About Janam
“An innovative ensemble that explores a dizzying range of styles, from Appalachia and
Asia Minor to Eastern Europe. The sextet plays swirling, hard-driving music that always
seems to end up in unexpected places.”
SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
"This fine group goes on a world tour of Eastern Europe...with no cultural jet lag."
JOSEF WOODARD, SANTA BARBARA INDEPENDENT
Janam (“my soul”) creates a compelling, eclectic mix of Balkan, Romani, Turkish,
Sephardic and American roots music, plus inspired originals. These sultry
rhythms and soul-stirring melodies deliver a dance- and trance-inducing groove
that carries the listener from the shores of the Black Sea to the foothills of the
Appalachians. Founded by extraordinary vocalist and former music director of
Kitka Women’s Vocal Ensemble, Juliana Graffagna, Janam features several of the
Bay Area’s most innovative interpreters of Southern Balkan and Near Eastern
traditional music. Janam’s collective experience includes literally decades of
national and international touring, participation in local super groups Brass
Menažeri, Stellamara, Edessa, and Gamelan X, and performances with Le
Mystère des Voix Bulgares and Mr. Lif.
The players in Janam were drawn together in 2008 out of a common love and
deep respect for the richness, variety, complexity, and enduring beauty of the
music of the Balkans, Turkey, and America's mountain regions. Each musician
has spent years exploring the deep well of these traditional musical forms.
Together, Janam strives to create music that is fresh, soulful and texturally rich.
The songs tell stories of penetrating dark eyes, nightingales, prison walls,
growing old, passion - the universal stuff of life – through captivating tonalities,
sultry harmonies, and driving rhythms. In addition to Albanian, Macedonian,
Hungarian, Greek, Turkish, Sephardic Jewish, Romani (“Gypsy”) and
Appalachian roots music, Janam’s repertoire includes original compositions and
arrangements inspired by the modalities and meters of these musical traditions.
Janam features:
Juliana Graffagna: vocals, percussion
Dan Auvil: percussion
Tom Farris: laouto, guitar, accordion, percussion
Gari Hegedus: oud, violin, mandocello
Peter Jaques: clarinet, ney, vocals
Band Bios
Janam’s founder Juliana Graffagna has been singing Eastern European
traditional and choral music since 1988. As a vocalist and former music director
of the internationally acclaimed women’s ensemble Kitka (http://www.kitka.org),
Juliana has performed extensively throughout the U.S. and Eastern Europe. She
has studied with master vocalists Tzvetanka Varimezova, Mariana Sadovska,
Merita Halili, Donka Koleva, Carl Linich and Christos Govetas. Juliana’s supple
and soulful voice has appeared on numerous recordings and film soundtracks.
Janam features:
It was love at first sight 30 years ago when Dan Auvil saw the large, two-headed
drum called the tupan. He is a masterful percussionist on a variety of Balkan and
Middle Eastern hand drums. Dan was a founding member of Édessa and Ziyiá
(www.ziyia.com) and has toured and taught nationally and internationally. He
currently plays with Trio Zulum (http://www.balkantunes.org/triozulum) and
The Mehanatones (http://www.myspace.com/mehanatones).
Tom Farris has been playing in Bay Area Balkan rhythm sections since 1994. He
is a passionate and talented multi-instrumentalist, playing a variety of drums
and stringed instruments. A longtime member of Anoush, Brass Menažeri, and
Top Dog Run, Tom currently plays with The Helladelics
(http://www.helladelics.com) and Izvorno Icepick. Tom also writes and records
his own folk-rock songs.
An extraordinary and soulful musician, Gari Hegedus plays violin, viola and a
variety of stringed instruments from Greece and Turkey including lauoto, oud,
saz and hand drums. Gari plays in the duo Teslim with violinist Kaila Flexer
(http://www.kailaflexer.com/teslim), and performs with world music group
Stellamara (http://www.stellamarra.com) and Persian vocalist Hamed Nikpay
(http://www.hamednikpay.com). He has studied with oud master Naseer
Shamma and has recorded and performed with Ross Daly. He has toured with
the Mevlevi Dervish (Sufi) Order of America and continues to participate in
Turkish ceremonial and devotional gatherings around the country.
Peter Jaques (http://www.huzzam.com) has been a fixture of the Bay Area Near
Eastern music scene since 1995. His style combines traditional Turkish, Greek, &
Balkan Rom styles with his own, deeply soulful approach. He performs
principally on the Bb clarinet & trumpet, as well as Turkish G clarinet, alto
saxophone, & Egyptian nay (reed flute). Peter also directs the Brass Menažeri
Balkan Brass Band (http://www.brassmenazeri.com), and plays with Dan
Cantrell's Megaband (http://www.bellowhead.com), Stellamara, a Middleeastern/Balkan/world fusion ensemble (http://www.stellamara.com), and
Gamelan X, a hybrid processional gamelan orchestra based on traditional
Balinese baleganjur (http://www.gamelanx.com)