Divahn - About Divahn

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Anyone who thinks Jewish music equals klezmer needs to hear Divahn's Middle Eastern and Sephardic grooves. Fans first heard Divahn's energetic music deep in the heart of Texas. Today, this dynamic New York City-based quintet delights audiences throughout the country and has made numerous live radio appearances. Divahn infuses traditional songs with sophisticated harmonies and arrangements using tabla, cello, rabel, doumbek, violin and other acoustic instruments, plus vocals in Hebrew, Judeo-Spanish, Persian, Arabic, Aramaic and Turkish.

Their beautiful lyricism flows through an intense rhythmic drive. The group distinguishes itself as the only all-female ensemble performing Mizrakhi-influenced music (Jewish music from

the Middle East and North Africa) in the US, and has performed with some of the world’s most renowned master musicians, including Glen Velez and Anindo Chatterjee.

Divahn, a word common to Hebrew, Persian, and Arabic, means a collection of songs or poetry. Through its music, Divahn seeks to underscore common ground shared between diverse Middle Eastern cultures and religions. The group captures the breadth and diversity of Mizrakhi and Sephardi music throughout the centuries, while simultaneously creating and redefining innovative directions for the music in the present.


Written about Divahn:	Nextbook.org Podcast	Jerusalem Report	Jewish Week

	Galeet Dardashti (vocals, guitar, percussion) pursues her artistic and academic passion for Mizrahi music as both accomplished singer and anthropologist. She has performed as a soloist both in the US and Israel, including significant cantorial work. Galeet is writing her dissertation on contemporary Mizrahi and Arab music in Israel and offers interactive musical workshops and academic lectures on this topic, such as recent events at B'nai Jeshurun in NYC and the 2007 and 2005 Aleph Kallah. She was recently awarded a Six Points Fellowship to pursue her project Voices of Our Mothers: A Middle Eastern Musical Midrash for Today. She recently returned from conducting her dissertation research in Israel, which was funded by fellowships from Fulbright-Hays, The National Foundation for Jewish Culture, and The Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture. During her fieldwork, Galeet studied and performed Arab and Persian music with some of Israel's most renowned musicians, including Yair Dalal, Yitzchak Refuah, and Kobi HaGoel. Galeet's grandfather Yona Dardashti was one of the most highly acclaimed singers of Persian classical music in Iran. Together with her father, Hazzan Farid Dardashti, and The Dardashti Family, Galeet performed international Jewish music throughout the US and Canada for 19 years.
	Lila Sklar (violin, vocals) specializes in Balkan and Middle-Eastern styles though she has roots in Western classical and improvised musics as well. Lila began playing the violin at age four and studied for many years with Sherry Kloss, assistant to Jascha Heifetz. She has toured and performed extensively throughout the US, Japan, Europe, and the Middle East, playing with such groups as The Quarta Dolce Quartet, Gypsy Caravan, Sherefe, The Toids, and members of Cirque Du Soleil. Lila also participated in a nationwide tour playing Turkish Sufi music with vocalist Latif Bolat. She has performed in many venues and festivals, including The Bumpershoot Festival in Seattle, Britt Festivals, Artquake, The Carmel World Music Festival, The Great American Music Hall, Knitting Factory New York, Knitting Factory Los Angeles, and Yoshis Jazz Club. Lila lives in the San Francisco Bay Area and earns her living teaching, recording, touring, and performing with numerous bands including The Toids, Za'atar, Rosin Coven, and 3Spell.
	Praised as “passionate and elegant” by the New York Times, cellist Amy Sue Barston has performed solo on stages all over the world, including Carnegie Hall, Haan Hall (Jerusalem), The Power House (Australia), and IMF (England). She recently toured the US and Australia, playing new and traditional music from South and Central America. She performed in twenty cities, receiving twenty consecutive standing ovations. The Chicago Sun-Times wrote: "the deep, rich tones of Barston's cello haunted the vocal line like a sorrowing vision." At seventeen she appeared as soloist with the Chicago Symphony on live television. The same year she won Grand Prize in the Society of American Musicians’ Competition. Amy began playing cello when she was three. She studied at Juilliard, where she earned her Masters degree, and is now assistant faculty there. She is also a devoted teacher; students come from as far away as Alaska and Japan to have lessons with her. Amy's upcoming schedule includes solo performances in nine US cities, England, and Germany.
