WGBH - Folk Music RSS

Local School for the Blind Celebrates Doc Watson's Life

Wed, 30 May 2012 14:23 PM +0000

May 30, 2012

Doc Watson performs at the 2009 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival on May 1, 2009. (Rick Diamond/Staff/Getty Images Entertainment)

BOSTON — Legendary guitar musician Doc Watson passed away Tuesday at the age of 89. Watson, who lost his sight when he was a baby, was an inspiration to many musicians, but particularly those in the blind community. And his music resonates with one local institution — the Perkins School for the Blind.

"There’s that list of famous blind musicians that we all know and love and Doc Watson is definitely one of them,” said Robert Hair, education director of the Perkins Lower School. Wednesday morning, the school paid tribute to Watson by playing his music and talking about his accomplishments.

“Blind kids in particular, I think, really do enjoy music and gravitate towards it," Hair said. "And of course having role models like Doc Watson and Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles is really meaningful to these kids. So when they hear something like Doc Watson with this sort of soulful folk picking on the guitar and singing, it really says something to the kids and they really can get into that.”

Hair added that although they are fortunate to be able to listen to a recording of Doc Watson any time, the musician will be missed.

Judy Collins: Ready to Change the World

Mon, 07 May 2012 00:40 AM +0000

May 7, 2012

Judy Collins performs at Joe's Pub's 10th Anniversary Gala and tribute to her at the Public Theater in New York, 2008. (AP Photo/Henny Ray Abrams)

BOSTON — Judy Collins turned music on its head with her incomparable voice and those lyrics that draped our country during the turbulent 60's. But the turbulence was also personal. In her new memoir, she describes herself as "a working alcoholic."

Another turn was as an author who's completed six books including her latest, “Sweet Judy Blue Eyes: My Life in Music.”

The legendary folk artist will be at Sanders Theatre this Tuesday night with authors Alice Hoffman, Sue Miller and Tom Perrotta, for a night of musical and literary performance. The event will benefit the Hoffman Breast Center at Mount Auburn Hospital.

WGBH Radio’s Jordan Weinstein caught up with Judy Collins and asked her to read a brief passage from her latest memoir.

COLLINS: ‘It was a time of undeniable destructiveness as the war raged and the young trashed their bodies and their lives, with the drugs many of us thought were so cool. I remember singing in the dusk of summer, the audience primed with wine, organic cheese and fruit for a long night of music. I put fresh flowers in my hair and through the lace of my Mexican wedding dress. I’d bought a full length leather vest that had roses painted on it, and leather bottoms were stitched to my Levi’s. I wore my hair straight and threw my head back. We were all free, all of us, to be, to love, to live in a world different from the one our parents had inhabited. We were going full steam ahead and yet we floated like water lilies on a pond, dreaming of a billion suns.’

WEINSTEIN: That’s a beautiful passage. Do you feel in retrospect that the ‘60s and the whole anti-war movement and the other cultural movements that were going on were the primary influences in shaping your life and your songs?

COLLINS: I think my life was shaped when I was born in 1939 into a fantastic, complicated, dysfunctional, beautiful family of music and of challenge. You know, my father was blind from the age of 4 and he was an extraordinary man--very adventurous, very determined to do things his way. He was very determined to challenge the politics and the methods of the moment. We were raised to be activists in my family, so that’s where it all began.

Of course as I moved into the ‘60s, I was well prepared. It was like packing your lunch to go on a hike. I was packed and I was ready to change the world. Then I was primed by that combination of Rodgers and Hart and Dylan Thomas and folk music that I’d begun to hear in Denver and the Denver Folklore Center and up on Lookout Mountain sung by Lingo the Drifter. I also played classical music for a dozen years and performed with an orchestra. I was prepared for this job that I do and this life that I lead. And also to be an activist, that was certainly in my bones.

WEINSTEIN: In your memoir, you are very open about your life and you have been very open about your struggle with alcoholism.

