Dunava at Folklife

My choir, Dunava, hasn't been singing much in public lately, but we want you to know that yes, Dunava will be part of the 40th annual Northwest Folklife Festival in Seattle next weekend. This year, Folklife has a special focus on Bulgarian music and culture, and since that is right up our alley, we will present a mostly-Bulgarian program this year.

You can see us twice!

Saturday, May 28, from 12:50 - 1:15 p.m., in the Center House Theater (downstairs of the main stage/food court, by the Children's Museum). It's the same venue we've sung in in the past two years, and it gets packed! We definitely recommend coming early to get a seat. We're third in a line-up of four fabulous choirs; the first starts at 11:40 p.m. 

The amazing Bulgarian singer Tzvetanka Varimezova will join us on a couple of songs next weekend at Folklife. She's visiting from L.A. as a special guest of the festival, and as far as I know this is her first time performing in Seattle. We are very excited to have her share the stage with us!

And then, Sunday, May 29, from 3 - 6 p.m., is the "big Bulgarian concert" in Bagley Wright Theater, featuring artists from here and afar: Ruth Hunter, Mary Sherhart, Ethel Raim, Eva & Aurelia ("Ash"), the Radost Folk Ensemble, and Tzvetanka Varimezova and her family. Dunava will sing with Orkestar RTW to accompany the Radost dancers. Radost goes on first, so arrive early to get a seat for the 3 p.m. start.

What a great weekend ahead!

Remember: Folklife is free, but very much relies on the contributions of festival goers. So be sure to drop them a little (or big) contribution when you go, and ensure the longevity and fabulousness of this big event.

Dunava is Dina, Christi, Hila, Jill, Jody, Meg, Meredith, Ramona, Tedy, and Valerie.

Dunava retreat

Dunava spent this past weekend singing, eating and bonding at our second annual retreat at Mildred's B&B on Seattle's Capitol Hill. We rented the whole house for 24 hours.

Some of us gathered in the morning at Molly Moon's's to celebrate International Ice Cream for Breakfast Day. I loved my buttermilk waffle, which I topped with one small scoop of salted caramel and one small scoop of coffee, chocolate chunks, a little hot fudge sauce, some vanilla bean caramel, walnuts, and berries. It was great with a cup of black coffee. (Rik had oatmeal with maple walnut ice cream.)

Dunava gathered at noon and launched into four hours of intense singing. We snacked while reviewing our recent new songs, learned one new piece, and started on another. By 5 PM we were ready to dance our way around the house. Our potluck dinner featured potato-corn-kale soup, eggplant lasagna, marinated mushrooms, cooked red cabbage, green salad, mulled wine, "fauxstess" cupcakes, white gingerbread, and more.

After dinner we found ourselves loudly singing Girl Scout and summer camp songs like Miss Mary Mack, The other day I met a bear, etc. (I think the mulled wine helped.) It was a real reach back into my childhood. Luckily I think I remember every song I have ever learned. Then we played some very silly games and watched Mary Poppins and sang along while eating popcorn. I think we went to bed around 1:30 AM.


In the morning our hostess prepared a fantastic breakfast of mushroom/asparagus crustless quiche, fresh fruit, coffeecake, orange juice and coffee and tea. We gathered once more around the piano to review some music and departed around noon, sated with good food, lively music, and some particularly good girl bonding.

Health insurance blues

Yesterday we received a denial of coverage for a wig from Pacificare, our health insurance company. Even when phrased as a "cranial prosthesis for chemotherapy hair loss," Pacificare wrote that a wig is not a covered benefit under our policy.

The interesting thing to me is whether this is something negotiated by the Seattle Public Schools
as part of their health insurance contract, or if Pacificare routinely does not cover wigs for hair loss due to chemo. Either way, it's clear to me that the people who do the contract negotiations have never been through chemo and experienced hair loss, or they would clamor to include wigs as a covered benefit. Does the Seattle School District really want their teachers, especially the female ones, going to school bald from chemotherapy? It seems to me looking at a bald female teacher would distract students from learning.

I decided not to sing with Dunava at the NW Folklife Festival later this month because 1) I wasn't sure how I would feel after a few rounds of chemo, but even more 2) if I go on stage bald, or wearing a scarf over a clearly bald head, it would distract the audience from our performance.

I can still purchase the $240 wig instead of the $1600 one for days when I want to look like I have hair.

So I have added to my chemo mantra that I will be part of the 10% of those taking abraxane who keep their hair. And that abraxane will be well-tolerated, with minimal side effects, and very effective.

Hear me sing!

I have mastered a new internet skill and uploaded an audio file of the recent Dunava concert. I performed the serbian drinking song Evo Banke. Other than one blunder at the very end, I think it sounds pretty good!

