aCentral Folque organizes four online masterclasses for hurdy-gurdy players in preparation for the 19th annual festival Zona da Zanfona. Encontro Internacional. These workshops will be given by international musicians on specific topics about the zanfona: Ukranian lira with Gordiy Starukh (‘Through the ages, wars and oblivion: what is so special about the Ukrainian hurdy-gurdy tradition?’); Extended technique with Matthias Loibner (‘Playing and writing “extended” techniques for the hurdy-gurdy’); Balkan & Mediterranean with Efrén López (‘Balkans, Greece, Turkey, East Mediterranean on the HG’) and Brazilian ‘Nordeste’ with Pablo Lerner a workshop on a specific topic of the music from the North East of Brasil (‘Coco, maracatu, baião for rabeca de roda’).
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 for further study. Language will be English with regional accents.
The sessions will take place once a month on Sundays from 6 pm to 8 pm (Central European Summer Time or UTC +2). *Note the local time will change in most European states on the early hours of the 26rd of March. 12th of March in North Americas.
You will need a decent Internet connection and to have installed the zoom app on your device.
Details:
- Type: online
- Duration: 2 hours each session
- Times: 6 pm to 8 pm (CEST)
- Dates: a Sunday of every month from March to June
- Software required: zoom app
- Fee per masterclass: 20€
- Discount fee all four masterclasses: 70€
- 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) with instructions to follow for payment
- Enquiries: matricula@folque.com
Click on each link for more information:
- Gordiy Starukh : Ukranian lira Sunday 26th March
- Matthias Loibner : Extended techniques Sunday 23th April
- Efrén López : Balkan & Mediterrean Sunday 21th May
- Pablo Lerner : Brazilian ‘Nordeste’. Sunday 25th June
Ukranian lira: Through the ages, wars and oblivion: what is so special about the Ukrainian hurdy-gurdy tradition? (or how the hell did it survive?) with Gordiy Starukh
Gordiy Starukh, the well known Galitzian (from Galitzia of the European East) maker and musician, opens the ZdZ online masterclasses for 2023, year of the 19th anniversary of the Zona da Zanfona Festival taking place in July in Rianxo (Galiza of the European West). This will be a special session to hear about the context and history behind the lirnyky, Ukranian blind beggars who sang long stories accompanied by the lira (or bandura, the plugged instrument by them used) and the opportunity to learn the style by one of the great musicians of the new generation in Ukraine.
In this workshop, Gordiy Starukh will tell how the hurdy-gurdy got to the territory of Ukraine. About its special place, the mission it performed. Also about secret brotherhoods, connected with this instrument whose existence became known only at the end of the 19th century. Why were ordinary people not allowed to play the lira? For what secret could you be killed by traveling musicians? What are the main differences between the Ukrainian lira and modern instruments? We will also listen to archive recordings of early 20th century lyre players and learn how to play traditional Ukrainian melodies.
About Gordiy Starukh
In Ukraine, the hurdy-gurdy is closely associated with such cultural phenomena as “startsivsto” – a name for a culture of traveling singer-musicians who used the instrument. In the 1930s this culture, along with its bearers, was physically destroyed by the communists. Gordiy Starukh set himself the goal of reviving the instrument to bring back the culture.
Gordiy Starukh (Ukrainian: Гордій Старух) – artist and music producer from Lviv. In his music, he combines traditional Ukrainian songs and melodies with various elements of electronic music. Thanks to this, it adapts them to the present day and popularizes them around the world.
He has already released two albums (EP «Hmilnyj» 2020, LP “Gate” 2022), eight music videos and participation in the Ukrainian version of the program “The Voice». Multi-instrumentalist. He performs alone, as a one-man band, singing simultaneously playing four instruments – hurdy-gurdy, guitar, percussion instruments and a synthesizer. The basis for his music is a hand-made hurdy-gurdy – an old musical instrument that occupies a unique place in Ukrainian culture. Gordiy also popularized it. Over the past ten years, he has created over 160 instruments that are used by musicians around the world.
He started his solo career in 2017.