COLLINS: I felt it was very important to describe and to illuminate, illustrate, the life of a working alcoholic, the life of an active, working, “showing up” alcoholic. Being successful is very, very difficult to do. Looking back, of course, upon it as I wrote, I couldn’t believe that I was able to do that for 23 years: make records, become a top Grammy and Billboard charting artist, and show up for my shows. I was not the crash-and-burn type. I was somehow given a psyche or physical stamina to hold up and do the work that I had to do in addition to struggling with that disease. And I wanted to show what that was like. It was very hard work.

WEINSTEIN: Your upcoming concert at Sanders Theatre in Cambridge is a benefit for the Hoffman Breast Center at Mount Auburn Hospital, and I’m wondering if you were taken up in the controversy surrounding the decision to stop funding Planned Parenthood that was made by the Susan B. Komen for the Cure organization.

COLLINS: I wasn’t taken up in it. I was appalled by their actions, and I think it spoke to an underlying problem with that organization which they quickly began to try to cover up in the ways that were open to them. I mean, they gave the money back and some people were fired. I don’t think it was news to many people that the Komen group was not, let’s say, of the same mind that many of the rest of us are. But I do think it turned out to be somewhat of a triumph for the women’s issues and for the things that we care deeply about, which are the freedom to make decisions about our own bodies, our own lives, and to get the kind of medical care that we all need.

Judy Collins appears at the Sanders Theatre in Cambridge this Tuesday, May 8.

How Cambridge Brought Back Folk Music

Wed, 11 Apr 2012 17:50 PM +0000

April 11, 2012

Legendary American folk singer Tom Rush performs Drift Away in the Greater Boston studio.

BOSTON — Folk music legend Tom Rush is in town is to celebrate the Cambridge-based club where he and others like Judy Collins and Joan Baez began their musical careers. Their stories are told in For the Love of the Music, a new documentary premiering at the Boston International Film Festival next week.

The club was intended to be a Parisian-like coffeehouse, featuring jazz music on the far reaches of Harvard Square. That was how two Brandeis students envisioned the scene when they opened Club 47 on Palmer Street in 1958. (Now home of the non-profit arts program Passim.)

For the Love of the Music charts the evolution of Club 47 from a Jazz oasis to a launching pad for the American folk music revival, especially with the arrival of one then-unknown Joan Baez. Club owner Joyce Chopra recalls the first time the legendary folk singer came to “47”.

“To expect nothing and to have this rather ordinary looking young person walk in and open her mouth to start to sing is an amazing experience; a once in a lifetime experience,” she said.

“That was just coming out of the jazz era and the women who ran 47 took a risk,” recalls Baez. “Instead of having Jazz, I guess one night a week they had folk music. And that’s where I really got started, in my opinion.”

Baez was hired for the club’s slow nights and paid all of ten dollars. A vibrant folk scene briskly developed and Club 47 became fertile ground for singers like Tom Rush, Taj Mahal, Judy Collins, Bob Dylan and many others.

Grammy-award winning bluegrass singer Peter Rowan recalls learning from the giants in the early days. “First night, I heard Erik von Schmidt playing the Blues. Next night, my mother dropped me off and I heard Jackie Washington, then the next night I heard Tom Rush.”

Building upon 30 interviews, performances, old recordings and never-before-seen photographs, the film fully documents Club 47’s pivotal role in folk music’s renewed popularity, and how it embraced the anti-war and civil rights movements before the revival peaked in the mid-60s.

Carole King, From Co-Sine To Chart Topper

Wed, 11 Apr 2012 13:31 PM +0000

Singer-songwriter Carole King started young: She was just 15 when she founded a doo-wop group with her high school classmates. The act never took off, but King eventually became one of the biggest-selling artists of all time. She tells the story of her career so far in a new memoir, A Natural Woman.

Brian O'Donovan Pays Tribute to John McGann

Mon, 09 Apr 2012 12:12 PM +0000

April 7, 2012

John McGann/Facebook

On April 6, musician John McGann passed away unexpectedly, leaving behind a wife and young daughter. He was known in the Irish, bluegrass and jazz worlds locally and abroad, and taught at the Berklee College of Music. The Cantab Lounge in Cambridge will host a special tribute to McGann on April 10.

