Sonia Connolly

One of the women in the Balkan community choir signed up to sing at the local farmer's market, and invited people to show up. Totally casual and disorganized, but it turned out well. About eight of us showed up (I was busy singing and didn't count, and people left and arrived at different times.) Everyone proposed songs at the same time and we all paged through our music. I had just alphabetized mine in its folder, but it still takes time to find things, and of course now I have to alphabetize it all over again.

We did manage to choose songs, and I awkwardly blew into my pitch pipe for starting notes, and we didn't even discuss who was singing which part, and we sounded pretty good. It was so casual that I wasn't even nervous about performing. It felt more like a private singing gathering that some people happened to hear.

It was a cool foggy day, so the market was uncrowded, and several small children watched us with pleased attention. Adults applauded, and even left money in the hat one of us put out.

Then there was an argument about what to do with $32.70 from the hat, and we ended up donating it to a homeless services center nearby, since there's an encampment right by the market. I bought my veggies and fruit for the week, and then sat with a few folks as they ate lunch and chatted.

Two lovely stories containing mutual support.

Saints Support Group and Coffee Hour by keita52 . A delightful modern-times AU for the Chalion Saga by Lois McMaster Bujold. Contains kindness and a noisy cat.

Endless Roads to Travel, Endless Lives to Live by snacky . "Three adventures Polly Plummer never had, and two she gave to others." AU for Narnia after The Magician's Nephew.

(Dunno what happened to the little AO3 icon, but the usernames are correctly linking to AO3 profiles.)

Bonus video: Best of Favorite Dance Moves (2024) by Ed People. This amazing guy goes around learning dance moves from dancers of many nationalities. The dancers are good teachers, too. This one includes a snippet of a Serbian Kolo, amidst lots of other dances that look a lot more difficult to me. Full of joyful energy.

Since I made this list for someone, here are a bunch of Georgian songbooks I have collected over the years.
99 Georgian Songs by Edisher Garakanidze, Joseph Jordania, and others. As far as I know the only way to get this is to get it shipped from Wales, which is expensive, but it's a great resource. Comes with a CD of part tracks that I did not find useful.
Songbook Georgia by Tamar Buadze. This one is great too, and it is available in the US, although the language transliteration they use is different from the usual, it's more like Turkish. Tamar Buadze is the leader of Tutarchela. Comes with Tutarchela source recordings.
Supra! A Feast of Georgian Song by Carl Linich Includes CD
Forged in Fire, by Zedashe via Village Harmony Digital download, includes mp3s of Zedashe performing.
Georgian Folk Songs I, Village Harmony Digital download, includes mp3s.
Georgian Sacred Chorales, Village Harmony Digital download, includes mp3s.

Alazani.ge Treasure trove of downloadable Georgian folk music. Over on the right, choose ALL for tracks, and then you can search for songs, listen, and download. Spelling is idiosyncratic. You can also click Choirs on the left and browse around. For example, Tutarchela is fabulous. Some of the songs have words linked under Text, in the Georgian script, which you can transliterate at translit.cc.

Also, places to look for lyrics online
Songbat Lyrics Archive Lily Storm's site. Gives a warning about not being a private connection, but it's safe to view.
Hopp-Zwei-Drei Not so much Georgian, but lots of Balkan, since it's songs that have been used for folk dances. Mostly lyrics, some scores.
Folkloretänz Noten. This one has scores. Also more Balkan, although I did find a score for Heyamoli under Turkish/Laz.

I mentioned a while back that I've been playing piano again. I'm still at it, practicing for 10-15 minutes every day or every other day.

The book I'm learning from is Mastering Music Level 1A, Versatile Piano Studies for Older Beginners by Janet Vogt. It's well put together to gradually teach concepts with musically interesting pieces. I'm working on the last few pieces in that one, and I have 1B waiting for when I'm ready. I'm moving through it slowly, trying to learn the physical skills to hit the right keys, make the volume gradually get louder or softer, slur notes together, and play chords. Not to mention reading the music.

I had "What Every Pianist Needs to Know About the Body" by Thomas Mark et. al. for years, but never read it. Partly because the similar book for singers was so dense and technical. I sold it to Powells when I moved. But I got a copy recently via interlibrary loan, and it turns out to be very readable and useful. I might re-buy a copy to have it for reference. I reviewed it at more length.

What Every Pianist Needs to Know About the Body video also by Thomas Mark. This two hour video is a great companion to the book. I also had a copy of this and never watched it, so I was delighted to find the whole thing on the Internet Archive. Highly recommended if you're interested in good body mechanics.

Looking back in my journal about Larry Gordon led me to this post, April 2023 about a video I was searching for, and the gorgeous Songs Stay Sung.

Here's Zoe Mulford and Windborne, because it is more relevant than ever. It made me cry, in a good way. I hope it resonates for you, too. "Love stays loved, and song stay sung."



I searched again for the video I'd been looking for then, 'child musicians from around the world joint video' and it was the first hit. Check out the young drummer, and all these other amazing young musicians and dancers.



And a similar joint video of adults in Turkey playing Hayde Gidelum in outdoor locations around the country. At the end it says they were inspired by playingforchange.com, who made the previous video.