Extended techniques: ‘Playing and writing “extended” techniques for the hurdy-gurdy’ with Matthias Loibner
This workshop will be about all the non-traditional playing techniques, of which most players are probably familiar, like glissandi, pizzicato, flageolets, multiphonics and all sorts of things, but maybe they deserve a more detailed look to become the new tradition. In order to create a starting point for discussions and the way we can write it in scores. The session will have a specific section for coup de poignet technique from the basics to the more advanced possibilities, complex strokes and dynamics with the manivelle.
About the teacher
Matthias Loibner is taking a permanent tour with his Drehleier through various regions, times and musical genres across the world. As an artist much in demand of extraordinary and unusual projects he is collecting the impressions of his travels, encounters and observations in the sound of the hurdy-gurdy, hereby generating timeless musical impressions loaded from a big repertoire between classical, electronic, tradition and imagination.
For his expressive playing Loibner was given nicknames such as Jimi Hendrix, Astor Piazzola but also Harry Potter or James Bond of the hurdy-gurdy. Matthias Loibner was born in 1969 in Austria and started to play music on piano and guitar. He ran away from home in order to become a busking musician when he was 17, but later started to study composition and conducting in Graz, Austria. When he discovered traditional music and the hurdy- gurdy he quit his studies and devoted his life to this rare and fascinating instrument. He soon won the first prize for his playing at the “Concours des vielles et cornemuses” in St. Chartier, France (1994).
Main focusses in his work so far have been original compositions from the french baroque (together with Christophe Coin, Le Concert Spirituel, Les Musiciens de Saint Julien and Riccardo Delfino), the first recordings of Joseph Haydns works for „lira organizzata“ (with Christophe Coin and the Ensemble Baroque de Limoges), the arrangement and recording of Franz Schuberts „Winterreise“ (with Nataša Mirković) and the extended use of the hurdy-gurdy, also combined with an electronic sound processing setup, in the wide field of world, jazz, contemporary and improvised music (with Nataša Mirković, Franz Hautzinger, Lucas Niggli, jazzbigbandgraz, Den Sorte Skole, Basel Rajoub, Christof Dienz, Christian Zehnder, Benedicte Maurseth, Caitríona O’Leary, Ross Daly amongst many others).
Matthias Loibner composed film- and theatre music for Karl Markovics, Henning Mankell, Dimiter Gotscheff , Thomas Wander, Sandy Lopičić and and has been teaching hurdy-gurdy and improvisation at the Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts of Esbjerg, Denmark, The Royal College of Music in Stockholm, Sweden and in workshops around Europe, Japan, Australia and Brasil.
In 2008 Matthias Loibner launched the unique sound installation Time Project, which brings together four European bands (Snö, Mitsoura, Palyrria, Familha Artús) from East, West, North and South in order to overcome time and space.
Balkan & Mediterranean: Balkans, Greece, Turkey, East Mediterranean on the HG. Hurdy gurdy workshop with Efrén López
One of the most unconventional yet most experienced player since the beggining of the 21st century on the hurdy-gurdy. Talented multiinstrumentist, composer and producer with a broad knowledge of the Mediterranean musics, has prepared a very special masterclass focused on those non viellistic traditions for the HG.
This workshop is aimed to players of all levels who wish to expand their capabilities on the instrument, incorporating new repertoires, ornaments, phrasing and rhythmic patterns to the hurdy-gurdy techniques and common styles.
In order to achieve that, we will take the instrument out of its usual context (Early music, European Folk…) to “contaminate” it with elements coming from other traditions (Bulgaria, Greece, Turkey, Arabic…), distilling from them interesting elements to enrich the sound and expression.
We will adapt to our instrument ornaments from the Balkan bagpipes, the Eastern mediterranean bowed fiddles, as well as modes (makam) and time signatures (5/8, 7/8, 9/8, 10/8, 11/8, 15/8, 22/8…) coming from those modal systems.
Recommended tunings to join the workshop are: chanter strings in G and D, drones in D, C, A, and G, and trompettes in D, A and G.
Although not essential, knowledge of music theory and reading music are recommended. Extra material will be given to study further for next months.
About the teacher
Efrén López is a multi-instrumentalist, composer, producer and sound engineer specialized in hurdy-gurdy and plucked string instruments of the European Medieval tradition, the Eastern Mediterranean, the Middle East, and Central Asia.
