazers Ensemble.
Her performances have been broadcast by the BBC, and networks in the Netherlands, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Germany, Hungary and Israel. In 2006, Merima composed music for the radio drama “Wie der Soldat das Grammofon repariert,” based on the book by Saša Stanišic and directed by Leonhar Koppelmann, now available as an audio book through Random House. She has contributed music for the following films: “In the Land of Blood and Honey” by Angelina Jolie, “Jack” by Sergej Kreso, “Journey 4 Artists” by Michele Noble, and “Stories of Sevdah” by Robert Golden. In the field of Opera and Theatre, Merima has performed with the National Jewish Theater, Bremer Theater, Nederlandse Kinder Theater, and worked with directors Daniel Landau and Joaquim Sabates. In 2009/10,
Merima was invited as accordionist and one of the musical arrangers/composers for Theodor Bikel’s legendary one-man play, “Sholom Aleichem: Laughter Through Tears,” which was produced by the National Jewish Theater and played in Washington, D.C., Florida, Toronto, San Francisco and New York.Merima’s involvement in and love for world music, and the music of Bosnia in particular, brings a new dimension to her work and is something she seeks to share with audiences everywhere. As producer, composer and arranger for her highly acclaimed album “Zumra” (with singer Amira Medunjanin) (Gramofon, 2009/ Harmonia Mundi UK / World Village 2010), her work was voted number 4 in the top 10 world music albums by the Sunday Times (UK) in 2010.
In April 2012, in commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the Siege of Sarajevo, EastWest Theater Company and renowned Bosnian theater director Haris Pasovic invited Merima as musical director to compose, arrange, and perform a music poem, Sarajevo Red Line (Sarajevska Crvena Linija). The piece, which incorporated traditional songs, pop songs, and classical music–music with deep cultural significance that honored many types of people, was performed on April 6, 2012 to an audience of 11, 541 empty red chairs lining the main boulevard in Sarajevo, with one chair for every life lost in the siege. On that day, thousands of people from all walks of life congregated to witness and remember.
Merima has taught workshops and master classes in many conservatories and universities, including the Guildhall School of Music (England), the University of Edinburgh (Scotland) and Syracuse and Georgetown universities (USA). She was a faculty member at Yellow Barn (Putney, VT) during the 2011 Summer season. In the last three years, Merima has published two books, “Eastern European Folk Tunes for Accordion” and “Klezmer and Sephardic Tunes for Accordion” through Schott Music. Her accordion studies began at the Srednja Muzička Škola in Sarajevo, continued at the Rotterdam Conservatory with Miny Dekkers, and culminated at the University of the Arts, Bremen with Margit Kern, where she was granted a postgraduate scholarship for exceptional talent and graduated Cum Laude.
A native of Santa Cruz, California, Eva Salina Primack has been studying, performing, and teaching Balkan music since she was a young child. She has studied with some of the greatest living singers of Balkan traditional music. Eva’s rich, versatile, agile, deep and powerful voice and her enthusiastic, skillful, inspired and inspiring teaching have led her to quickly become known as a preeminent singer, interpreter, and teacher of Traditional Balkan vocal music, singing through the traditions of Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, Macedonia, Serbia, Turkey and the Romani people. She has also studied Georgian, Corsican, Traditional American, and Ukrainian singing.
The concert takes place at Alwan for the Arts, 16 Bewaver Street, 4th Fl., NYC. Doors open at 8:30 pm, performance at 9:PM. Tickets: $20 General, $15 Members, Seniors, Students – available at the door or online.
For further information: tasweeq@alwanforthearts.org
