Medna Roso from PJEV - Kit Downes - Hayden Chisholm
"Medna Roso" is a glorious recording featuring BBC Jazz Award-winning and Mercury nominated artist Kit Downes on organ, New Zealand saxophonist Hayden Chisholm – known for his distinct microtonal tuning system – contributing on alto saxophone, shruti box, analogue synthesizer, throat singing, and vocals from PJEV, a female a cappella vocal quintet from the Balkans, that preserves and cherishes traditional vocal music from Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Poder Judicial afianza operación de los Juzgados en línea
#EnContrasteVeracruz #PJEV
• Con la ayuda de herramientas tecnológicas se dirimen conflictos reduciendo costos y desplazamientos a instalaciones judiciales en todo el territorio estatalXalapa, Ver.- Durante el primer tercio del año, que comprende de enero a abril, el Poder Judicial del Estado de Veracruz registró un incremento significativo en el número de juicios en línea, lo que representa un…
Poder Judicial de Veracruz acredita manejo responsable de recursos federales en 2024
#EnContrasteVeracruz #PJEV
Xalapa, Ver.- El Poder Judicial del Estado de Veracruz administró de manera eficiente, transparente y con estricto apego a la legalidad los recursos federales correspondientes al ejercicio fiscal 2024, sin registrar observaciones por presunto daño patrimonial.
De acuerdo con el Informe de Resultados de la Fiscalización Superior de la Cuenta Pública 2024, emitido por…
The pipe organ is one of music’s most spiritual sounds. It spans enormous range, from flute-into-piccolo trills at the high end to gut-swirling foghorn blasts at the low. If you grew up in a church that had one — I did — the pipe organ probably sounds the way you imagine god sounding: enveloping, all-forgiving, luminous and full of power. All of which is to say that it is a pretty important piece of Medna Roso, but not, rather surprisingly, not an all-consuming or overwhelming piece. This live performance brings together the surging power of pipe organ with haunted threads of saxophone and the buzzing, close harmonies and dissonances of a female a capella vocal quintet from Zagreb.
The disc presents a live performance in Cologne, Germany in 2021, which British jazz and classical keyboardist Kit Downes played the massive pipe organ at the Agneskirche, while New Zealand reedist Hayden Chisholm added saxophone, shruti box, analogue synthesizer and throat singing. PJEV — that is, a collective comprised of five women singers from the Balkans — joined in the haunting, minor-key songs of their region. This is a remarkable, stirring piece of work that works right into your bones.
The concert intersperses traditional songs from Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia sung in their original languages with freeform instrumental interludes. The songs put the very human sound of longing, remembering, mourning and celebrating at the forefront; the instrumental breaks suggest a large-scale spiritual and historical context. “Što si setna, nevesela,” a Serbian song from Štrpce village in Kosovo whose title means something like “Why are you unhappy?” begins with a single voice against a silvery vibration. The melody winds sinuously in and among notes, the Eastern influence prominent in the singer’s flickering, note-shifting lament. The group sings together afterwards in the Serbian song, “Oj djevojko, janje umiliato” (“Oh the little lamb,” roughly), largely in strong, brash unison, but with sudden clashing dissonances and shadowy harmonies. The primal way in which their voices challenge and support each other is extremely moving.
The interludes bring pipe organ and saxophone up to the front, the sax flitting meditatively against long surging tones of organ. In “Interlude III” Chisolm’s tones fade out as Downes erupts in roiling, obliterating chords, and then you hear the sax again in an almost human cry atop it. In “IV” breathy tones melt into lingering auras of organ sound. The music takes shape out of a boiling stew of potential.
There is likely much to learn about these spectral melodies — where they come from, what their history might be, how they differ from other songs from the next region over or a hundred miles away. The disc includes extensive notes and translated lyrics if you want to delve into the specifics. And yet, you could, equally, just sit and take in the music, which is strident and spiritual, awe-awakening and mysterious, all by itself.