For more than 25 years Efrén López has been part as a composer, performer or producer on some of the most creative Roots music projects of both ends of the Mediterranean and beyond: Trio Petrakis·López·Chemirani, L’Ham de Foc, Ross Daly, Stelios Petrakis, Kelly Thoma, Derya Türkan, Dilek Türkan, Katerina Papadopoulou, Michalis Kouloumis, Göksel Baktagir, Nilgün Aksoy, Ertan Tekin, Zohar Fresco, Eléonore Fourniau, Sylvain Barou, Noma Omran, Rocío Márquez, Carles Dénia, María del Mar Bonet, EAR, 3,14, On… as well as the Middle East and Asia (Sima Bina, Siamak Aghaei, Daud Khan, Parvathy Baul, Ziya Tabassian, Bijan Chemirani, Keyvan Chemirani, Veka Aler, Arslan Hasreti, Pedram Khavarzamini, Lamia Yared, Kourosh Ghazvineh, Bashir Faramarzi, Zohreh Jooya…).
On the other hand, his activity in the field of Early European music or influenced by it includes projects in Spain, Germany, Austria, Greece, Denmark and Iceland with Jordi Savall, Evo, Eloqventia, Capella de Ministrers, Oni Wytars, Al Andalus Project, Maria Laffitte, Via Artis Konsort, Faun, Ex Silentio or Voces Tules. With all these formations has given concerts in some of the most prestigious festivals throughout Europe, North Africa, North and South America, the Middle East, China and the Indian subcontinent, and has participated in the recording of over 70 CDs.
He has recorded or performed for television channels TVE-2, TV3, Canal 33, Antena 3, Canal 9, National Television of Puerto Rico, Greek Radio-Television ERT, Croatia National Television, Cyprus RIK TV. And radio: BBC, BBC Persian, RNE-Radio 3, Deustchland Funk, WDR3 German Radio, Radio Television of Switzerland, Burç FM (Istanbul, Turkey), Catalunya Ràdio, Canal 9 Ràdio.
As a sound engineer, arranger and/or producer he has worked for L’Ham de Foc, Kelly Thoma, Evo, Petrakis·Lopez·Chemirani, Katerina Papadopoulou, Ross Daly, Stelios Petrakis, Sangre de Muerdago, Ziya Tabassian, Atlas, Necati Çelik, Sadreddin Özcimi, Aman Aman and Sabir.
His studio works include music for theater, dance (Sara Cano, Miriam Peretz), opera (Negar by Keyvan Chemirani, Deutsche Oper Berlin) sample libraries (“Era” and “Ancient Persia”, by Eduardo Tarilonte), and original soundtracks for documentaries (“Renaixem”, by David Segarra, “Predela del Centear de La Paloma”, by Rubén Soler), movies (“30 monedas”, by Álex de la Iglesia), and recordings for composers like Armand Amar or Minco Eggersman.
As a music teacher he has taught workshops on Medieval and Modal music at the Berklee College of Music (València, Spain), Labyrinth Music Workshop (Crete, Greece), Labyrinth Catalunya, Labyrinth Online, Khatawat Center (Forli, Italy), Conservatory of Reykjavik (Iceland), Halsway Manor National Center for Folk Arts (UK), Müzik Köyü (Turkey), ESMUC (Barcelona, Spain), Fürstenecker Bordunale (Germany), Stichting Draailier & Doedelzak (Netherlands), Seyir Muzik (Brussels, Belgium), Ruhnu Fiddle Camp (Estonia), Malmö Academy of Music (Sweden), Norges musikkhøgskole (Oslo, Norway), Nicosia (Cyprus), Culture Centre of Van (Turkey), Asociación Ibérica de la Zanfona (Spain), What Is Music? festival (Frías, Burgos, Spain), Conservatori Superior (València, Spain), Music Village (Aghios Lavrentios, Greece), Ateliers d’Ethnomusicologie (Geneva, Switzerland), and Sintra (Portugal) and Zona da Zanfona in Galiza in 2019.
