Shodekeh

With over a quarter century of experience, Dominic “Shodekeh” Talifero is a groundbreaking Beatboxer & Vocal Percussionist who pushes the boundaries of the human voice. A native of Maryland, he currently serves as Faculty, Musical Accompanist & Composer for Towson University’s Department of Dance & is the Founding Director of Embody, A Festival of The Vocal Arts.

In recent years, Shodekeh has moved from Beatboxing’s Hip Hop roots to explore innovative collaborations with a wide range of traditional artists, including Tuvan Throat Singing, Lithuanian Folk Music, Experimental, Funk, Jazz, Rock, Classical, Ballet & various forms & techniques of Modern Dance. He is constantly striving to rhythmically channel the vast spectrum of sounds around him, not just through Music, but also via the channels of Science, Culture, History, Mathematics & Ethnomusicology.

Alash Ensemble

www.alashensemble.com

Alash Ensemble is a trio of master throat singers (xöömeizhi) from Tuva, a tiny republic in the heart of Central Asia. The ancient art of throat singing (xöömei) developed among the nomadic herdsmen of this region. Alash remains grounded in this tradition while expanding its musical vocabulary with new ideas from the West.

All members of Alash were trained in traditional Tuvan music since childhood, first learning from their families, and later becoming students of master throat singers. At the same time they learned about western music, practiced on hybrid Tuvan-European instruments, and listened to new trends coming out of America.
Under the guidance of Kongar-ool Ondar (best known to western audiences for his role in the film Genghis Blues), they began to forge a new musical identity. The effect is an intriguing mixture of old and new.
The musicians are inspired by the music of their grandparents, great-grandparents, and the great musicians of Tuva and Central Asia. At the same time they are influenced by such western artists as Sun Ra and Jimi Hendrix.  

Both the Alash ensemble and individual members have consistently won top honors in throat singing competitions. The ensemble was awarded first prize in Tuva's International Xöömei Symposium competition in 2004. At the Fifth International Xöömei Symposium in 2008, three Alash musicians swept the top prizes for individual throat singing, and the fourth took top honors for his duet performance with his wife. In 2007, Alash member Bady-Dorzhu Ondar was named People's Xöömeizhi of the Republic of Tuva, the youngest person ever to receive this prestigious award. Alash member Ayan Shirizhik was named a Merited Artist of Tuva in 2009, and Alash member Ayan-ool Sam was named People's Xöömeizhi of the Republic of Tuva in 2015.

Kongar-ool Ondar 

www.ondar.com

Ondar was born within sight of the ruins of the Chadaana Buddhist Monastery destroyed by the communists in the 1930's. Ondar's epic saga would converge around his singular vocal gift to make him Tuva's musical ambassador to the world. By 1980, after finishing his primary education, Ondar had already begun his career as a professional vocalist, employed by the Tuvan House Of Culture. He later became the MC and featured singer with the popular local group, the Cheleesh Ensemble.

In 1985, he formed the Tuva Ensemble which, defying official displeasure, began performing concerts both in Tuva and in neighboring Soviet republics. By the early '90s Ondar's reputation had begun to take on an international scope, first with a series of well-received performances in Europe and then as the winner of the UNESCO-sponsored International Festival of Throat-Singing. Small wonder that, in 1992, he was honored by his grateful nation with the title of People's Throat-Singer of Tuva. Ondar's odyssey had only begun.

Ondar found himself in demand for a diverse range of globe-spanning projects. In 1993 alone, he performed and recorded with The Kronos Quartet, for their album Night Prayers; Ry Cooder, as well as Frank Zappa, the Grateful Dead's Micky Hart, The Chieftains and Johnny "Guitar" Watson. Ondar was also a special guest at a command performance in New York City, sharing the stage with a troupe of Tibetan Monks and Japanese avant garde pioneer Kitaro.

In 1994, Ondar joined forces with San Francisco artist Paul "Earthquake" Pena to record a groundbreaking blend of throat-singing and blues, aptly titled Genghis Blues. He subsequently went on tour with Pena, and after returning home, sang for an august audience that included Tuvan leader Sherig-ool Oorzhak and former Russian Federation President Boris Yeltsin, who afterward named Ondar a National Artist Of Russia. It was a far cry from the days when the authorities all but banned throat-singing in the Soviet Empire.

