Our own Rivka Amado with Diana Rowan, recording under the name Dos Hermanicas, have released The Sephardic Healing Music Legacy today on CDBaby. The album contains three tracks of voice and harp music in the Sephardic tradition. Check it out!
June 17 gig for Sephardic Women of Turkey art exhibit in Los Gatos
We’ve been invited to play for an artist’s reception at the Addison-Penzak Jewish Community Center in Los Gatos on Sunday, June 17 (Father’s Day). Blue Hills will be focusing (somewhat obviously) on our Sephardic music repertoire, playlist TBD. We’re planning this to be a bit simpler show, instrumentation-wise- no keyboard, just guitars/bass, violin, recorder, and vocals. The JCC posted the following on their arts page:
Sephardic Women of Turkey
June 24th ~ August 24th 2012
This photographic exhibition documents a cultural renaissance and addresses the importance of women in carrying on the Sephardi tradition and culture. In the fall of 1991, Audrey Ray Daniel and Rachel Bortnick, two Sephardic American women, explored and documented their culture on a journey through four major Turkish cities. The exhibit is free and open to the public. Free artist’s reception is Sunday, June 17th 2:00pm-5:00pm featuring Sephardic music and treats! For further information please call Lisa Ceile at 408.357.7492 or lisacg@svjcc.org.
Eyal and Maytal’s wedding
We played at Rivka’s son Eyal’s wedding a few days ago, here on the SF Peninsula. It was nice- instrumental versions of Erev Shel Shoshanim and Sunrise Sunset for the ceremony entrance, and a few songs with Rivka singing later during dinner- A La Una and Avraham Avinu. People especially liked the ceremony music. It was fun, though LONG- things started at 4:00p, and were still going at 9:30p when we left.
Bread and Roses show went great, doing it again
Our show for Bread & Roses at the SF Jewish Home went well. The audience was a little smaller than we expected, but they were enthusiastic. We sounded surprisingly good for playing in an echoey atrium, though we were playing with Vicky. One of the women came up to the piano and sang a couple songs with Nathan playing, including (if I remember correctly) God Bless America. Very sweet; Nathan in particular enjoyed himself.
Apparently B&R liked it, too, because we’ve been invited to do another show for them. This one is at CEI in Oakland on Monday, April 2. Middle of the day on a Monday, so a little tricky working around jobs and such. Hard to know what the audience will be, so… we’ll see what happens.
Bread & Roses at the SF Jewish Home
Rivka hooked up with the Bread & Roses organization, and they’ve invited us to play a show on February 22nd for one of their supported facilities- the San Francisco Jewish Home. This will be a smaller show for 25-30 seniors, in the atrium of their building. This is a cool opportunity- Bread & Roses is a great organization, supporting shut-ins and others who can’t get out to enjoy and experience the energy of live music. B&R have hosted some big names in their shows- Joni Mitchell, Herbie Hancock, Michael Franti, Robin Williams…
We should be able to play our full setlist this show, including Morena, which didn’t fit last time.
Blue Hills to play for Dennis and Hene Kelly benefit at SF JCC
Blue Hills has been invited to play at a tribute dinner for Dennis and Hene Kelly, at the San Francisco Jewish Community Center! We’re excited- it will be a chance to play for a new audience, and get dressy in the process.
Dennis and Hene are being honored for their work in the San Francisco Teacher’s Union; more information here. The dinner is also a benefit for Ahava Village for Children & Youth in Kiryat Bialik (part of Haifa, Israel), a residential campus for neglected children.
The show is on Thursday, January 12, 2012; reception 5:30p, program and dinner 6:30p.
Blue Hills Launches!
Blue Hills Music is live on the web! The Blue Hills band is made up of several talented musicians based in the San Francisco Bay Area, focused on classic Ladino, Hebrew, Russian, and Greek folk songs, with a sprinkling of contemporary Israeli popular and folk-dance tunes.