He has studied hurdy-gurdy with Nigel Eaton, Maurizio Martinotti, Germán Díaz and Pascal Lefevre, and techniques and theory of various instruments and musical languages of the Mediterranean and Middle East with Ross Daly, Erol Parlak, Mehmet Erenler, Erdal Erzincan, Erkan Oğur, Ömer Erdoğdular, Necati Çelik, Yurdal Tokcan, Daud Khan Sadozai, Mohammed Rahim Khushnawaz, Yasamin Shahhosseini, Keyvan Chemirani, Zohar Fresco, Isabel Martín and Araz Salek, among others.
Brazilian ‘Nordeste’ : ‘Coco, maracatu, baião for rabeca de roda‘ with Pablo Lerner
An opportunity to learn the unique adaptation of a genre with no hurdy-gurdy background developed by a foreigner to that music but with original results. The Argentinian Pablo Lerner will guide us to his personal path to take the tekerö and make popular music from the Northeast of Brasil taking the bow fiddle as reference to style and technique. Very interesting workshop for players of all levels and lovers of popular earthy music.
Northeastern Brazilian music, the well known ‘Música Nordestina’ of which forró, the most typical modern genre spread around the world, comes from the styles this masterclass is about.
The goal of this workshop is to approach the sound of the hurdy-gurdy to that of the rabeca (Brazilian fiddle). Although the HG is non-existent in Brasil, the strong medieval reminiscences of the northeastern modal melodies for the rabeca make them suitable for the HG.
The difference between both instruments is the drone string or pedal note (“bordão” in Portuguese), found only on the HG and absent in the rabeca. But Ana Maria Perazzo, about the rabeca in the folguedo (dramatic dance), says the fourth string of the rabeca, the lowest, is called the “burdão”. Rafael Borges Aloan speaks of the “constant presence of loose strings (pedal)”. And both authors call attention to double notes: “chords in general of two sounds, with intervals of thirds, sixths, sevenths, octaves and especially fifths”. Double notes whose function is not clearly harmonic: “The rabeca gives a harmonic climate to the pieces (basically two-tone chords and does not perform the chords in function of a tonality (as in traditional in traditional harmony), but in function of a certain sonority.” This sonority is reminiscent of the universe of drone music: neing the Northeast the most backward and rural region of Brazil, it treasures a considerable medieval universe, made of ballads on medieval themes, and linguistic and musical archaisms of Iberian origin, added to the crossbreeding with the aboriginal and black culture.
The technique to play HG with the sound of a “rabeca” is the technique of moving the crank forward and backward, like a bow, and not continuosly in a circle, as it is usual for the instrument. The come-and-go movement, however, is not the one used by European players. It is based on the movement of the “recsego” (the trompette or rhythmic string of the Hungarian tekerölant): the wrist makes a yo-yo movement that allows playing several notes in each direction and to change the velocity of the wheel. Perazzo da Nóbrega says: “The pressure exerted on the bow is not constant, and may vary depending mainly on the speed of the on the string, and can produce accents, one of the main characteristics of the style of the music in question. The speed of the bow on the string can produce alteration in the dynamics. If the pressure remains constant, an increase in velocity will also produce an increase in sound volume, and a decrease in velocity will consequently mean a decrease in sound volume”. The same applies to the HG wheel.
To learn this movement we will do in the workshop many exercises with long notes or two notes in the same direction, and also some exercises with melodic motifs
typical of different northeastern rhythms (coco, maracatu, baião) and also of other rhythms that are not northeastern. Finally, we will learn the best known northeastern tune: “Asa Branca”.
About the teacher
Born in Buenos Aires in 1973, Pablo Lerner studied tekerolant (Hungarian hurdy gurdy) with Balazs Nagy, at Obudai Nepzenei Iskola (Hungarian Folk Music School of Óbuda), in Hungary. He researched the universe of the rabeca (brazilian fiddle from the northeast of Brazil). As a result of that, he created a repertoire of northeastern music on the tekeró. He has performed in Hungary, Czech Republic, Croatia, Galiza, Portugal, Spain, Brasil and Argentina.
Masterclasses organized by aCentral Folque thanks to support by:
Concello de Santiago – Deputación Provincial da Coruña
