DANCE OF THE NORTH WIND: THE ELEGANT SAVAGES ORCHESTRA IN CONCERT!
TTU Celtic Ensemble
Dance of the North Wind
Sunday April 23 2pm Hemmle Recital Hall
About this Program
Along with the traditional songs of Ireland, Wales, Sweden, France, Norway, and Scotland heard today, we share with you the cluster of music and dance styles known, in contemporary Western Europe, as “BalFolk” (literally, “folk-dance”). BalFolk is a modern phenomenon, part of a new wave of European “revivals” which has transformed expectations about who plays which regional folk styles and what that playing means. At the center of the revival is the dynamic interplay between musicians and dancers, and the emotional community created by the dancing. As with all “revivals,” the communal art is as much about “invention” as it is about “preservation,” and—especially in the fraught 21st century—the crucial human connections we so desperately need. We invite you to join our BalFolk revolution!
The Elegant Savages Orchestra
Dr Christopher Smith, director
José Gonzalez (bass clarinet); Ella Lowrance (bassoon, sarrusaphone); David C. Rau (cello); Casey Brito (clarinet); Kendyl Dent (clarinet); Chance Trimble (double bass); Ekaterina Ó Maoilgheiric Geiric’/Kay Millerick (flute); Fionnuala Nic Aindriú/Heather Beltz (flute, piccolo, section leader); Mississippi Stokes/Steve Stallings (guitar); Sara Marnik (horn); Madison Haberl (horn); Caitrìona Freya Aibnat Mardaniš/Kaitlyn Martinez (horn, dance, voice); Avdyusha Hughes Ivanovich/Austin Jones (keyboards, voice, dance); Erzbieta / Ealisaid “?regana” Atesleyici/Lizzie Jackson (oboe); Ben Frost (percussion); Žaklin Paulu/Jaclyn Paul (percussion, voice, dance, section leader); Jessica Miller (trombone); Thomas Holguin (bass trombone); Alexander Kolb (trumpet); Tiffany Sumrow (trumpet); Marshall Rogers (tuba); Hannah Percival (viola); Brittany Bell (violin); Maria Rodriguez (violin); Stephanie Shelton (violin); Karson Goggans (violin, voice); Kaciaryna Uitmena/Kathryn Mann (voice, dance); Raakeli Ursa Tinúviel/Rachel Elder (voice, dance); Ani Hamim Gassion/Anissa Garcia (voice, dance); Anna Delay (voice, dance); Elisa Shiller (voice, dance); Vanda Yazdani (voice, dance); Anne Wharton (voice, dance, English bagpipe); ?????? Uitmena/Morgan White (voice, dance captain); Na?anas Hús/Nathan Thorp (voice, dance, section leader); Feye Keijukainen Arndt/ShayLynn Mitchell (voice, flute, dance);
websites: www.ttucelticensemble.com a/k/a www.elegantsavagesorchestra.com
About Bassanda and the Elegant Savages Orchestra
Major inspiration for the Elegant Savages Orchestra, the “big band” version of the TTU Celtic Ensemble, comes from the fictional country of “Bassanda,” a creation of Taos-based musicians and VMC partners Chipper Thompson (chipperthompson.com) and Roger Landes (rogerlandes.com), who for purposes of our January 2014 debut assumed their Bassanda personae (“The Rev” and “The General”) as guest performers. We imagined the fictional “Elegant Savages Orchestra,” in which, as part of an “alternate-history” frame, it’s alleged that a Soviet satellite’s official state folkloric ensemble (the “Bassanda National Radio Orchestra”) mutates, after the fall of Communism, into a free-lance ensemble engaged in a Never-Ending Tour.
The BNRO/ESO has thus been heard in many permutations and with widely variegated personnel, including “The Classic 1952 Band,” “The 1962 ‘Beatnik’ Band” (which nearly appeared on the cover of Life magazine under the headline “New Currents from Behind the Iron Curtain”), and “The 1965 Newport Folk Festival Band,” who helped jump-start Bob Dylan’s notorious switch, in that year, from acoustic folk to electric rock & roll.
