Performance: Violins of Hope

This program is part of Violins of Hope San Francisco Bay Area presented in association with Music at Kohl Mansion, Burlingame, CA.

Each violinist will be performing on a violin once owned and played by a prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp, now repaired and repurposed as an instrument of peace, social justice and hope.

Musicians have been sharing melodies for centuries, with no regard to political and national boundaries. Irish sailors brought melodies to sea ports in Ukraine; Turks, Roma and Jews shared common songs, and Roma music has origins in India. In Trade Routes, we present these internationally renowned Bay Area musicians steeped in seemingly separate cultural musical traditions with an exciting and surprising common vision of musical sharing.

Featuring violinists Cookie Segelstein (Klezmer), Emmanuel  During Middle Eastern), Darcy Noonan (Celtic) and Suzy Thompson (Americana).

ARTISTS BIOS:

Cookie Segelstein received her Masters degree in Viola from The Yale School of Music in 1984. Until her move to the west coast in 2010, she was principal violist in Orchestra New England and assistant principal in The New Haven Symphony Orchestra. She is the founder and director of Veretski Pass, a member of Budowitz , The Youngers of Zion with Henry Sapoznik, has performed with Kapelye, The Klezmatics, Frank London, Klezmer Fats and Swing with Pete Sokolow and the late Howie Leess, Margot Leverett and the Klezmer Mountain Boys and The Klezmer Conservatory Band. Cookie has presented lecture demonstrations and workshops on klezmer fiddling all over the world, including at Yale University, University of Wisconsin in Madison, Marshall University in Huntington, West VA, University of Oregon in Eugene, Pacific University and SUNY-Cortland and at Klezmerwochen in Weimar Germany. She is on staff at Living Traditions' KlezKamp , KlezKanada, Klezfest London, and has been on staff at Centrum's Festival of American Fiddle Tunes in Port Townsend, Wash. She was featured on the ABC documentary, “A Sacred Noise”, heard on HBO’s “Sex and the City”, and on several recordings including the Veretski Pass self-titled release, Trafik and the newly released The Klezmer Shul, the Koch International label with Orchestra New England in “The Orchestral Music of Charles Ives”, Hazònes with Frank London, A Living Tradition with German Goldenshteyn and Budowitz Live. She is also active as a Holocaust educator and curriculum advisor and has been a frequent lecturer at the Women’s Correctional Facility in Niantic, CT. Cookie lives in Berkeley, CA with husband Josh Horowitz, 2 cats, a dog, and her occasionally visiting 2 adult children.

Emmanuel During  As a performing musician, composer and neurologist, Emmanuel During has emerged over the past two decades as an expert in the art of improvisation based on the makam (a set of scales and melodic rules) which he plays on a variety of plucked and bowed string instruments including the violin. Born and raised in Iran, Emmanuel During encountered the masters of Persian music through his father, a renowned musician and orientalist. He began studying classical violin, earning his first achievement at a Radio France competition at 7.  Simultaneously, he specialized in Persian percussion, including the zarb, daf and other oriental lutes such as the Kurdish tanbur and Persian târ.  At the age of 12, he gave his first recital with his father, which quickly led to performances across Europe and the US. In his twenties, he returned to his childhood violin to tackle the Mediterranean Oriental repertoires of Greece, Turkey and the Balkans. Working alongside renowned masters such as Derya Turkan, Nedim Nalbantoglu and Necati çelik during a prolonged residence in Istanbul has enabled Emmanuel to forge his own distinctive style and sound. Parallel to his medical commitments, he has been performing as a soloist, as the leader of several musical ensembles (Yengi Yol, Maliétès, and more recently the 'Kama' ensemble) and as a guest musician accompanying world-class artists such as Göksel Baktagir and Alim Qasimov. He has recorded 7 albums and performed numerous concerts, receiving invitations to prestigious venues such as the United Nations in New York, Cabaret Sauvage and Théâtre du Soleil in Paris, and international festivals such as the Fez Sacred Music Festival in Morocco and the Festival of Samarkand in Uzbekistan.

Darcy Noonan started her violin career at age 7 in Berkeley, California. She studied classical music which was supplemented by weekly Irish dance classes. Years later she combined the two and began playing Irish fiddle. After high school she travelled around Ireland and found a second home in Galway City where she honed her music style and got to meet and learn from many of her childhood idols. Now Darcy spends most of her time in the San Francisco Bay Area, performing, and teaching violin. 

Suzy Thompson She fell in love with folk music at age 12 and became a fiddler instead of a violinist. In the 1980s, she apprenticed with Cajun fiddle legend Dewey Balfa under an NEA grant and subsequently founded the California Cajun Orchestra, recording two award-winning CDs for the Arhoolie label. Collaborators include Any Old Time String Band, the California Cajun Orchestra, the Texas Sheiks, Jim Kweskin & Geoff Muldaur, Del Rey, the Klezmorim, and her husband, guitarist Eric Thompson.  She the founder and director of the Berkeley Old Time Music Convention, and is also an Artistic Director Emeritus of Festival of American Fiddle Tunes. She has been on faculty at many camps all over the U.S., including Port Townsend Acoustic Blues Week, Montana Fiddle Camp, Swannanoa Fiddle Week, Puget Sound Guitar Workshop, Targhee Music Camp, and Alabama Folkschool. She appears in the Les Blank film “J’Ai Etais Au Bal”, in performance with DL Menard and with Queen Ida, and in the documentary “Always Been A Rambler” with Mike Seeger and Tracy Schwarz. She has recorded on albums by Country Joe McDonald, Dave Alvin, Laurie Lewis, Bill Frisell, Darol Anger, Mary Flower, and many others. Suzy lives in Berkeley with her husband Eric, their daughter Allegra, and a  constant stream of visiting musicians.

This free concert is funded by a generous grant from the Walter & Elise Haas Fund. Learn more at www.violinsofhopesfba.org.