Kudos to the band: Marchette DuBois on accordion, Jane Hall on dumbek, and Dunava's own Dina Trageser on tambura!

EVO BANKE CIGANE MOJ

Here's a ten, my gypsy, play for me!
I will listen to you, you will play for me.
We'll open a bottle of champagne and drink it up,
and when the moment comes, the champagne will knock us down!


// Evo banke, cigane moj, cigane moj, sviraj mi ti! //

Ja cu tebi svirati
ti ces mene slusati
Evo banke, cigane moj
cigane moj, sviraj mi ti

// Sampanj cemo otvoriti, otvoriti i popiti //

A kad dode pravi cas
Sampanj oborice nas
Evo banke, cigane moj
cigane moj, sviraj mi ti!

hear dunava on hold

Starting today Seattle OnHold is featuring the music of my choir, Dunava. The showcase lasts three months and plays on 10,000 city phone lines and the free Seattle OnHold podcast. Scroll down the page to Dunava. There is also a link to purchase our cd at cd baby and a link to download via itunes!

last night's Dunava concert

yesterday my balkan choir, dunava, performed what has come to be an annual gig at a local unitarian church. the sanctuary has a domed ceiling which creates terrific resonance for speaking and especially for music.

we've been rehearsing for weeks to pull this off, learning new material both as a group and as individuals. we invited two guest musicians to join us on accordion and percussion. d, our director, honored my request (among other's) to perform a solo.

the theme of the concert series was remarkable women. the first half of our performance was divided into themes of work, war, marriage, and love, with a tongue in cheek sub-grouping of songs that compare women to birds. (the women always win.) we wore original and stage recreation costumes.

the second half was the dunava cabaret, with some group numbers and five soloists. we changed into our new skirts and they even got a round of applause!

the audience was so appreciative. we like to divide up the talking, so i introduced all the costumes. later i "set the stage" by asking people to imagine they were sitting in a cafe with a favorite companion, a delicious drink, smelling the aromas of roast lamb, garlic, fresh bread and coffee.


i think my rendition of the serbian drinking song "evo banke" brought the house down. certainly i had fun, and if the audience clapping and singing along is any indication, they did too.

it was easy to find the joy in life last night!

finding joy

my friend wynne and i met in 2007 at a retreat in las vegas for young women with metastatic breast cancer. sponsored by young survival coalition, it was the first such activity ysc did for women with mets. (it happened during the same week elizabeth edwards was diagnosed with mets and people magazine interviewed me in a sidebar article.)

those who attended the retreat laughed and cried together. strangers at first, we bonded quickly and started our own list serv after we went home.

wynne came to seattle about a year ago and we reconnected. we've been in e-touch ever since and read one another's blogs to stay tuned. she's back in the hospital again and found a piano available for patients' use. (now that's a hospital!)

this video, of wynne warming up and playing her beloved chopin, brought tears to my eyes. it's so easy to be lost in one's own pain and can be so hard to find joy. wynne's playing reminded me how grateful i am that i can still dance a bit, sing with my choir, dunava, and lead services at synagogue. that's where i find my joy.

so i am going to sing my heart out tonight when dunava performs at the radost folk ensemble fundraiser. and do the same next weekend when we have our annual spring concert.

if you find joy in the little things, you will always be surrounded by joy.

Happy birthday to me! (part two)

The second part of the big 50th birthday celebration was an (adults only) birthday party. A catered dinner, a special cocktail, the closest of friends and family all combined to make for a memorable evening.

Rik greeted everyone at the door and offered a glass of something festive - beer, wine, sparkling water or a special pomegranate martini. The caterers passed hot onion tartlets and olive tapenade on baguettes. A. handed me a tiara to wear, complete with sparkly purple rhinestones. People had the opportunity to write a favorite lyric from a musical into a special scrapbook to which I will add photos from the party.

We enjoyed a fabulous dinner catered by the Madison Park Cafe:
Spinach salad with goat cheese and pears
Marinated salmon on skewers
Green beans
Farro with sauteed vegetables
Sliced baguette and butter

Music by Balkanarama set the mood for a festive evening.

I think the highlight of the program was the singing of Ladarke with friends from Balkanarama, Radost and Dunava. What a rush! We haven't sung it together in years. And the kazoos were a nice substitute for a tamburitsa orchestra.

Of course, another highlight was the video slide show Rik created. And the toasts by my mother, sister and husband. And the roasting from dear friends C and D. Who could choose?

Dessert was prepared by good friends and featured lots of vitamin CH (chocolate).

We ended the evening with more dancing, carrying on and happy talk. All in all it was the perfect birthday party, just the way I imagined it, down to the last detail.

