Hot Balkan Urban Folk: double saxophone/clarinet solos soaring over accordion, tuba/bass, trap set and doumbek. Mesmerizing rhythms and modes of the Balkans: it’s party music for line dancing or however else else you want to get your global groove on.
Meg York is a multi-instrumentalist who specializes in woodwinds and hand percussion. She has a clarinet Performance Degree from the University of New Mexico and studies extensively with world music masters. She toured the US with Pablo Rodarte’s Dance Espana and Mexico with the Universidad de Las Americas Orchestra. She plays in theater pits, community orchestras, and various classical house concerts. She played in the Stockton International Dance Camp band in Stockton California, Sherefe, a Boulder based band, and Jurjuna, a Colorado Front Range area Middle Eastern ensemble. She performs at CU Boulder, CU Denver, Regis University, the Taste of Colorado, Global Groove Festival, the Colorado Early Music Festival, and the Boulder Jewish Festival, for Congregation Beth Evergreen, and countless “haflas” for the Society for Creative Anachronisms.
Meg leads the Clarinoodle Conference, an annual clarinet choir improvisation symposium since 1998, solos with the Don Ambler Clarinet Choir, and teaches at the Evergreen School of Music. She enjoys composing; she also collects and arranges the rich traditional tunes of the Mediterranean, Balkans and Middle East.
Meg founded the Tarab Retreat, www.tarabretreat.com, the Iranian Farabi Ensemble, and the Eastern European style party band, Klezmerize.
She is an Athena Project Artist in Residence, and played with both Hadgaba and Hal Aqua and the Lost Tribe at Dazzle Jazz and the Mizel Museum/Mercury Café Denver KlezFest.
Meg also created a soundtrack for David Taylor's Zikr Dance company with Farabi Ensemble and Iranian dance ethnographer, Shahrzad Khorsandi. A recent sound track for Wadi Rum a film about Jordan features Sholeh Mani, a dear friend and Iranian songbird.
Community outreach includes Denver Sister Cities and Denver Spring Institute events, coaching the clarinetists and percussionists of Colorado Honor Band, playing for Colorado Senate sessions, creating a ensemble for Yo Yo Ma’s 2018 Colorado Tour, and travels to Bhopal India and Istanbul, Turkey.
She was an actor in Paula Vogel's play, Indecent, playing klezmer style clarinet and bass clarinet for the 2019 Colorado Performing Arts Center season.
Currently her Tarjama Ensemble features Arthur Lefebure, trap set and dance, Eric Koenig, trombone and dance, Nabin and Bijay Shrestha, Nepalese master musicians, Faisal Zedan, Syrian Percussionist, and Sirvan Manhoobi, Kurdish strings and composition.
"Music and dance build bridges from the past to the future by basking in the present. "
Jesse Manno has composed over 100 commissioned original scores for productions in contemporary dance, theatre, film, circus arts, CD rom, and special events, including 20 full-length soundtracks such as David Taylor Dance Theatre's "Rainforest" and "Laser Vaudeville", which played Off Broadway in New York most of 2005. His work has been sponsored by grants from the National Endowment for the Arts; Meet the Composer Inc., PBS stations, and the Bates Dance Festival among others, and by numerous corporate sponsors ranging from European champagne makers Henkell-Trocken to waste managers Montgomery Watson. He and/or his work have toured extensively in the US, Western Europe and Asia, including appearances at BAM Next Wave festival NYC, the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and the government handover ceremonies at Pacific Place, Hong Kong, 1997. For the past 20 years he has been studying and performing Balkan and Middle Eastern traditional music with the group Sherefe and with a number of other ensembles and visiting artists from abroad. Of all the genres he works in regularly this music remains his all time favorite. He has been Music Director of the C.U. Dance department in Boulder, CO, since 1991, and has released six CDs of his own work. For more information, visit www.jessemanno.com.
Brian Mullins is a multi-instrumentalist, composer and performer with the Irish ensemble Colcannon, the instrumental group Laughing Hands, the New Mandolin Quartet, Bog Blossom and the Chinese spike fiddle band, "Erhoopla Ensemble". Brian has been a featured soloist with symphonies and chamber orchestras. Brian has performed hundreds of school assemblies presenting music from around the world. His music was featured in short film and public television specials. Brian’s compositions have been referred to as "some of the most innovative and unique music to emerge from this area" by the Boulder Weekly and "musical exotica often verging on the exquisite" by Westword magazine.
Dexter Payne grew up in Denver, CO studying with Aldo Lallo and Jack Frederickson. He later studied improvisation with John Handy Jr. and with Homer Brown. He performed at the Kool Jazz Festival in 1980 and 1981 with the Big Sky Mudflaps and Judy Roderick, as well as appearing on the NBC Today Show. In Latin America, over a period of two and a half years, he visited musicians in 11 countries. He performed with Orkestra Elio Revé and with Bobby Carcacés in Habana, Cuba and with vibraharpist Victor Mendoza while in Guatemala. In Brazil he recorded with Beth Carvalho and Paulinho Tapajós, performed with Noca da Portella and recorded his CD INSPIRATION. In New York he has performed with Grammy award winners Thiago de Mello and Sharon Isbin. More recently he played with vocalist Rene Marie and currently offers the Dexter Payne Quartet, specializing in Brazilian choro music. Dexter has worked in recording studios with Mac Rebennack, Artie Traum, Judy Roderick, Mary Flower, Washboard Chaz, Don DeBacker, Sammy Mayfield, Johnny Long, Boubacar Diebate, Lannie Garrett and others. See www.dexterpayne.com for more details and full curriculum, discography and press quotes.
Dave Willey - accordion, bass, mixing Dave has played with a variety of musicians in many styles in many places. Primarily self-taught, he graduated from Naropa in 1987. After playing with a variety of local bands and traveling a lot, he returned to Colorado and formed the band Hamster Theatre, who will release their third disc in 2006. He is the bass player for the internationally feared Thinking Plague, plays accordion with the gypsy swing band Rue, and his collaboration with the ‘pataphysical’ French group Toupidek Lemonade will be released this year. He is currently writing music for his father’s poetry, a project that includes Deborah Perry, Mike Johnson, Bob Drake, Dave Kerman, Mark Fuller and Hugh Hopper.
