Fri Dec 6 House Concert: Dror Sinai & Zirzuvi

[Santa Cruz House Concerts]

Our last show of 2024 will feature a kaleidoscope of Middle Eastern tonal colors:

                                      Sunday, Dec 6  7:30 PM

               Dror Sinai & Zirzuvi: Sephardic & Middle Eastern Music

The concert will be held indoors in downtown Santa Cruz, with masks optional.  Details below.

Please stay at home if you have cold/flu symptoms, or mask if you're not sure.

Suggested donation: $25/person sliding scale.

Come out and support live traditional music!

To reserve your spot, please email <Conc...@InstantHarmony.com>.

Be sure to include the total in your party.

Other musical events of interest:

     Tonight!  Fri Nov 22, 7-10pm Santa Cruz Contra Dance

         featuring: Mike Lewinski, Daniel Steinberg, Ezra Warren Steinberg / caller:Greg Frock

         Live Oak Grange, 1900 17th Ave, Santa Cruz

_________________________________________________________________________

               Dror Sinai & Zirzuvi: Sephardic & Middle Eastern Music

                                      Sunday, Dec 6  7:30 PM

    Dror Sinai & Zirzuví play original and traditional Sephardic, Middle Eastern, Turkish, Balkan,

and improvisational music. Zirzuví's music is meant to bridge traditions and invent new

relationships to music and culture while bringing people together in celebration. Zirzuví in Ladino

means "an indescribable color" - all colors and no color all at once. We think playing zirzuví music

is a path to collective moments of joy and unity.

Dror Sinai: percussion, vocals

   Dror is a true force of nature, whose unique blend of Musical and Healing expertise, combined

with his passion for Travel and Personal Growth, has inspired and uplifted people from all walks

of life. He is a true visionary and pioneer in the world of percussion, World Peace, Chi Gong,

Healing, and Personal Development, and his contributions to these fields are felt by many.

Jamie Barsimantov: oud, clarinet, vocals

   Jamie has been playing and singing Sephardic music for over 15 years on oud and clarinet.

His parents emigrated from Turkey in the 60s, at around the same time that his grandfather

became the hazan at a Turkish synagogue in Israel. For Jamie, Sephardic music has been

both an anchor to his family’s origins and an inspiration to play and perform.

Shireen Nabatian: violin, vocals

   Shireen is a PhD candidate at UC Santa Cruz in cross-cultural musicology. Her research is

about folk music, representation, and music camps. She plays violin and sings mostly traditional

music from the Balkans and Türkiye.

Anne Cleveland: flute, vocals

   Anne is a singer, instrumentalist, dancer and educator who has performed and taught jazz,

classical and folk music from around the world for decades.  She is one of the founding members

and has recorded with Medna Usta and Voluta Vox playing Bulgarian, Macedonian and Romani

music. She joined Zirzuvi several years ago and has enjoyed every minute playing and performing

with this incredible group of musicians.

Mathew Harmon: bouzouki

   Matthew is a musician, singer-songwriter, and educator based in Santa Cruz, California.

He plays traditional music from around the world, including Sephardic, Greek, and Moroccan,

as well as Irish and American tunes. In 2020 he released a self-titled album with his chamber-folk

quartet MAJK, and recently released a solo album.

Avraham David Sinai: percussion, vocals

   Avi is a percussionist, vocalist and visual artist from Santa Cruz California.  He conglomerates

the melodies of traditional Arabic Yemeni Jewish chants with a modern day twist. Singing such

songs he’d learned from his father Dror from the age of 4, he forms a collaboration of one

Yemen soul. He’s performed with such bands as Phreeborn, the Phrequency, and Zirzuví.

 
Megan Clemens: vocals, percussion

   Megan is a singer, dancer, and healer. She has sung with Zirzuví since its inception, as well

as in women’s choirs and song circles.

Oriah Barsimantov: accordion

   The youngest member of the band, Ori started listening to Zirzuví’s songs while in the womb.

At 12 years old, she is a multi-instrumentalist and thinks that playing songs in odd meters is easy. 

[Santa Cruz House Concerts]

[Sigh!  I can never seem to get out an email without a mistake.  In this case, the subject was right (Fri) but the text was wrong (Sun)...here's the correction.  Sorry about that.]

Our last show of 2024 will feature a kaleidoscope of Middle Eastern tonal colors:

                                      Friday, Dec 6  7:30 PM

               Dror Sinai & Zirzuvi: Sephardic & Middle Eastern Music

The concert will be held indoors in downtown Santa Cruz, with masks optional.  Details below.

Please stay at home if you have cold/flu symptoms, or mask if you're not sure.

Suggested donation: $25/person sliding scale.

Come out and support live traditional music!

To reserve your spot, please email <Conc...@InstantHarmony.com>.

