Oriental sounds from Greece, Bosnia, Turkey, Iran and Kurdistan, by Dafné Kritharas | Ensemble FisFüz | Hawniyaz Ensemble. Produced by Cobie Ivens.
Dafné Kritharas.
Dafné’s music is a mixture of Mediterranean music with jazz, folk and subtle electronics. She was born in Paris, has a Greek father and a French mother. Dafné grew up with Greek music and became particularly interested in rembetiko and Judeo-Spanish songs. In Greece there was a large Ladino community, descendants of Spanish-speaking Jews who were expelled from Spain in 1492. With her beautiful voice she sings effortlessly in Greek, Judeo-Spanish, French, Serbian-Croatian, Spanish or Turkish. On this album Varka her quintet is supplemented with guest musicians on zurna, saz, percussion and a backing singer. The colorful music varies from intimate listening ballads about love and exile to cheerful swinging dance music.
CD. Varka – Dafné Kritharas. LABEL: Lior (2021), code: LIO02/1. VIDEO
Ensemble FisFüz.
After more than two decades of playing together, the award-winning Oriental Jazz Trio from Freiburg, Germany, has developed an unmistakable sound: Using clarinet, ud and percussion, the three musicians combine oriental timbres and modern scales. Spanish, Italian, Jewish, Middle Eastern and North African music meets jazz; the old and the new merge into “oriental chamber jazz”. The three musicians prove time and again that they do not have to limit themselves to one style: the Ensemble FisFüz covers the entire Mediterranean, from Andalusia to the Bosporus, from Sudan via Korea to the farthest corners of Persia, with successful excursions into classical and baroque music.
CD. Lale colours of Eurasia – Ensemble FisFüz. LABEL: Pianissimo (2019), code: PM 0946. VIDEO
Hawniyaz Ensemble.
A magical collaboration that leads to enchantingly beautiful music. In 2012, during the Morgenland Festival in Osnabrück, the four musicians met each other: Kayhan Kalhor (kamanche), Aynur (vocals), Salman Gambarov (piano) and Cemîl Qoçgirî (tanbur). Early one morning they improvised together. This went very well and that is how the Hawniyaz Ensemble was born. Hawniyaz means together in the Kurdish language, or ‘everyone needs each other, everyone is there for the other’. The Turkish singer Aynur sings in the Kurdish language about nomadic existence and fallen lovers. The instrumentalists paint the right atmosphere, broadly spun and in colorful sounds.
CD. Hawniyaz – Hawniyaz Ensemble. LABEL: Harmonia Mundi (2016), code: HMC 905277. VIDEO
Producer: Cobie Ivens
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