Here is a relevant excerpt from the extensive Bassanda Correspondence:
The story becomes even more complicated when examining certain historical photographs held in the Archives at Miskatonic U. In the section of sketches, ambrotypes, and daguerreotypes (sadly, not available online, as the Archive has as yet been unsuccessful in raising the very substantial funds necessary to catalog and digitize the extensive collection), there is a charcoal sketch attributed to the Belgian-Scots-Yoruba-Chippewa-Bassandan artist Giyanlakshmi Julahe Kaur. This sketch matches an anonymous ambrotype, found in a Taos mission, of the mysterious “1885 Band”—mysterious precisely because, though a very imperfect and ambiguous image, it appears to have been taken in London or possibly Paris, and to include, in the 1880s, portraits of individuals who were likewise members of the Bands of the 1950s and ‘60s. Though denounced by 1960s BSSP functionaries as “mere imperialist falsifications”—an allusion to the poorly-retouched file photographs which notoriously “erased” discredited Party functionaries from May Day and Lenin’s Tomb commemorations, or added newly-favored ones—no persuasive debunking of the sketch’s chronological paradox, or of the ambrotype upon which it is based, has been tendered.
Related correspondence, personal biographies, timelines, galleries & archival commentary can be found at: www.elegantsavagesorchestra.com; likewise search Facebook for “Elegant Savages Orchestra.”
Special thanks as always to School of Music Director William Ballenger a/k/a “Vilyum Balandjeor.”
The Journal of the Vernacular Music Center, a partnership of the VMC, the Texas Tech University Press, and the TTU Libraries, is an online, peer-reviewed, biannual periodical whose thematic focus is vernacular music and dance research and pedagogy, particularly in the context of university education. The Journal is available for online reading and for free download at http://jovmc.org
You can always check in on Vernacular Music Center events at the live Google calendar:
http://www.vernacularmusiccenter.org/calendar.html
VMC photographer: Dr Tiffany Holmes www.tifholmes.com
Brewmasters: Milhouse Brewing Co.
Websites:
http://ttucelticensemble.com
http://vernacularmusiccenter.org
http://elegantsavagesorchestra.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/The-Elegant-Savages-Orchestra-359738340792720/
The Vernacular Music Center Scholarship at Texas Tech University
The competitive Vernacular Music Center Scholarship at Texas Tech University, which provides financial assistance to a student in the College of Visual and Performing Arts (in 2016-17, Ms. Mia Rodriquez) who is a practitioner of one or more traditional performance idioms. For more information, please be in touch with Dr Christopher Smith at christopher.smith@ttu.edu
The VMC Outreach Scholars Program helps fund young performers of great promise for attendance at workshops, summer camps, and festivals, in order that they may develop teaching skills to share in future with their communities.
To find out more about the Outreach Scholars, and for news & information on VMC events: visit vernacularmusiccenter.org
Can I participate?
Yes! If you are interested in participating in one of the VMC ensembles or partners (Celtic Ensemble, Early Music Ensemble, Irish Set Dancers, Caprock Morris, Vernacular Performance Collective, Mbira Group, Elegant Savages, Mariachi Los Matadores, or other), feel free to contact their respective directors (see vernacularmusiccenter.com/ensembles.html). Auditions typically occur in the first weeks of each academic semester.
VMC Staff
Founding Director: Dr Christopher J Smith
Associate Director: Roger Landes
Administrative assistants: Kat Mann, Adolfo Estrada, Heather Beltz, Amy McDevitt
Be looking for our very special VMC Spring 2017 events:
· Apr 29: Mariachi Raiders Rojas HRH
Radio Broadcast & Television Recording
We are recording live today, and we appreciate your participation and your patience! However, because of this, we ask you to power-down (e.g., completely shut-off) electronic devices including cell phones, and to avoid any extraneous noise during the performance.
Notice Regarding Electronics
Please refrain from use of flash photography during this concert. Such use is an infringement of TTU copyright policy and represents a safety hazard for performers. Thank you for your consideration.
The Vernacular Music Center at the TTU School of Music
The mission of the Vernacular Music Center is to provide a center for in-depth and comparative research, study, teaching and advocacy on behalf of the world's vernacular musics and dance—their construction, history, and role in defining cultural life in human communities—in all cultures and historical periods. The VMC is dedicated to the study of the process by which music is taught and passed on within a community, as well as assisting in the ongoing cultivation of arts on the South Plains. The VMC partners with its 501c3 partner, the Roots Music Institute (rootsmusicinstitute.com)
Become a Friend of the VMC!
Visit us at vernacularmusiccenter.org for more information!
Donations: http://www.give2Tech.com/, search “Celtic Ensemble VMC Gifts”