Be sure to include the total in your party.

Other musical events of interest:

     Tonight!  Fri Nov 22, 7-10pm Santa Cruz Contra Dance

         featuring: Mike Lewinski, Daniel Steinberg, Ezra Warren Steinberg / caller:Greg Frock

         Live Oak Grange, 1900 17th Ave, Santa Cruz

_________________________________________________________________________

               Dror Sinai & Zirzuvi: Sephardic & Middle Eastern Music

                                      Friday, Dec 6  7:30 PM

[Santa Cruz House Concerts]

We're kicking off the 2025 Downtown Soundz House Concert series with an album release party featuring traditional and original Irish & British Isles tunes:

                                      Saturday, Jan 25  7:30 PM

               Marla Fibish & Rebecca Richman: Playdate CD Release party

The concert will be held indoors in downtown Santa Cruz, with masks optional.  Details below.

Please stay at home if you have cold/flu symptoms, or mask if you're not sure.

Suggested donation: $25/person sliding scale.

Come out and support live traditional music!

To reserve your spot, please email <Conc...@InstantHarmony.com>.

Be sure to include the total in your party.

Upcoming shows in our series:

    Tue Mar 4, 7:30pm:  Lonesome Ace Stringband:  Old-time & Bluegrass

    Fri Mar 28, 7:30pm: Windborne: Songs from Corsica, Georgia, Americas

Other musical events of interest:

    Sun, Jan 12    10:00am - 12:00pm

           Mr. Bidu's Circus:  Brazilian forró rabecado

          Live Oak Farmers Market, 15th & East Cliff, Santa Cruz

featuring Laurie Rivin, Irene Hermann, Daniel Steinberg, Dylan Sheehan, Ezra Warren Steinberg, Maria Padilha, Johnny Graves

      FREE!   Come on out and dance!

_________________________________________________________________________

               Marla Fibish & Rebecca Richman: Playdate CD Release party

                                      Saturday, Jan 25  7:30 PM

   Marla Fibish & Rebecca Richman are delighted to release their new duo album Playdate.

This project celebrates the friendship and musical connection between these two that has

blossomed over the past few years. Starting from their shared love of Irish traditional music,

they mix in some of their own tunes as well. Their selections mark some recent losses that

offset the many joys. What comes through is the playfulness found between these friends

and their joy in making music together.  Lewis Santer joins them for this show on guitar and bouzouki.

   "...a mature series of musical journeys that conjure a range of human emotions,

    from a celebration of life to the remembrance of loved ones gone past.... with a 

    sound and with an ensemble that reminds me of the intimacy of a small session

    at home with friends."          - Richard Gee, FolkWorks

Marla Fibish: mandolin, mandola & tenor guitar
   Marla’s is a distinct voice of the mandolin in Irish music, bringing her own musical sensibility

to the tradition on one of its lesser heard instruments.  Her influences come from favorite

fiddlers, pipers, flute and accordion players, and her style one that aims to capture the movement

and flow of the music on those instruments, while highlighting the particular beauties the mandolin

brings to the table.  She is featured on her 2020 release The Bright Hollow Fog, on the 2017

Noctambule release A Sweetish Tune, on the eponymous Three Mile Stone recording with

fiddler Erin Shrader and guitarist Richard Mandel, and on The Morning Star, a duo CD with

legendary Irish singer and bouzouki player Jimmy Crowley released in 2011 —  an all instrumental

project that features Irish music on an array of mandolin-family instruments: mandolin, mandola,

mandocello, bouzouki, and dordan. She has performed and taught nationally and in Ireland, and

was a featured performer at the 2018 Masters of Tradition festival in Bantry, Co. Cork.

Rebecca Richman: fiddle & concertina
   Coming to music at a very young age, Rebecca was influenced by the diverse traditional music

scene of Northern California. In her playing are elements of Old-Time American, Contra Dance,

Scottish, Irish and other traditions. After her time studying at the Center for Contemporary Music

at Mills College, Rebecca took a long hiatus from music, returning over a decade later with a

new-found love for the art form, and a renewed understanding of her own place in traditional music.

Since her return, Rebecca has explored many collaborations including her work with Kyle Alden,

Jerry Hannan, Roxanne Oliva, Michael Harmon, Riggy Rackin, Amelia Hogan, Rory McNamara,

Heath Curdts, The Baybillies Stringband, and many more.

Lewis Santer: bouzouki & guitar
    Lewis makes and repairs Irish bouzoukis and guitars. He was raised on Pete Seeger and Odetta

and started playing Irish and English ballads at socialist summer camp. He has played in and led

Irish trad bands since 1996, playing for contra dances, concerts, festivals, movie soundtracks and

at pubs up and down the West Coast.