	Eleanor Norton (cello) began her cello studies at the age of seven. She graduated from the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University in 2002, where she served as principal cellist of the Peabody Symphony Orchestra. Upon graduating from Peabody, she was awarded the Israel Dorman award for string playing. An active chamber musician, Eleanor has participated in many groups both at Peabody and nationally. Her summer festivals have included The Bowdoin Summer Music Festival, the Aspen Music School, the Encore School for Strings, and the Round Top Festival. She was a winner of the Peabody Outreach Grant, which enabled her to provide music performances and classes to many members of the Baltimore community. In New York, she performs with the Artemis Chamber Ensemble. For the past three years, Eleanor has performed in concert with the folk music legend Arlo Guthrie and the Metropolitan Chamber Orchestra at such venues as the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia, and Carnegie Hall in New York City. She just completed a national tour performing with "Little Women - The Broadway Musical," and she accompanied Christina Aguilera at the 2006 MTV Movie Awards.
	Sejal Kukadia is a disciple of world-renown tabla master Pandit Divyang Vakil of Ahmedabad, India. As one of the United States’ only female classical tabla players, Sejal teaches and performs regularly at the Taalim School of Indian Music, a cultural institution that offers tabla classes throughout New Jersey and New York. Sejal is author of Rhythms of Tabla, a guidebook for understanding and learning the main rhythmic instrument of North Indian Classical Music. The book includes biographies of legendary players, differences between gharanas, practical instruction for beginner players, and much more. Sejal plays in Pandit Divyang Vakil's Tabla Triveni, an Indian Classical tabla trio troupe that performs throughout the country. Sejal’s tabla can be heard on the CD Tabla Upaj.
	Nicole LeCorgne (doumbek, riq, frame drum) specializes in Arabic music. Originally from New Orleans , Louisiana , she did most of her early musical studies at the University of Minnesota, where she received a B.A. in World Music and Dance. She has worked with Susu and the Cairo Cats, The Aswan Dancers, Slavko Silic, and several other Bay Area Middle Eastern and Balkan ensembles. Nicole spent over four years performing across the country as a core member of The Georges Lammam Ensemble, was a founding member of the Balkan gypsy ensemble, Panecea, and has been the musical accompanist and resident drum teacher at Oasis Dance Camps for the past ten years. She also has a Masters Degree in Ethnomusicology from Wesleyan University . Nicole performs with musicians from the New York and Boston areas, including the Harvard Arabic Music Ensemble, Dannah, and with her own group, al-Hawanim. Her greatest love is teaching—classroom instruction and conducting workshops for both children and adults of all levels. Nicole is compiling the teachings of Michel Merhej, the life-long percussionist for the legendary Lebanese singer, Fairuz, as part of an instruction manual for classical Arabic riq (tambourine), and is hoping to release her first solo recording project very soon.
	Lauren DeAlbert has been playing percussion for 10 years. She attended the Ali Akbar College of Music in California, and has studied with some of the best percussionists in the world, including Swapan Chaudhuri, Zakir Hussain, Anindo Chatterjee, Glen Velez, and Ty Burhoe. Lauren traveled to the Middle East to study the art of the doumbek, and to Hawaii, to study tabla under Daniel Paul, one of the world’s few tabla tarang players. On Maui, she learned the art of the Aboriginal didgeridoo, using the sounds of whales, dolphins, and birds as her inspiration. She has played and recorded with 1001 Nights Orchestra, Oliver Rajamani, The Gypsies, Teye & Viva Flamenco, Govinda, Anita Jung, Ojala, among others, in Austin, TX. Lauren is also in demand as a teacher of percussion, giving both private lessons and group workshops.

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