Dunava in concert

Dunava is very happy to hold our first-ever concert with the Seattle Folklore Society! We will be singing Saturday, November 7, at 7:30 p.m. in the Phinney Neighborhood Center (Brick Building), in Seattle. And rather than try myself to persuade you to attend, here is what the SFS Web site (http://www.seafolklore.org/folksche.html) says about us:

"Perhaps you tried to catch them at the Balkan Showcase during Folklife but got shut out of that phenomenal standing-room-only show? Well...fret not! Thankfully, you have another chance! ... Dunava is a local treasure carrying forward these "old country" musical traditions right here at home with a rare mixture of carefully studied authenticity and spirited interpretation. They have also just released their first studio recording, after much popular demand at their live shows. Please come out to welcome Dunava in their debut Seattle Folklore Society performance. These ladies will knock your socks off!"

There you have it! We'll be in sock-off-knocking form.

Tickets are $14 and are available online. SFS members receive a discount, and kids and seniors are half-price.

The Phinney Neighborhood Center is at 6532 Phinney Avenue N, Seattle, WA 98103. Concerts are held in the Community Hall (brick building). Free parking in the lower parking lot at the Center. Enter the lot on N 67th, between Phinney and Dayton Ave. Phinney Center has disability parking outside the door on the Dayton Street side of the building and flat access into the hall from Dayton. Parking on Dayton Ave is available for disabled and musician load/unload only.

We look forward to seeing you there!

Dunava CD is on CD Baby!

If you click on the title of this post, it will take you to a link on CD Baby where you can sample Dunava's newly released CD!

http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/Dunava

Phenomenal Folklife

I spent the most marvelous five hours at the Northwest Folklife Festival yesterday.

We arrived about an hour before my performance call so that I could walk the grounds of the Seattle Center and look for the merchant who sells the Afghani door decorations. I thought we needed one more for our dining room ( we have two already, but there are three doorways in the dining room). Luckily, Gazdi was in the same location they've had for the past few years, and even more fortunately, they had three of these items for me to look at. None was quite wide enough for that third door, which used to be a door to the back porch before someone enclosed it to add space to the dining room. But the owner made a terrific suggestion. Since they are very long, why not cut some of the length to add to the width? I am sure I will spend part of the day sewing today. Such an excellent suggestion to make it fit in my house!

Then I needed a snack. No way was the leftover mac and cheese I ate at 4 PM going to last until 7 PM, after Dunava's gig. So I enjoyed an Indian spiced chicken kabob. Five deliciously moist chicken pieces on a skewer with some cabbage too. It was the perfect snack to give me energy through Dunava's set.

I left Rik and our friends to enjoy wandering the festival and listen to some good music. Dunava was meeting to rehearse before our set. We all went up to the fourth floor of the Center House where there were fewer people wandering about. (I insisted we take the elevator. No way was I walking up four flights of stairs!) I sat, the rest of the choir stood, and we reviewed one verse from each song. Then it was back downstairs to the Center House Theatre for our gig.

We had a few minutes to sound check. Luckily the theatre was empty and so we could do so without an audience. We went backstage at 6:20 when people began to enter the house. At 6:30 the emcee spent a few minutes talking up Folklife and then announced Dunava.

It was a standing-room only, full house of fans and friends. We had prepared eleven songs but only sang ten. The emcee gave us the old vaudeville cut off. It's too bad that he spoke for three minutes at the beginning and stole time from our set.

But we received a loud standing ovation from the audience, who were amazingly enthusiastic about our singing. I grabbed some business cards and with Dina, handed them to people so they would join our mailing list and then know about our summer CD release party.

After all that musical high, I was hungry again. We walked back to the main entry to the Seattle Center for a fabulous crepe with chicken and artichokes. (Rik had his with strawberries, Y had the vegetarian). We found a wall to sit on and enjoyed our dinner immensely.

Then it was back across the Seattle Center grounds to the Balkan dance, where I actually danced two dances!

I am so thankful to my doctors, my own body, and to God for giving me back enough health that I could enjoy Folklife to this extent. I can hardly believe that a little more than two weeks ago I was in the hospital, and last night I was singing and dancing, the things that bring me the most pleasure in life.

It was an amazing day. I came home totally exhausted, could hardly wait to get into my pajamas, and fell soundly asleep at 10 PM. What a great day!

Looking forward to Folklife!

Those of you in the greater Seattle area can hear me sing with Dunava at the Northwest Folklife Festival
Sunday, May 24, 2009
6:30 - 7 PM
KUOW Center House Theatre
Dunava is part of the Global Women's Voices show

You can catch me hanging out afterwards at the Balkan Dance Party from 7 - 10 PM (or until I crash).

Folklife is the best!