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October 8, 2022: A Visit with Ljova and his fadolin




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TICKET GIVEAWAY to see Malian Tuareg band Al Bilali Soudan Wednesday October 12th at Union Pool!

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To get in the running for a pair of tickets to the show: Email me, Rob W, here, and please put the word "TIX" in the subject line. The deadline to enter is tonight at midnight; winners will be notified by Monday.

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LJOVA (Lev Zhurbin) [ˈˈljɒvə (lɛv ʒʊərˈbiːn]) was born in 1978 in Moscow, Russia, and moved to New York with his parents, composer Alexander Zhurbin and writer Irena Ginzburg, in 1990. He divides his time between composing for the concert stage, contemporary dance & film, leading his own ensemble LJOVA AND THE KONTRABAND, as well as a busy career as a violist, fadolínist & musical arranger. Among recent projects are commissions from the City of London Sinfonia, The Louisville Orchestra, a new work for Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble, a string quartet for Brooklyn Rider, a clarinet quintet for Art of Élan, and works for The Knights, Sybarite5 and A Far Cry, as well arrangements for the New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, tenor Javier Camarena, conductors Gustavo Dudamel and Alondra de la Parra, songwriters Ricky Martin, Natalia Lafourcade and Carlos Vives, composer/guitarist Gustavo Santaolalla and Osvaldo Golijov. Ljova frequently collaborates with choreographers Aszure Barton, Damian Woetzel, Christopher Wheeldon, Katarzyna Skarpetowska (with Parsons Dance). In 2018, he was a Visiting Lecturer at Princeton University’s Atelier program, co-teaching a course on collaboration with puppeteer Basil Twist.
Ljova is the author of more than 120 compositions for classical, jazz, and folk ensembles, as well as scores to numerous feature, documentary, and short subject films. He has released eleven albums on his label, Kapustnik Records, and his compositions have been recorded on Deutsche Grammophon, Sony Classical, Bridge Records, Naxos and In A Circle labels. He is an alum of the Sundance Institute’s Film Composers Lab. His music has been licensed by HBO, PBS, BBC, CNBC, and NHK networks, among many other independent projects.

AL BILALI SOUDAN are from Timbuktu Mali. Their performance is an improvisational tour de force of traditional instruments, rhythms and scales. The group members all come from a well-known Tuareg griot family who have performed for generations. Aballow Yattara is the current group leader. Other members of the group are his uncle Aboubacrine Yattara and their sons Mohamed Ag Abellow and Tchiale Ag Aboubacrine. Their stringed instrument, known as tehardant in Tamashek, ngoni in Bambara, kourbou in Sonhrai, and tidinit in Arabic, is widely heard in West Africa. Some refer to the tehardant as precursor to modern banjo. It has accompanied bards, dancers and vocalists for centuries. Percussion is calabash, a hollowed half gourd. These traditional instruments are foundational to the development of the style that has evolved into the modern desert blues sound. Abellow and Aboubacrine Yattara began to play this three-stringed fretless instrument when they were adolescents. Both their fathers were master musicians. His uncle can be heard on the first recordings of traditional music in Northern Mali. Abellow Yattara can be heard on early recordings by Ali Farka Toure, on 1970’s recordings of the Orchestre de Tombouctou, and many Radio Mali broadcasts. He accompanied the vocalist, Khaira Arby, on recordings and on tour.

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