Hear a tribute to McGann from this week's A Celtic Sojourn

What Brian O'Donovan had to say about John McGann....

I first met John at a party at Johnny Cunningham’s flat in Newton in the late '80s, and knew him subsequently as one of the best accompanists of trad. music in the area, and just a great guy to be around. But it wasn’t until my daughter Aoife enrolled as the New England Conservatory and immersed herself in the burgeoning young roots music scene here that I became aware of John’s almost absurd range of musical talents.

Since that time, what I often refer to as a "genius cluster" of young musicians has been drawn to Boston, initially by the masters of tradition who were here: Seamus Connolly, Matt Glaser, Hankus Netsky, Berklee itself, Ran Blake, Club Passim, broadening attitudes at the conservatories, to name just a small few. Often understated and in the background but omnipresent: John McGann.

His virtuosity on so many instruments, his encyclopedic knowledge of so many genres (and sub-genres), his ability to teach and draw young people in, and what I will remember most — his generosity of spirit — became a crucial part of what in the future will be written about as a truly special period and a special place, indeed, for music; Irish, Appalachian, Cape Breton, bluegrass, jazz and everything in between.

There is a hole in the heart of Boston music.

John's educational philosophy in action ...

And John on stage, playing a 10-string fanned-fret mandolin

The Night is But a Pup!

Thu, 15 Mar 2012 17:53 PM +0000

March 14, 2012

BOSTON — Following an evening of music by The Chieftains and The Low Anthem, guests and performers gathered to celebrate 50 years of great traditional Irish music and the new collaborations on The Chieftains latest album Voice of Ages.

While on a world tour celebrating 50 years as one of the most celebrated traditional Irish bands in history, The Chieftains stopped by WGBH's Fraser Studio to share some tunes and meet with fans and members of the WGBH Celtic Club.

Great local beer for the event came from Watch City Brewery in Waltham, who provided an E.S.B and an Irish Red Ale, while the Guinness came from The Burren in Somerville.

You haven't missed your chance to hear live Irish music — both new and traditional —in Boston this week. Tickets are still available for A St. Patrick's Day Celtic Sojourn, appearing at the Zeiterion Theater in New Bedford and at the Sanders Theaters in Cambridge. Performers include Susan McKeown, The Bee Eaters, Jeremy Kittel , Michael Brunnock and many more.

You Don't Have to be Irish to Enjoy Celtic Music

Thu, 15 Mar 2012 16:48 PM +0000

March 14, 2012

89.7 FM WGBH radio host Brian O'Donovan

BOSTON — It’s a green week here at WGBH, where we’ve enjoyed a visit from The Chieftains and we're gearing up for performances from the likes of Susan McKeown, The Bee Eaters, Jeremy Kittel and more great musicians at this year’s A St. Patrick’s Day Sojourn. (Performances are on March 17 in New Bedford and March 24 in Cambridge. Get tickets and info.)

Despite a very busy schedule, Brian O’Donovan, host of the weekly radio show A Celtic Sojourn, took a minute to talk with us about his work.

Q: You’ve done live Celtic Sojourn events now for almost a decade. Who is your primary audience? Is it Boston's Irish community?

O’Donovan: We’ve been doing A Christmas Celtic Sojourn longer than we’ve done the St. Patrick’s Day events, downtown at the Cutler Majestic Theater, and that show has been called one of the biggest Jewish-Christmas events in town! Seriously, this music connects with all kinds of people. Of course the local Irish community values the Sojourn events highly, but we get notes and emails from all kinds of people telling us how much they love the broadcasts and the live performances. I even received a note once from an African-American living in Tokyo. He thanked me for the Celtic Sojourn podcast and told me, “The music reminds me of home.”

