Fiddling Around

I was director of the Triangle Jewish Chorale in Durham NC for 14 years and must admit I got dead sick of the relatively small list of Hannukah songs available for us to perform. Then I started performing Jewish music with my pianist friend Aviva (see Jane Peppler and Aviva Enoch) and once again, most of the calls we get for performances are at Chanukah. So as a survival measure, I decided last year to write a few new ones. It was so much fun that I decided after finishing Cabaret Warsaw to start the Hanukkah project. We are going into the studio on Tuesday to cut the rhythm tracks. I’m excited!

My world band Mappamundi just spent a year putting together a program of music from Warsaw, Poland between the World Wars. In the interwar period this sophisticated city was full of nightclubs, theaters, kleynkunst revi-teaters, and hordes of enthusiastic fans! Much of the music in the Polish venues (like Qui Pro Quo) was written and performed by Jews. We got a grant from Duke University and made a cd called “Cabaret Warsaw: Yiddish and Polish Hits of the 1920s and 1930s” and we are giving the cd release concert at Duke, at the Sheafer Theater in the Bryan Center, on Saturday June 2 at 7:30 pm. Tickets $10 at the door or $8 in advance from the Cabaret Warsaw website. Come if you can! Here, sample the music:
Cabaret Warsaw: Yiddish & Polish Hits of the 1920s – 1930s by Mappamundi

I don’t think I’ve ever linked to the blog I started when my daughter was getting married in 2010: Weddings in North Carolina. As we researched venues and vendors, I put the information we found up on the site. It was lots of fun and many people have said it helped them compare prices and what the vendors had to offer.

I lost interest after she got married but from time to time I update it. Today, for instance, I posted information about the Shared Visions Retreat Center, in Durham but close to the Chapel Hill / Orange County NC line.

Jay Miller bought the historic Murphy School and lovingly refurbished it at great expense. It’s a gorgeous old site now, on the Historic Register, with plenty of parking, a kitchen, and many rooms you can use in addition to the beautiful auditorium where the Pratie Heads (that’s me and Bob Vasile) just did our 30th anniversary St Patrick’s Day celebration. We love that space.

If you’re in the RDU Chapel Hill – Research Triangle area in North Carolina, come on out to our concert Saturday night at the Shared Visions Retreat center at 3717 Murphey School Road in Durham. This building is actually the old Murphy School, and its charming refurbished auditorium once featured shows by country greats on tour across North Carolina.

There’s plenty of parking!! And everybody who comes gets a free copy of our cd “We Did It! Songs of People Behaving Badly.” Also, there will be delicious baked goods at intermission (cooked by yours truly) to benefit the Blue Ribbon Mentor Advocate Program. (I’m a mentor with the program and my mentee will be there selling brownies and chocolate chip cookies and applesauce raisin cake and whatever else I can cook up between now and then!)

Tickets will be $10 at the door, or they are $8 in advance (until noon on Saturday) from our website: Irish Music duo the Pratie Heads. People who buy advance tickets also get a brand-new mp3 of a wonderful sea song, just recorded a couple weeks ago. Come on out!