The Tuvan National Orchestra

www.tuvannationalorchestra.com

The Tuvan National Orchestra (Тыва Национал Оркестр [Tuvan]; Тывинский Национальный Оркестр [Russian]) is a unique orchestra that uses traditional Tuvan instruments alongside classical Western instruments and Soviet-era "hybrid" instruments. The orchestra is also unusual in that the musicians sing as well as play instruments. Often featured is the ancient art of Tuvan throat singing (xöömei), a remarkable technique for singing multiple pitches at the same time. Formed in 2003 as the Tuvan National Orchestra of Traditional Instruments, the orchestra was originally directed by Aldar Tamdyn. The orchestra is now led by Conductor and Artistic Director Ayana Samiyaevna Mongush, who not only conducts but also arranges the music for this rare combination of instruments and voices. The orchestra is quite versatile, at times sounding more western, at times more Tuvan. Its unique renditions of traditional Tuvan songs are especially popular in Tuva.

The Tuvan National Orchestra has earned recognition throughout the Russian Federation. In 2005, just two years after its inception, it won one of the first prizes in the All-Russia Competition of Folk Orchestras and Ensembles, held in Saratov, Russia. The following year it competed in the newly configured All-Russia Competition of National Orchestras and Ensembles, held in Ulan-Ude (capital of the Republic of Buryatia, Russia), where it won the overall grand prize as well as a special prize for the most original program. It then performed in a two-day gala held in Moscow in 2008 to honor the regional winners.

Orchestra members include musicians known in the West for their throatsinging (members of the groups Chirgilchin, Tyva Kyzy, and Alash), Andrei Mongush (formerly of Huun-Huur-Tu), Ai-Xaan Oorzhak, Kang-Xuler Saaya, and Nikolai Damba, among others.

Garth Stevenson

www.garthstevenson.com

Garth Stevenson is a Brooklyn-based film composer and double bassist. Raised in the mountains of Western Canada, nature became his primary inspiration and the common thread between his life and music. In the past four years, Garth has released two full-length solo albums, informed by his experiences carrying his 150-year-old double bass to the woods, the beach, and the desert. His most recent and critically acclaimed release, Flying, is a seventy-five minute homage to a recent life-changing trip to Antarctica. Of Flying, iTunes praises, “Garth Stevenson joins the likes of Brian Eno, Sigur Rós, and David Sylvian as a practitioner of this ethereal yet accessible genre… ‘The Southern Sea’ offers the aural equivalent of effortlessly swimming underwater without ever needing to come up for air.” Flying was recently featured on WNYC’s New Sounds radio program along with Ben Frost and Yo-Yo Ma and was featured on the main page of iTunes.

In 2008, Stevenson was awarded with the International Society of Bassists composition competition first prize for his innovative piece “Grandfather: for double bass and electronics” and subsequently served as a judge for the competition in 2010. He will be performing and lecturing at the 2013 ISB conference. In 2009 he was commissioned by Robert Nairn, Julliard faculty, and Heidi Von Bernewitz of the London Philharmonic to composed “Migration: for double bass and viola”. He composed the string quartets for Sonya Kitchell’s most recent album Convict of Conviction.

Stevenson attended the Berklee College of Music on a full scholarship and received a degree is Performance and Jazz Composition. He has performed throughout Europe, Asia, North America, South America and Antarctica. He has appeared on David Letterman, Craig Fergusson, hundreds of radio stations, at Bonnaroo, and at music festivals in Europe, Japan, Russia, Canada, and South America.

Annie Stevenson

www.annieandthebeekeepers.com

Annie Lynch began her love of live music while eavesdropping on the Cape Cod Little Fiddlers’ painstakingly squeaky rehearsal in the gym of her elementary school en route to after-school pickup. This was music to her ears. The sound of their little uneven bows on the cheap instruments might as well have been that of a world-class orchestra. She begged her parents for a violin, a wish they were pleased to grant, and screeched her way through five years of Suzuki lessons until she discovered the music of Joni Mitchell and began to sing. Guitar followed singing, writing followed guitar, and by the time Annie was fourteen, creating and performing songs had seemingly become a vital necessity to her coming of age. Her love of bowed instruments would continue though, thankfully, her violin has not since been publicly unearthed.