We don’t just deliver the traditional Irish tunes. We make a point of bringing up new, unheard-of artists, and our audience gets that. They trust us when we tell them, “Here’s someone you’ll really love.” You don’t have to have a Celtic heritage to enjoy really good music.

Q: During the Chieftain’s performance this week in WGBH’s Fraser Studio, you told them you were listening to rock-n-roll in the 60s, but when you heard the tune “Trip to Sligo” on their third album, you were convinced you had been introduced to your own music. How is it different from rock?

Listen to Trip to Sligo

It’s not so different, really. The Chieftains are in part responsible for making traditional Irish music appealing to young people 50 years ago. They took a very structured form of folk music and refreshed it with a young perspective. For those of us looking to England and America for our music, the new stuff the Chieftains were doing introduced us back to the rich music all around us in Ireland. They do the same thing today, introducing new generations to Irish music by blending their style with collaborators like The Low Anthem and Bon Iver.

Q: You complimented Don Cuddy for a recent article on the upcoming St. Patrick’s Day Celtic Sojourn by saying, “He really gets what we are trying to achieve at WGBH.” What do you mean?

Of course we want our Celtic Sojourn broadcasts and events to entertain, but our audience is smart and educated. They want more from us. As I said before, they trust us to give them more. They want to learn about musicians I’ve discovered, but they’ve never heard of. They want to know the context of the music—like what it means that a tune is Celtic, but not necessarily Irish. They even appreciate it when we explain the language and the meaning behind some of the lyrics. There was a tune the Chieftains played—School Days Over—and when I introduced it with Paddy Moloney, the way we explained that the song is about child labor, when children had to leave school and enter the mines to make a living, well, I know the audience really values context like that. They appreciate that kind of richness.

Listen to School Days Over

As Chieftain’s leader Paddy Moloney would shout at the end of a good session: “Mighty!”

SEE ALSO: The Chieftains and Jeff White's train medley (VIDEO)

A Celtic Sojourn 3/10/2012

Wed, 14 Mar 2012 13:55 PM +0000

On this edition of the program: Cathy Jordan's new album All the Way Home (Photo by Peter Cra) as well as Hannah Reid, Sara McQuaid, Ryan McGiver and many others.

Celebrating the Sounds of St. Patrick's Day

Wed, 14 Mar 2012 12:05 PM +0000

March 12, 2012

Listen to the entire Chieftains and The Low Anthem performance:

BOSTON — During a world tour celebrating 50 years as one of the most celebrated traditional Irish bands in history, The Chieftains stopped by WGBH's Fraser Studio to share some tunes and have a few beers with fans and members of the WGBH Celtic Club.

Accompanying the legendary group were several other talents, including bluegrass icons Jeff White and Deanie Richardson, celebrated Scottish vocalist Alyth McCormack and the Rhode Island-based band Low Anthem, who also collaborated with The Chieftains on their new album Voice of Ages.

During the performance, Paddy Moloney of the Chieftans shared a recorded phone call he had with Irish-American astronaut Cady Coleman, currently serving on the International Space Station. To celebrate St. Patrick's Day, Coleman played a tune for Paddy on a pennywhistle he had loaned her to take along some Irish tradition into space.

Before the last number for the evening, Moloney called out for anyone to join in, saying "If you have a mouth organ or you just want to stand on your head, this is your big moment." Each musician took a solo moment in which to express their own version of the melody, and Tommy McCarthy, co-owner of Somerville pub The Burren, joined in to show he can turn a phrase on his fiddle.

You haven't missed your chance to hear live Irish music — both new and traditional — in Boston this week. Tickets are still available for A St. Patrick's Day Celtic Sojourn, appearing at the Zeiterion Theater in New Bedford on March 17 and at the Sanders Theaters in Cambridge on March 24. Performers include Susan McKeown, The Bee Eaters, Jeremy Kittel , Michael Brunnock and many more.

