Zeellia is coming to Or Shalom!
Live at Or Shalom (limit of 50) https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/zeellia-live-at-or-shalom-tickets-348517052887 $36 (50% discount with the promo code LoveZeelliaLive)
Livestreamed from Or Shalom https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/zeellia-livestreamed-from-or-shalom-tickets-348520894377 $18
Born out of the Ukrainian cultural revival that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union; nurtured during Vancouver’s global music “golden age” in the early 90s; and recently revived in conjunction with a renewed fight to protect Ukrainian independence, Vancouver’s Slavic Soul band ZEELLIA has been at the forefront of a global Ukrainian cultural Renaissance for more than 30 years. Founded in 1991 by Beverly Dobrinsky as a means to celebrate her musical roots, ZEELLIA is currently 3 female vocalists and 4 instrumentalists—accordion, violin, bass and hurdy gurdy. They weave a mystical spell singing and playing Slavic folksongs and dances from Ukraine, the Balkan and Baltic States, and the Canadian prairies. It is SLAVIC SOUL, rooted in the traditional with a contemporary edge, connecting the past with the present and the old country with the new.
In the spring of 2016, ZEELLIA released a new CD, Tse Tak Bulo/That’s How it Was, that is both beautifully reverent toward Ukrainian tradition and filled with vital new energy. With its combination of field recordings from the 90’s featuring snippets of elders singing and talking and new arrangements and compositions based on old songs featuring female voices with violin, accordion, bass and hurdy gurdy accompaniment, “the CD is both a historical document and an artistic statement. Zeellia’s approach to these traditional songs lives firmly in the realm of artistic re-interpretation, rather than an ethnographic recreation. With her mixture of vocal and instrumental textures, Dobrinsky takes great liberties with the found materials pushing them into the realm of original compositions rather than mere arrangements.” November 2016 issue of TheWholeNote, Anna Pidgorna