After several teenage years of playing locally in coffeehouses on Cape Cod, Annie attended Berklee College of Music in Boston, where she met the musicians who would become known as “The Beekeepers”, Alexandra Spalding (Cello and Voice), Ken Woodward (Bass), and Mat Davidson (multi-instrumentalist). Annie and The Beekeepers recorded a demo of Annie’s songs in the winter of 2006, and continued on to release their self-titled debut, Annie Lynch and The Beekeepers in 2007 with Grammy-nominated producer-engineer, Jack Gauthier. The album was given rave reviews from the likes of The Boston Globe and Paste Magazine, and receives frequent airplay on Boston’s WUMB and WERS, and NYC’s WFUV amongst others. The city’s Americana music scene warmly embraced Annie and The Beekeepers, and it took little time for the foursome to gather northeastern notoriety.

In 2009, the group released their EP, Squid Hell Sessions, named after the studio in the Jamaica Plane neighborhood of Boston where Berklee peers, Adrian Olsen and Kyle VandeKerkhoff, recorded the bulk of the EP. Amidst the release of Squid Hell Sessions, the band relocated to Brooklyn, NY. Annie and The Beekeepers went on to tour nationally, sharing stages at venues like NYC’s Town Hall and Bowery Ballroom, and Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium with the likes of Josh Ritter, Justin Townes Earle, Joe Pug, David Wax Museum, The Low Anthem, and Lissie. Annie and The Beekeepers have performed at notable festivals such as SXSW, Philadelphia Folk Festival, Bristol Rhythm and Roots Reunion, and Boston Folk Festival. In September of 2010, the band embarked on their first UK tour, highlighted by a slot at End of the Road music festival in Dorset.

Upon completion of this tour, the band changed outfits to create the newly-released and already critically acclaimed album, “My Bonneville”, named after Annie’s first car. Annie and The Beekeepers, now including multi-instrumentalists, Jeni Magana, Javier Cruz, and Keenan O’Meara released “My Bonneville” with headlining shows at NYC’s Joe’s Pub and The Kennedy Center in Washington DC. Performer Magazine describes “My Bonneville” as “American roots music, sweetly intimate with vast boot-stomping songwriting”. The album was rereleased in March of 2013.

hazmat modine

www.hazmatmodine.com

HAZMAT MODINE plays the kind of Blues one might have found in a barrelhouse in New Orleans had the city been inhabited by gypsies who performed with Otis Redding and the city had been built on the Black Sea. The band is driven by harmonicas, tuba, drums, guitars, Banjo and a full horn section. Guests play such exotic instruments as the Romanian cimbalom, the banjitar, and the Claviola. Front man Wade Schuman has the appropriately throaty voice of someone who has both hopped freight trains and collaborated with the Throat Singers of Tuva. For the past eight years, the band has been touring in over 40 countries worldwide. They have collaborated/performed with a vast range of artists including Bombino, Kronos Quartet, Cat Empire, the Gangbe Brass band from Benin, and Natalie Merchant. The title track from their first CD BAHAMUT was recently used in the 3D film Pina by Wim Wenders, and currently in a performance by Pina Bausch and the Stuttgart Ballet. Their second CD Cicada was awarded the Charles Cross award in France for best blues album of the Year, and topped number one on the World Music Charts in Europe. There new CD Extra-Deluxe-Supreme is out on Jaro records in Europe and due out this spring in the U.S.

(“Hazmat” is a portmanteau of “hazardous material” and “Modine” is the name of a company that manufactures commercial heaters but may be used to refer to the heater itself.)

Sean Quirk

Sean Quirk is the managing member of Juniper Green, LLC. He was born and raised in the United States. As a college student in Minneapolis, he heard a CD by Huun-Huur-Tu, and his passion for Tuvan music was ignited. In the fall of 2003, Quirk traveled to the Republic of Tuva on a Fulbright fellowship to study Tuvan music, including the fascinating multiphonic vocal art of xöömei, or throat singing. He was accepted into the Tuvan National Orchestra, and he has mastered both the Tuvan and Russian languages.

Since early 2006, Quirk has been the manager and interpreter for the ensemble Alash.

Quirk has translated two works by Tuvan authors, a book on the Tuvan way of life viewed through the prism of horses, and a 50-page treatise on the music of Tuva in the 20th century by ethnomusicologist Valentina Suzukei. He has been interviewed on radio ("WNYC") and television ("Russia Today") in both the U.S. and Tuva. In 2008, the head of the government of Tuva named him a "Distinguished Artist of Tuva" in recognition of his accomplishments promoting Tuvan music and culture around the world. In 2013, Sean curated the Tuvan delegation to the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, One World, Many Voices: Endangered Languages and Cultural Heritage, where he emceed the Tuvan performances.

News & Updates

Twitter