Presented by Caravan World Rhythms in partnership with Publik Secrets, as part of our summer sunset concert series at Hadden Park.
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Advance registration is required. Registration is by donation.
There will be limited capacity in the performance area.
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This evening’s Sunset concert will feature two groups showcasing music from Eastern Europe. Vostok trio will enchant you with their sublime vocal arrangements of Ukrainian and Balkan songs. Lache Cercel, well-known BC-based Roma / Romanian violinist will host special guest master accordion player Sergiu Popa (based in Montreal) and his partner cellist Noemy Braun, accompanied by Lache’s Roma Swing Ensemble. Their show will highlight Balkan, Eastern European Romani music and gypsy jazz, and will also include original compositions. And expect some surprise performers to join us at Hadden Park!
ABOUT THE PERFORMERSVOSTOK TRIO – https://www.thetroikacollective.com/vostok
Vostok is a Vancouver-based vocal trio singing music from Eastern Europe and the Balkans. “Vostok” means The East – Eastern European music, from East Vancouver. Vostok is also the house band for local theatre company The Troika Collective. Singers Aliya Griffin and Emily Villavicencio are joined by special guest Noa Neuman Spivak to deliver a rich and varied set. A Russian lullaby, a dissonant Bulgarian chant, a Ukrainian spring song first heard on a Kiev subway – Vostok’s songs take the listener from bliss to despair and back again.
YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCs0zOjN48NaHISHDcYm4PiA
LACHE CERCEL & the Roma Swing Ensemble –
Lache Cercel and his Roma Swing Ensemble represent the latest chapter in an important movement in Canadian World Music – elite musicians from around the world who settle in Canada and create music that incorporates their own traditions with influences they find surrounding them here. Before leaving his homeland, Lache Cercel was one of Romania’s premier musicians. From a musical family, he trained at the Academy of Arts in Bucharest, became a soloist with the Radio and Television Symphony Orchestra and, in 1986, was awarded the “Artist of the People” Citation by the Romanian government.
Since settling in Canada in 1998, he has collaborated with musicians from a diverse range of backgrounds. Among them are renowned Egyptian percussionist Adel Awad, noted Vancouver jazz vocalist Laura Crema and Latin music virtuoso Sal Ferreras. Cercel’s music is firmly rooted in Roma tradition, styled with Doina Klezmer, Middle Eastern and European sounds, and held together with jazz improvisation. He calls his fusion Roma Jazz or Roma Swing. In the tradition of Django Reinhardt and Stephen Grappelli, Cercel lays classical and improvisational jazz alongside traditional renderings, which makes for a phenomenal sound.
Cercel is a bandleader who lets every musician shine. He plays with the outrageous virtuosity found in contemporary European Roma recordings, and adds his own vision, relaxing the form somewhat. The musicians play with freedom and the listener feels the strong roots and hears the history of tragedy, struggle and ultimate survival that is part of Roma music.
You can find Cercel leading an eclectic and ever-changing ensemble at the East is East restaurants in Vancouver.
SERGIU POPA – https://sergiupopa.com/
Sergiu Popa, originally from Moldova, has become an important part of Montreal’s active world music scene since his arrival in 2002. A Conservatory-trained virtuoso accordionist from a Roma family dynasty of musicians, he is a specialist in traditional music from across the region of Eastern Europe, including folk, Roma (gypsy) and Klezmer styles. Sergiu also, however, has an exceptional capability to absorb a wide variety of influences from the worlds of jazz, Latin and Middle- eastern music, bringing a fresh perspective and inspired improvisations to every performance.
Winner of the Radio Canada Étoiles Galaxie prize (2007), the first Prix Diversité (2008) and finalist at the national Roland V-accordion competition (2009, 2013), Sergiu has performed and recorded as a soloist, and toured Quebec’s major festivals and Maisons de la culture as leader of the multicultural Sergiu Popa Ensemble. He is also a frequent guest artist and collaborator with other local artists such as SoCalled, Kaba Horo, Yves Lambert, Paul Audy and OktoEcho.
Sergiu is currently the musical director of ROMada, a new fusion roma ensemble made up of well recognized artists from across Canada, including Lache Cercel on violin and the amazing-multi-style cello player Noémy Braun., who will also be joining
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Main Performers:
Violin: Lache Cercel
Accordion: Sergiu Popa
Cello: Noémy Braun
Double Bass: Sam Shoichet
6-String Electric Bass Guitar: Kyle Hagen
Electric Guitar: Stephen Nikleva
Drums: Paul Townsend
Sound Engineer: Kenan Songur
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Hadden Park is located on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded Indigenous territories of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and Səl̓ílwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations.