"I don't sing folk songs according to tradition, but rather as I remember them," declares avant-garde Kazakh/Turk vocalist Saadet Turkoz, who will present her mysterious improvisations based on ancient Central Asian music in collaboration with local luminati Miya Masaoka on koto and George Cremaschi on contrabass. Born in Istanbul and now residing in Zurich, Switzerland, crystalline-voiced Saadet uses experimental vocalizing to transform traditional Turkish, Anatolian, and Azerbaijan poems and songs into a lush and adventurous emotional landscape, evoking pictures and atmosphere by means of a performance that transcends boundaries both cultural and musical. Saadet has appeared all over Europe, Brazil, and America, and last year released the album Marmara Sea (Intakt).
Distinguished by her Eastern sense of time and space and improvisational skills, koto (Japanese zither) virtuoso Miya Masaoka works simultaneously in the varied musical worlds of jazz, Western classical music, electronic music, traditional Japanese music and free improvisation. Her debut recording for solo koto, Compositions/Improvisations received critical acclaim in Europe and the United States, and she has performed extensively there and in Japan; both solo and with a wide variety of musicians and traditions. Miya is also the director of the San Francisco Gagaku Society, an ensemble which plays traditional Japanese court music.
Born in New York City, contrabass master George Cremaschi studied at the Jazzmobile in Harlem and the Greenwich House Music School in Greenwich Village. In recent years George has played with such renowned musicians as Marshall Allen, Vinny Golia, and Eugene Chadbourne, and he is currently working on several recording projects, both solo and collaborative.