Balkan Ensemble
Balkan Ensemble is a workshop for musicians and vocalists who have general proficiency on your instrument or confidence in your voice. We study a range of songs and tunes from the Balkans, and Romany tradition, occasionally Klezmer repertoire, and once in a while the country of Danistan (Dan’s originals). We will study the scales and rhythms typical for these genres, and spend time improvising in the style (taking solos). Often the material will have lyrics, but we focus mainly on the instrumental content. The workshop is best for instrumentalists that like to sing as well. Singers are also welcome, just please bear with us if we wander off on instrumental tangents.
About Dan Cantrell
Dan’s compositions for film and television have earned him numerous awards including an Emmy Award for KQED’s Home-Front, a Golden Gate award for the soundtrack to the documentary Divided Loyalties, and an Annie nomination for his work on three seasons of Cartoon Network’s the _Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjac_k. His orchestral music was recently featured by the Oakland Symphony, and his chamber music was performed at San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and in Washington DC’s Kennedy Center. Dan composed a suite of choral music performed by the Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir as part of their yearly concert series. Dan received the Gerbode grant to create the Rootabaga Opera, (a multi-media, fire-opera setting of Carl Sandburg’s classic American fairy tales), as well as the MAP grant to create Musical Fortunes, informed by Klezmer and Romani music, and performed by Kitka Women’s Vocal Ensemble. Dan is appreciated by directors and collaborators for his collection of odd instruments from around the world, his love for the idiosyncratic and flawed beauty found in live acoustic performance, his exploration of haunting and mysterious ambient sound textures, and a proclivity for experimentation with arcane recording techniques.