And a cool making of video for that last one, with out takes.

5. I am proud of my knowledge and skill at Balkan folk dancing. This is less complicated than feeling proud of singing. I was lucky to be introduced to folk dancing as a child, both in terms of acquiring skills young, and in terms of it being a life-saving anchor to community. Since then I've joyfully put in the hours of practice and hours of volunteer service running groups and festivals, and I am proud of all of that. I'm proud of teaching others and bringing them into the community and showing them how to lead.

Here I am summoned to lead Bulgarian dance Bičak at the 2024 Hoolyeh Reunion and Friends party in Corvallis. This one is leader-called, which means not only remembering all the steps and doing them in rhythm, but listening to the music and deciding when to switch to the next one. ( Leading Bičak at Hoolyeh )

Kitka sings this lovely Bulgarian song Son Mi Dojde (video link). The video notes state that they learned it from Le Mystere des Voix Bulgares in 1988.

I was asked if I had a Bulgarian source recording. I didn't have it in my large stash of folk recordings, and a general search online didn't turn up that version at all. Kvartet Bulgarka Junior did record a similar version (video link).

I got puzzled, and kept digging. Discogs.org, a comprehensive listing of old album contents, didn't list the song for Mystere des Voix Bulgares, but did list this likely looking album by Orchestra of the Bulgarian Television and Radio Folk Song Ensemble, which is their precursor. Balkanton published it as BHA 565.

I looked on archive.org to see if someone had uploaded this album. Sadly no, but while searching on the Balkanton number I did stumble across this treasure trove of rar archives of old Bulgarian recordings, and the odd Macedonian and Georgian songs too. It helps to read Cyrillic, and to have downloaded a rar decoding utility. The albums come from https://bulgarian-folk-treasure.blogspot.com .

I paused for thought, and then wrote to a folk dance teacher who helped me with another obscure album in the past. Yes, he had the album, and kindly sent me an mp3 of the source recording the next morning. Elapsed time from request to forwarding the recording, a little less than 24 hours.

I'm proud of knowing how and where to dig for information, and proud of continuing to think of new avenues when I get blocked. I use that a lot in my programming work, too. Back when I first got back into Balkan music after a long hiatus, I could tell it was important to me because I would keep digging for more information online, and get excited about what I found. Nowadays general search is getting less and less useful, but knowing specific places to search is still fruitful.

ETA: I uploaded the recording to dropbox: feel free to listen and download.

A friend sent me a link to this movie even knowing that I don't usually watch things, and I started watching it knowing that 40 minutes is longer than I'm usually willing to sit through videos. I watched the entire thing, crying the whole time at the loving way these people go about their work. The Last Repair Shop.

Probably everyone else has already seen it since it won the Oscar for best documentary short for the 2024 Academy Awards, but just in case you haven't, it is well worth 40 minutes of your life and a lot of tears at the sheer kindness of the people in it.

My cousin sent me a link to Tarta Relena: Tiny Desk x globalFEST 2024 right when I was busy putting a complicated score into MuseScore and didn't have time to stop and listen to anything - but these two women singing together in harmony in several languages is exactly my kind of music and I watched the whole 20 minutes.

I also recently watched all 14 minutes of Examined Life - Judith Butler talks with Sunaura Taylor, as recommended by jesse_the_k. I watched it for their discussion of the social model of disability (with bonus thrifting), for glimpses of San Francisco, and for celebrating a disabled person belonging out for a walk and buying a sweater. I didn't know San Francisco is (one of) the most accessible cities in the world. I moved here as a young adult and took the curb cuts, etc. as the right and proper way for a city to be.

Additional links in comments, thanks jesse_the_k!
Smithsonian article on the history of activism for curb cuts by disabled folks by Julie Peterson.

Kris Bowers and Ben Proudfoot on Their Short Documentary ‘The Last Repair Shop’ by Valentina Valentini

Passing this announcement along, slightly updated based on my experience.

Hatikvah Music is going out of business after 35 years. They are offering lowered prices on thousands of CDs and some DVDs of klezmer, Yiddish, Israeli, Ladino, Mizrachi, and children's music.
• Go to http://hatikvahmusic.com/
• Browse with the index, or use the search box at the bottom of each page.
• Click on each item that interests you and write down the artist's name and five digit "order number."
• Do NOT click "submit order" because that will not work. Write Klezcorner@aol.com. Please include a phone number, as Simon has trouble typing.
• Simon Rutberg will get back to you by phone with prices and you can then choose what to order.

I ordered CDs of music I grew up with (The Parvarim, Flory Jagoda, Theodore Bikel) and they arrived quickly. Simon was chatty in our phone conversation, so allow some time for that. I wish I had known about the place before I saw the closing announcement! Maybe I could have visited when it was a brick and mortar store in LA.

Simon sent me a couple of articles about the store: Music to Stir the 'Jewish Soul' (Quotes in original title, not sure what that's about!) and Sephardic Survey.

Bonus gorgeous slow Sephardic rendition of Maos Tzur via zdenka.

I love the sheer joy and loving attention between Malcolm Dalglish and the fiddler at the beginning, not to mention the rhythmic wizardry.