Shanir is also a featured performer in the May 2000 issue of Bass Player Magazine. Shanir has performed in many clubs and festivals around the world, including a concert for BBC Radio in London with Zorn. Trio Tarana's "Climbing The Banyan Tree" - Cleen Feed Records, featuring Ravish Momin and Jason Kao Hwang. "Sextet 2003" - Parallactic Records, featuring Anthony Braxton and Sonny Simmons. Other CDs which feature Shanir on bass and oud include "Chinatown" - Nottwo Records, featuring Daniel Carter. Shani Ezra BlumenkranzOther CDs recorded for Tzadik include a compilation of music by Israeli composer "Sasha Argov", a compilation of music composed by Zorn called "Voices In The Wilderness" for the tenth year anniversary of his band Masada, a compilation of unheard Masada compositions called "Unkown Masada", a compilation of music by Brazilian composer "Jacob Du Bandolim", "John Zorn: Filmworks XV" featuring Zorn and Cyro Baptista, and a new CD by Basya Schechter called Queen's Dominion. Shanir has recorded and performed extensively with Satlah, Rashanim, and Pharaoh's Daughter, all who have made many records on John Zorn's Tzadik label. Shanir Ezra Blumenkranz - acoustic/electric bass, oud -was born in 1975 in Brooklyn, NY. She is currently working on a record of her own contemporary originals. She became a member of the Grammy winning Michael Brecker Quindectet, a Jewish/Middle Eastern jazz group Pharaoh's Daughter, Cuban-Jewish band Septeto Rodriguez, and avant-garde string quartet "Sirius String Quartet." She has also been cast as the violinist for the Cirque du Soleil's "VAREKAI " and is also the first call sub for the jazz violin chair in the Big Apple Circus and played on the sound track for "THE AVIATOR" with the Vince Giordano and the Nighthawks. She then began a journey into Jazz, which led to collaborations with Sarah Brightman, Eric Friedlander, Heidi Grant-Murphy, Darryl Hall, Susie Ibarra, Ziggy Marley, Sam Newsome, Jeremy Pelt, Elliot Sharp, Dave Soldier, and Steve Sacks. She has performed at the Kennedy Center with the late Alexander Schneider and the New York String Orchestra and wrote her first symphonic work " Fanfare", commissioned and premiered by the New York Symphonic Ensemble in 1998. After receiving a Master's degree from the Juilliard School, Meg left the classical violin scene and started pursuing more contemporary music, performing and recording with some of the biggest names in music including David Bowie, Michael Brecker, Philip Glass, Jesse Harris, Lee Konitz, Steve Swallow and Diane Reeves. She hopes to record Pharaoh's Daughter's fifth album, Hagar, within the next year.Ī virtuoso violinist and innovative improviser Meg Okura, has been seen in 65 countries through televisions and live performances. Over the past two years, Basya was the recipient of numerous compositional and project grants from NYSCA (New York State Council of the Arts) American Composers Forum (for Trance, and multilayered sound and video installation collaboration with fillmaker Pearl Gluck) and the American Music Center. When she's not touring or performing, Basya plays darbuka, riq and frame drum as part of the B'nai Jeshurun music ensemble that accompanies Friday night services.
Pharaoh daughter series#
This past summer, Pharaoh's Daughter had the honor of debuting at Central Park's Summer Stage series in August 2004, and has played such presigious stages as Lincoln Center's Damrosch Park, and Queen Elizabeth Hall in London. Pharaoh's Daughter has toured extensively through America, Eastern and Western Europe, as well as Greece and the UK. PD also appears on three Tzadik label compilations: Voices in the Wilderness, the 10 year of anniversary of Zorn's Masada compositions a collection of Sasha Argov music and, a Brazilian Jewish composer from earlier in the 20th century, Jacob Du Bandolim. With the many amazing musicians, named below and others as well she has recorded four albums, three with Pharaoh's Daughter and one instrumental exploration with Persian santur player, Alan Kushan. She began retuning her guitar to sound like a cross between an Arabic oud and a Turkish saz, with harmonic minor melodies, and odd time signatures.
Blending a psychedelic sensibility and a pan-Mediterranean sensuality, Basya Schechter leads her band, Pharaoh's Daughter, through swirling Hasidic chants, Mizrachi and Sephardi folk-rock, and spiritual stylings filtered through percussion, flute, strings and electronica.Her sound has been cultivated by her Hasidic music background and a series of trips to the Middle East, Africa, Israel, Egypt, Central Africa, Turkey, Kurdistan and Greece.