Welcome to our new music blog, picking up where we left off in 2011 and reviewing THREE nights of great music concerts that have just taken place over the month of JANUARY 2012 at St Ethelburga's.

• Saturday, 14th January 2012

We had the pleasure of having a double bill feature of Delicatessen and PAKAW! on January 14th as our first music concert for the year 2012.

PAKAW! is an all female 5-member group performing primarily Greek music with musicians from Greece, Turkey and even Japan in their line up. A huge crowd turned out for this double bill and they were definitely not disappointed. The group performed the first set/half of the evening and soon warmed up the audience with the charm of Greek rhythms and tempo. It was very entertaining and there was even some impromptu Greek dancing from members of the audience.

Delicatessen took the stage for the 2nd half of the evening. The band consists of 7 musicians in total but grew to 9 with couple of members from PAKAW! joining the band, creating quite a colourful spread across the stage. Delicatessen plays music and songs from the Balkans, Mediterranean regions and beyond; their repertoire weaving a rich tapestry and moods and emotions. Their music tells stories through sounds, melodies and tales of everyday life through Klezmer, Sephardic, Rebetilo to Rai, and they went down a storm. The musical rhythm from this part of the world has sweetness to it and eventually some audience could not resist and more dancing followed.

• Friday, 20th January 2012

January 20th brought Olcay Bayir & Erdogan Bayir ensemble to St Ethelburga’s, bringing with them a flavour of Turkish, Kurdish, Armenian and even a Greek song too.

Although it was only their 1st concert, they were in top form! The band is led by the talented vocalist Olcay Bayir who composed a lot of the material and her brother Erdogan who played the saz which is one of my favourite instruments synonymous with Turkey. What I find so interesting these days is the mix of musicians from different nationalities included in the line of bands whose music will be focus on a particular culture and genre.

With Olcay Bayir & Erdogan Bayir Ensemble, we had Eli Knott from Venezuela on percussion, Nicki Maher from England on clarinet, Roskan Nasan from Syria on oud and Charlie Cawood from UK on electric bass. Another interesting addition to a number of group musical set up is the inclusion of electric bass in what is mainly an acoustic arrangement of instruments. What this led to was the warm bass sound from the combination of electric bass and percussion which the rest of the melodies played upon. Once again the space of St Ethelburga's led to a cosy and intimate feeling and I expect we'll hear more from this group as I see them going from strength to strength.

• Friday, 27th January 2012

On January 27th, we had Dunajska Kapelye band playing traditional Balkan and Gypsy music covering a wide range of countries.

A five member ensemble was led by its virtuoso violinist, Piotr Jordan from Poland. Dunajska Kapelye performed at St Ethelburga's 3 years ago as a trio, but they have now grown into a five member band resulting in a richer sound and offering more variation in their repertoire. Piotr was ably supported by band members; Zac Gvirtzman on accordion and clarinet, Flora Curzon on second violin, Jez Cook on acoustic guitar and Paul Mizraki on double bass.

Their music was high octane stuff but it wasn't all fast and furious music from this region of Europe. They included in their set some beautiful sad tunes and a couple of songs, one in particular from guest singer, Gina Boreman, really stood out for me. Gypsy music is infectious and with talent such as Piotr Jordan, they filled the Centre with the passion and emotion of their music. Not forgetting the very dry humour of Piotr Jordan as he introduced each song and commented on all manner of things throughout the evening.

Another great night at St Ethelburga's!

We are hoping for more great concerts in February 2012. See you there!

Best wishes,
Wallee Mc Donnell
Music Coordinator
St Ethelburga’s Centre for Reconciliation and Peace