Performer Name: Black Rooster Kapelye

Show Name: Vos Mir Zaynen / Who We Are

Show Description

At the turn of the 20th century, Latvian ethnomusicologist Emilis Melngailis crisscrossed the Baltic region creating what would become Latvia's most important collection of traditional songs — among them a trove of Jewish melodies that has remained hidden in archives ever since. Vos Mir Zaynen / Who We Are brings this buried world roaring back to life. Six virtuosic musicians — fluent in Latvian, Lithuanian, and Yiddish musical traditions — weave together dance tunes, laments, and polyphonic songs into a vivid sonic tour of one of Europe's most musically rich and least-known crossroads. Accordions, kokle, bagpipes, electric guitar, violin, and percussion collide and converse across languages and centuries. Structured around themes drawn from the archival material itself, the program unfolds like a journey through the Baltic lands. Storytelling woven through the music provides context and color without ever pulling focus from the performances themselves, giving audiences an immersive cultural experience that is as emotionally engaging as it is historically illuminating. The show can be presented with live projections of original manuscripts and lyric translations, or performed without — equally powerful on any stage. Vos Mir Zaynen / Who We Are is as at home in a concert hall as it is in a festival tent or a packed pub. Rich listening music alternates with irresistible dance tunes, and the ensemble's six voices — raised together in close-knit polyphony — carry the weight and warmth of a tradition worth knowing. This is rare repertoire, lovingly excavated and brilliantly performed: alive, urgent, and ready to travel.

We are flexible about lighting, preferring an energetic mix of color that reflects the contemporary yet traditionally rooted nature of the performance. We ask that any fog machines if used are kept to a minimum. In venues where it is appropriate and possible, we prefer to have a projector (supplied by the venue) with our supertitles and images of the manuscripts, which we can run from our own laptop on stage. When there are projections it should be dark enough to see the projections but there should still be light on the musicians. When this is not possible we are happy with any reasonable stage lighting, or in small venues without lighting we are flexible to make any situation work.
We generally require at minimum a guitar amp and a few vocal mics for a performance, ideally 6 mics and a few DI's, but we can be quite flexible and can even perform acoustic in spaces where that is typical and the audience is quiet. Please consult with the band directly about our technical needs. We require a performacnce area big enough for 6 people, ideally to perform sitting down and with a couple larger instruments (drum, accordion, etc), but we adapt our performance to fit the location. When performing our full set with projections we need about 1.5-2 hours to set up everything, sound check and make sure projections are working ok. Without projects we still usually need 1-1.5 hours for soundcheck and 20-30 minutes to load in and setup. We prefer to finish soundcheck 1.5-2 hours before a concert and then eat dinner but timing is flexible depending on the situation and our travel logistics
Yes, we have professional photos, videos, a website, can provide posters, we have albums for sale (they include a book with extensive notes about the project) and we can help with social media posts as well.
A new international collaboration between world-renowned musicians, Black Rooster Kapelye performs rare music from diverse Baltic traditions. Named after musicologist Emilis Melngailis (Melngailis = "black rooster" in Latvian), who collected these melodies at the turn of the 20th century, the ensemble features Latvian, Lithuanian, Jewish and Latgalian music that has remained virtually unknown outside Latvia for decades. This creative project offers audiences a glimpse into the musical world of Baltic Jewry and the multiethnic soundscape of one of Europe's most remote regions. Six accomplished musicians command instruments including accordion, bagpipes, kokle (zither), percussion, electric guitar and violin, weaving together diverse songs and languages in a creative conversation between historically neighboring cultures. All are talented vocalists representing the region's diverse traditions, including rich polyphonic singing. With deep mastery of tradition and creative vision, the ensemble composes new soundscapes from fragmented historical manuscripts, giving these centuries-old traditions urgent relevance. Rare repertoire performed at the highest level—powerful, moving, and unique. Craig Judelman - violin, voice Eli Ellere - voice, percussion Ilya Shneyveys - accordion, guitar, flutes, voice Ilga Vālodze Ābelkina - voice, bagpipes, flutes, kokle, vargan Jānis Zemgus Jātnieks - accordion, mandolin, voice Sasha Lurje - voice, poyk Please Note: The band also performs in a condensed version as a trio with Accordion, Voice and Violin, in which case we focus more on the Jewish/klezmer repertoire, or other arrangements can be made to suit the occasion. We also love teaching workshops and leading traditional dance evenings.