Jared Bowen's Arts Ahead: Marilyn, Eichmann And A Fiddle Choir

Fri, 02 Dec 2011 14:31 PM +0000

Dec. 2, 2011

BOSTON — What to do this weekend? Jared Bowen talks about the area's hottest arts events with WGBH "Morning Edition" host Bob Seay. This week, he's excited about "My Week With Marilyn," the new play "Captors" and the eclectic all-string group Childsplay puts on its annual series of concerts.

June 18: Ewan MacColl

Tue, 21 Jun 2011 13:42 PM +0000

Hear the poltical songs of Britsh folk legend, Ewan MacColl.

Soundtrack To A Revolution

Mon, 09 May 2011 09:58 AM +0000

The story of the American civil rights movement is told through its powerful music -- the freedom songs that protesters sang on picket lines, in mass meetings, in police wagons, and in jail cells as they fought for justice and equality.

Celebrating Bart�k

Fri, 11 Mar 2011 21:06 PM +0000

During this 130th anniversary year of the birth of Béla Bartók (born March 25, 1881), 99.5 All Classical celebrates the groundbreaking Hungarian composer with a series of on demand performances and features.

New England Conservatory Philharmonia
The Concerto for Orchestra, one of Béla Bartók's most enduring and popular masterpieces, was commissioned by conductor Serge Koussevitzky and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Performed for the first time in December 1944, it remains a regular fixture on orchestra programs around the world, and on March 9, 2011, Benjamin Zander conducted a performance at New England Conservatory's Jordan Hall, with the NEC Philharmonia.
Listen On Demand

Discovery Ensemble
Courtney Lewis conducts one of Boston's most exciting orchestras, Discovery Ensemble, in Bartók's kaleidoscopic Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta. 99.5 All Classical host Brian McCreath talks with Lewis about the piece, with a walk-through of each of the movements, all recorded in 99.5 All Classical's Fraser Performance Studio.

Listen On Demand

Duke Bluebeard's Castle
In 1911, Bartók completed a one-act opera based on Charle Perrault's French fairy tale "Bluebeard," further revising it before its first performance in Budapest in 1918. A dark, pyschologically rich piece, Brian Bell offers a guided tour.
(image: Gustave Doré's Barbe Bleue, courtesy Wikimedia Commons)

Hear a guided tour at Backstage with Brian Bell

Takács Quartet, Muzsikás, and Márta Sebestyén
One of the premiere string quartets on today's concert stages joins forces with a legendary Hungarian folk ensemble and equally legendary Hungarian folk singer to explore the roots of Bartók's music.

Listen On Demand

Pianist Hung-Kuan Chen
Recorded in 2008 in 99.5 All Classical's Fraser Performance Studio, Hung-Kuan Chen performs a piece that combines Bartók's fascination with folk music and his evolving perspective of the piano as a percussion instrument, the Out of Doors Suite, in a program that also includes music by Brahms and Ravel.

Listen On Demand

Violinist Augustin Hadelich
Recorded in 2008 in 99.5 All Classical's Fraser Performance Studio, Augustin Hadelich performs Bartók's Sonata for solo violin, Sz. 117.

Listen On Demand

Violinist Lara St. John and Pianist Anton Kuerti at the Montreal Chamber Music Festival
Recorded on May 14, 2009, at St. James Church during the Montreal Chamber Music Festival, Lara St. John and Anton Kuerti perform Bartók's Rhapsody No. 2, Sz. 89, BB 96, written in 1928, part of a program that also includes music by Beethoven, Franck, Hindson, Ravel, and Liszt.

Listen On Demand

The Bart�k Experience

Thu, 10 Mar 2011 23:11 PM +0000

The Takács Quartet, folk string band Muzsikás, and Hungarian folk singer Márta Sebestyén join forces for a concert that digs into the roots of Bartók's musical personality. Listen below.

When I was in high school, I joined a youth orchestra at just the right time: in the year of a European tour! It was my first time to play with anything like a real orchestra, and the fact that our year would culminate in a trip to Romania and Hungary, with a few days in Vienna to cap it off, only sweetened what already seemed like a pretty exciting prospect.

