Sunday 24 July 2022, 8pm
A collaboration between Preetha Narayanan (Violin) and Tara Franks (cello), string duo, Balladeste, explore the versatility and sound potential of just two string instruments. With traces of contemporary minimalism, Indian classical and folk, the duo co-creates all original compositions that are vibrant and experimental yet melodic and filmic in quality – songs without words with a contemporary alt-folk twist.
Balladeste released their much anticipated sophomore album in 2021. A reflective collection of new compositions taking inspiration from a set of Indian devotional songs from the Sathya Sai lineage.
Beyond Breath captures a stillness and contemplative quality, never undermining the attention to detail and intricacy of the instrumental songwriting. Part song, part narrative, part modal imagery, the devotional melodies weave their way through the album, fragmented, played in their entirety, re-invented and interspersed with original reflective responses.
For this gig Balladeste will play a collection of pieces from both their albums interspersed with free improvisations.
Bint Mbareh is a sound researcher with a curiosity about the superpowers of communal singing. Her initiation into music came through her research on rain-summoning in Palestine. She conducted research initially to combat the myth of water scarcity pushed by Israeli settler colonialism. She learned that the songs that helped communities summon and harness rain, at their core helped people build a relationship with their environment, decide what time of year it is, communally determine how to share resources fairly, and that when used in current life, these uses could still be evoked, rather than remembered. She now studies death and rebirth as analogies for necessary upheavals, still looking for these significations in Palestinian landscape, especially the shrine of Nabi-Musa (AS), the prophet Moses.
