Piedmont Piano Company is pleased to present
photo: Susan Freundlich
Teslim
7 Decades CD Release
Kaila Flexer’s parents, Abe & Bobbie Flexer, now both 84, met when they were 11 years old, and have been devoted to one another for over 7 decades. This project features compositions Kaila has written honoring them. Teslim will be playing works from the recording as well as other repertoire.
$25 General Admission
$10 Kids 16 and under
About Teslim:
In Turkish, teslim means both “commit” and “surrender.” In Turkish classical music, the teslim refers to the theme or main melody—a composition journeys away from and returns home to its teslim, which becomes like a beloved character. Commiting and surrendering are two sides of the same coin. If we are all commitment--technical practice, diligent study--we may not allow the spirit of the music to animate those sounds; if we are all surrender, our skills are not honed and we are unable express that spirit in a worthy vessel
The pieces on the 7 Decades recording, composed by Flexer and arranged by the ensemble, draw inspiration from her love of Turkish and Balkan music.
Teslim features:
Kaila Flexer violin, tarhui
Elana Brutman Cretan lyra with sympathetic strings
Gari Hegedus kopuz, baglama (Turkish lutes), oud, mandocello
Joshua Mellinger frame drum, doumbek, cajon, tonbak and table
Special guests:
Misha Khalikulov cello
Cookie Segelstein violin
Joshua Horowitz piano
Kaila Flexer is a violinist, composer, music educator, teacher, producer, mother and plant lover. She has recorded three CD’s with her groups Third Ear, Next Village and the duo Teslim with multi-instrumentalist string wizard Gari Hegedus. Between 1989 and 2013, Flexer founded and produced Jewish music events Klezmer Mania! and Pomegranates & Figs: A Feast of Jewish Music as well as smaller music events. Over the years, she has performed with various groups including Club Foot Orchestra and Kitka as well as with artists including Shira Kammen, Ross Daly, Kelly Thoma, Hamed Nikpay and Hollis Taylor. Kaila teaches and composes in her Oakland studio. Her 20-year-old daughter Lucy is now in college. kailaflexer.com
Elana Brutman Elana has dedicated the last several years of her life to the intensive study of the lyra with sympathetic strings, an instrument which is based on the Cretan lyra and incorporates elements of Byzantine lyra and Indian sarangi. She has spent the last five summers traveling to Greece to study at Labyrinth, Ross Daly’s center for modal music instruction and practice, where she has studied with Kelly Thoma and many other master musicians from Greece, Turkey, and Iran.
Gari Hegedus plays violin and viola as well as a variety of lutes from Greece and Turkey including laouto, oud and saz. In addition to playing in Teslim, he also performs with world music group Stellamara as well as Bay Area groups such as Janam and The Helladelics. He has studied with oud master Naseer Shamma and has studied, recorded and performed with Ross Daly and Kelly Thoma. He has toured with the Mevlevi Dervish (Sufi) Order of America and continues to participate in Turkish ceremonial and devotional gatherings around the country. In addition to being a composer and performer, Gari is a talented luthier, repairing stringed instruments of every variety; coaxing sound from sazes, violins, rebabs, restoring lutes and lyras, making bows and finding ingenious ways to allow the true voice of an instrument to come forth. garihegedus.com
Joshua Mellinger graduated in Percussion Performance BFA at the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) in Valencia, California. He perform with many groups in the San Francisco Bay Area, teaches percussion, and studies tabla with Pandit Swapan Chaudhuri at the Ali Akbar College of Music in San Rafael. jmpercussion.com