And among the pieces of music we took with us was the Viola Concerto by Béla Bartók (left). In comparison to the other music on our programs - Howard Hanson's Symphony No. 2, Aaron Copland's Billy the Kid, Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2 - it positively crackled with other-world-ness in my 17-year-old ears.

But what is that other world? It's not Bartók's alone; he would tell you that himself, I imagine. There are those composers who invent sound worlds out of thin air, but the music Bartók wrote has, at its core, the music of the countryside, painstakingly collected by visiting the villages of Hungary and Romania with unbelievably cumbersome and primitive recording equipment.

That monumental effort paid off. Ultimately, his musical creations take that DNA to places only he could have constructed.

In November 2008, thanks to the Celebrity Series of Boston, we had the chance here in Boston to experience the connections between Bartók's work and its spiritual (and sometimes actual) source material in a fiery, colorful, visceral way. The Takács Quartet, originally from Hungary, now based in Colorado, collaborated with the Hungarian folk band Muzsikás and folk singer Márta Sebestyén for a fascinating concert that placed Bartók's concert music side by side with examples of the music he collected in the villages of Hungary and Romania.

The results are exhilarating.

After that trip to Hungary as a teenager, I had an intense desire to return to Budapest. It had been my first trip abroad, our time in Hungary only lasted a few days, and it was a chaperoned group tour in a Communist country. Not too much flexibilty to explore, as you can imagine...

But something about the place and the music had grabbed me and wouldn't let go. I finally got the chance to return last spring, as part of a WGBH LearningTour, and I wasn't disappointed. Budapest is an even more beautiful city now than it was under the Communist regime (no surprise there, I suppose).

Serendipitously, we had the chance to attend a concert honoring Bartók on the anniversary of his birth, which took place at the gorgeous concert hall that bears his name (right).

To be honest, it wasn't the most polished concert. With a combination of professional, semi-professional, and student groups, the results were always going to be mixed. But one thing was abundantly clear: Bartók's music is held very close to the hearts of the people of Hungary. The soulfulness with which the performance unfolded was striking, and I ended up feeling like the fortunate interloper, happy to have had the chance to share that evening with the people of Budapest.

Now you can share the evening of November 16, 2008, when that soulfulness found a different kind of expression here in Boston. In two parts below, the Takács Quartet, Muzsikás, and Márta Sebestyén celebrate Bartók and Hungary.

Listen to Part 1 of the concert:
(Takács Quartet pictured, photo by Ellen Appel)

1. Szászcsávási táncok (Dances from Transylvania);
Muzsikás: string band

2. Pásztornóták hosszúfurulyán (Long Flute Melodies)
Péter Éri, long flute; Márta Sebestyén, vocals

3. Dunántúli ugrós és friss (Transdanubian Ugros and fast Csardas);
Muzsikás: string band

4. Béla Bartók: String Quartet No. 4, Sz. 91
I. Allegro; Takás Quartet
Moldvai övestánc (Dance Music of Moldavia); Muzsikás, flute, lute, drum

II. Prestissimo, con sordino; Takács Quartet
Fújnak a fellegek (Peacock Melody); Márta Sebestyén, vocals

III. Non troppo lento; Takákcs Quartet
Gyimesi táncok (Dances of Gyimes); Muzsikás, violin, gardon

IV. Allegretto pizzicato; Takács Quartet
V. Allegro molto; Takács Quartet

Listen to Part 2 of the concert:
(Muzsikás pictured, photo by Béla Kása)

1. Béla Bartók: Violin Duos, with source tunes
Toronáli táncok (Dances of Torontál); Muzsikás; violins, gardon
Violin Duo No. 44; Mihály Sipos and Károly Schranz
Pejparipam rezpatkója (the shoe of my horse)
Violin Duo No. 28; Mihály Sipos and Károly Schranz
Jocul Barbatesc; Márta Sebestyén, vocals
Violin Duo No. 32; Mihály Sipos and Károly Schranz

