The Escola de Música d’aCentral Folque organizes three online masterclasses for hurdy-gurdy players in preparation for the 18th annual festival Zona da Zanfona. Encontro Internacional. These workshops will be given by international musicians on specific topics about the zanfona: rock and pagan folk with Michalina Malisz (Hurdy-gurdy in Metal); traditional style from Hungary with Béla Szerényi in (Tekerő in Magyar music); and a workshop on a specific o on Swedish dance with Johannes Geworkian Hellman (Polska!)
Once a month from March to June, we will meet for direct learning in an intensive two hour session with each teacher for a brief introduction to context and history; explanation of style; proposal of exercises and tunes; questions and live talk.
At the end of each workshop, extra material will be given to study further. Language will be English with regional accents.
The sessions will take place once a month on Sundays from 6 pm to 8 pm (Galician summer time, UTC +2).
You will need a decent Internet connection and to have installed the zoom app on your device.
Details:
- Type: online
- Duration: 2 hours each
- Times: 6 pm to 8 pm (CEST)
- Dates: last Sunday of every month from March to May
- Software required: zoom app
- Fee per masterclass: 20€
- Fee all three masterclasses: 50€
- Registration fee is not reimbursable. But someone else can take your place. You need to make the payment at latest, three days before the workshop (Ideally at least a week before in order to receive the material for preparation)
- Registration: fill in the form at the bottom of this page; you will receive an email confirmation (not immediate, not automatic)
- Enquiries: matricula@folque.com
Click on each link for further information:
- Michalina Malisz : Hurdy-gurdy in Metal Sunday 27th March
- Béla Szerényi : Tekerő in Magyar music Sunday 24th April
- Johannes Geworkian Hellman : Polska! Sunday 29th May
Michalina Malisz: hurdy-gurdy in Metal
Michalina Malisz opens the ZdZ online masterclasses for 2022, year of the 18th anniversary of the Zona da Zanfona Festival taking place in July in Rianxo (Galiza). This will be a special session to hear about her impressive professional career, learn style, interpretation, sound nuances and style adapting the hurdy-gurdy to other “untypical” music with ideas about effects, amplification, feedback on big stages, instrument role, etc… within the Rock Metal music on focus.
Workshop:
During the workshop, we will discuss using the hurdy-gurdy in metal music: from arranging and recording it to performing on stage with a metal band. We will focus on writing rock/metal solos and riffs for the hurdy-gurdy, using scales and techniques inspired by the electric guitar, approaching the recording process, and the equipment that will help you rock the stage. This workshop is destined for intermediate and advanced players.
About Michalina Malisz
Michalina Malisz is a hurdy-gurdy player for the Swiss metal band Eluveitie. Graduate of a First and Second Level Music School in Poland. She stands for blending the sound of hurdy-gurdy with other favorite genres: metal and cinematic music. She discovered and started playing the hurdy-gurdy thanks to Eluveitie. In 2014 she began learning by practicing their songs. In 2016 she became part of this very band as their hurdy-gurdy player. Since then they have performed on hundreds of stages on five continents.
She also runs a hurdy-gurdy workshop – MM Instruments – together with her husband since 2018.
Michalina is mainly interested in playing metal music on the hurdy-gurdy, hence her fascination with riffs and solos with an approach to the hurdy-gurdy like an electric guitar and mostly focused on left-hand proficiency.
Béla Szerényi Jr: tekerő in Magyar music
Introduction to one of the oldest survviing living traditions in Europe for the hurdy-gurdy. The tekerő in Hungary has an unique flavour, special technique, own language and adaptation to modern style of playing and Béla Szerényi Jr. is one of the representatives of the talented and virtuoso generation of young players. Also the instrument experienced a rebirth as part of the 70’s revival of the ball dance movement in the continent and players became a regular guests in the dance clubs. International re-known players like Robert Mandel took it to an international audience of hurdy-gurdists and new builders such as Béla Szerényi (father) had taken the instrument to a wider audience within and outside the folkloric music scene since the 80’s until today.
The workshop will have a first part with a brief history of the tekerő, and the specificities of the Hungarian instrument; explanation about the general style and context for the music and a second with practice, representative tunes, right hand technique of the two playing styles from Szentes and from Csongrád with ornamentation, rhythms, etc.
This workshop will be a brief introduction to the traditional Hungarian music for tekerő. The two hour workshop will be too short for such big topic but extra material will be given for further study giving examples, exercises, tunes,…
About Szerényi Béla
Young player Szerényi Béla (right name order in Hungarian language) is a virtuoso player of various instruments such as tekerő, tárogató, esz-klarinét, tánc and takes part in different projects from the most traditional ones to the most avantgardist like Magyar Band, Hurdy-Gang or the Free Style Chamber Orchestra.
Johannes Geworkian Hellman: Polska!
Introduction to the Swedish Polska and how to play it on the hurdy-gurdy with Johannes Geworkian Hellman (SWE). This is a masterclass Zona da Zanfona organizes on the road to the 18th edition of the festival aCentral Folque celebrates in July.
Workshop:
This workshop will be an introduction to the traditional Swedish tune/dance-style known as the Polska. You will get a brief history and background about the polska and it’s many variants. The active practice part of the workshop will mainly be focusing on the polska played with an equal subdivision, often referred to as Slängpolska.
Johannes will demonstrate and explain his way of approaching this music with the hurdy-gurdy. We will speak about the phrasing of the melody and how to use the crank to support the melody, to get the melody to groove and flow. We will also look at basic patterns for the trompette connected to the Polska, and techniques that we can use to have more dynamics and change of intensity regarding the buzzing. These techniques can of course also be applied when playing other kinds of music on the hurdy-gurdy as well.
About Johannes Geworkian Hellman
Coming from a background in Western Early and Classical music, Johannes discovered the hurdy-gurdy and folk music as a teenager and fell in love with it. He became know as a passionate musician, always searching ways to extend the possibilities of the hurdy-gurdy and exploring it’s different colors.
With the hurdy-gurdy as his voice, Johannes has been touring extensively in Scandinavia, Europe and US with his bands Symbio, Garizim and as a solo-artist. Johannes mainly performs original music written by himself or in collaboration with his band members – This music can be described as a crossover between contemporary folk music, art music and pop music.
During the years he received numerous grants and scholarships for his artistic work. Together with his duo Symbio he was chosen to represent the Swedish National Radio in the EBU Folk Radio Festival (Rudolstadt festival) 2019 and was awarded as ”The Best Newcomer of the Year” with the at the Swedish Folk & World music awards in 2016. In 2011 he was given the first prize by an unanimous jury in the Solo hurdy-gurdy competition in Chateau D´Ars (FR). Johannes has studied Swedish traditional music at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm and together with musicians such as Ola Bäckström, Maria Kalaniemi and Mikael Marin. He also travelled abroad to meet and study together with contemporary hurdy-gurdy masters, such as Matthias Loibner, Valentin Clastrier and Romain Baudoin among others – Meetings that has had a deep influence on him. Since graduating in 2016, Johannes works full-time as a freelance musician.
Masterclasses organized by aCentral Folque thanks to support by:
Concello de Santiago – Deputación Provincial da Coruña
