IMPROVED BAND BLURB: Saray Iluminado (The Enlightened Palace) - TopicsExpress

IMPROVED BAND BLURB: Saray Iluminado (The Enlightened Palace) was formed in 2013 and has been progressing swiftly, becoming one of Melbournes most unique world music ensembles. In just over a year this ensemble has constantly played to full houses at Open Studio and Farouks Olive (Melbournes best known world music watering holes.) The ensemble includes members: Nela Trifković ( vocals and hand percussion) Kelly Dowall (nay flute, clarinet vocals and hand percussion) Ernie Gruner ( violin, mandolin, vocals) and Will Thompson ( oud, lute, vocals)and is produced by the maverick artist (veteran of dance and theatre stage) James Antonio Masefield. Saray Iluminado focuses on new interpretations of Bosnian and Herzegovinian Sevdah music and secular Sephardic Jewish songs. The ensemble vision is developed to integrate each members particular area of expertise. Its core comes from Nelas intimate knowledge of Sevdah and Bosnian and Herzegovinian cultural customs and traditions. Its extended tentacles include: Ernies multifaceted skills in Sephardic, Klezmer, East European and Gypsy music, Kellys subtle Turkic musical sensibilities, together with Wills cross-disciplinary skills and sound knowledge of a range of musical genres. This ensemble references the existing practices of several Sevdah and Sephardic masters of the past two centuries, but does not draw exclusively on any one of them. It escapes the heavy euphoric orchestrations that are often associated with many genres of Balkan music and develops its emotional stakes by creating intimate participatory musical gatherings. Saray Iluminado takes Sevdah and Sephardic music forward, by rigorously and poetically investigating and taking it right back to the times when the musical genres were played privately (or even confidentially, as was the case with Sephardic music at certain periods in time) among family members... in these times songs were sung to ease the spirit within, to utter the unspeakable and to, often not be heard further than within the four walls of one’s private dwellings, but which they have long surpassed popping its maqam chiseled head into the light of the present day… …Nela sings and shares the stories of her childhood and ancestral history… She sometimes she directly addresses the audience and sometimes creates the vocal rituals of speaking with herself.... Talking back to Nela, Will or Kelly, or meditating on his own internal world, Ernie swiftly swaps between the violin and mandolin…when Kelly whispers on the nay flute and the clarinet, the ancient ghosts and essences roam the atmosphere... Will creates cascading landscapes and acoustic maps on the oud and lute so that these ghosts could find a compass that leads them directly to the Iluminados’ audiences…. No matter what they do the members of Saray Iluminado are constantly aiming to pave pathways and develop new vocabularies for the expression of their authentic musical imagination...