2. Béla Bartók: Sonatina (trans. by Endre Gertler) with traditional tunes
Dudautánzás énekhangon (Vocal imitation of the bagpipes); Márta Sebestyén, vocals
Bagpipes; Takács Quartet
Bear Dance; Takács Quartet
Gyimesi medvetánc és Héjsza (Bear dance from Gyimes); Muzsikás: vioin, gardon

3. Pakulár ballada (Ballad of the murdered shepherd)Muzsikás; flute, violin; Márta Sebestyén, vocals

4. Béla Bartók: Romanian Folk Dances (trans. for strings by Arthur Millner) with source tunes

Bota és Invertita (Bota and Invertita); Muzsikás: string band
I. Joc cu bata (Dance with Sticks); Takács Quartet
II. Braul (Waistband Dance); Takács Quartet
Pe loc (Pe Loc); Peter Éri: flute
III. Pe Loc (Stamping Dance); Takács Quartet
IV. Buciumeana (Hornpipe Dance)
V. Poarca Romaneasca (Romanian Polka); Takács Quartet
Méhkeréki táncok (Dances of Méhkerék); Muzsikás; strings band
VI. Maruntel (Quick Dance); Takács Quartet and Muzsikás

5. Encores

Takács Quartet:
Edward Dusinberre, violin
Károly Schranz, violin
Geraldine Walther, viola
András Fejér, cello

Muzsikás:
Mihealt Sipos, violin
László Porteleki, violin, tamboura, lute
Péter Éri, viola, flutes, guitar
Dániel Hamar, bass, gardon, drum

Márta Sebestyén, vocals

Live from the Lowell Folk Festival 7/24/10

Wed, 25 Aug 2010 16:31 PM +0000

Continuing a WGBH tradition, Brian O'Donovan hosts music from Boarding House Park in Lowell, MA during the Lowell Folk Festival.

Center Stage

Tue, 24 Aug 2010 13:34 PM +0000

Watch Center Stage with Jared Bowen, and see what other fans of the program are saying.

Adventures of Spice Girl: Tracking Down the Mind-Opening Za'Atar

Thu, 12 Aug 2010 15:30 PM +0000

When I was a little girl my friends and I dreamed one day our Fairy Godmother would appear, wave her magic wand, and turn us into Cinderella. That never happened – alas – but along the way to living my life the Food Fairy appeared, sprinkled me with oregano, and said, “Henceforth, you shall be known as Spice Girl.” Ever since, I have had the most excellent adventures in the pursuit of exotic and elusive seasonings.

Imagine my excitement when I learn of za’atar, “the spice combination that opens up the mind.”

I become aware of this glorious concoction when my Food, Wine and Travel book club, based at Cornerstone Books in Salem, decided to read The Foods of Israel by Joan Nathan. She tells us za’atar is sprinkled on pita bread with a little olive oil for a Middle Eastern breakfast bruschetta, and that it’s used as a topping on pizza and pasta, a dry marinade for chicken or fish, and a tasty addition to salads and vegetables.

Nathan also informs us that Israeli parents feed it to their children for breakfast because they believe it opens up their minds and makes them more alert as students.

My search for za’atar began in the international foods aisle of the Super Stop & Shop in Swampscott, which carries an assortment of products from the Middle East, and it doesn’t end until I dig out the Syrian Grocery Store on Shawmut Avenue in the South End. There, after yet another wondrous journey, I came face to face with za’atar and discovered a portal to the Middle East just 30 minutes from my home.

Joan Nathan’s personal recipe for za’atar:

Take ¼ cup of dried oregano and thyme, 2 tablespoons of dried sumac, ¼ cup of roasted sesame seeds, and salt to taste. Remove any twigs, and crumble the oregano and thyme between your fingers into a bowl. Add the sumac, sesame seeds, and salt to taste.

This is not a purist’s za’atar, but it is a flavorful first cousin. Note that South End Formaggio, right next door to the Syrian Grocery Store, carries one of the recipe’s main ingredients, sumac.

Carol Pagliaro, aka Spice Girl, is a guest writer for today’s WGBH Foodie blog.