Dear friends, a very happy new year from Siach Hasadeh!

From warm and cozy inside, in Montreal which is completely covered with a sort of beautiful, if terrifying, inch thick layer of ice, it’s a good time to reflect on the very productive year that was for Siach Hasadeh and to look forward to the next challenges and creation.

2014 began for us with an incredible mini-tour in the United States, with generous support from the Conseil des Arts du Québec.  After all the visa excitement was over (“You’re going on tour?   Where’s all your gear?”)  we had great performances in Middleton, CT, Brooklyn, Harlem, West Side Manhattan, Princeton and Burlington, shared some bills with great musicians that we admire, Breslov Bar Band, Pete Rushefsky and Keryn Kleiman, Ichka, and Ihtimanska, met and played for many new friends, and more than anything, got a chance to get to spend some intense time together on and off stage, getting to know each other personally and musically.  Not to mention learning to admire Joel’s driving and navigation skills.  By the end of the tour we were playing together on a whole different level and were ready to explore new vistas together.

We got plenty of loving for our last album, Song of the Grasses (2013) with wonderful reviews in le Devoir, The Jewish Daily Forward, Klezmershack, the New York Music Daily and Wholenote Magazine (check them out here!).

The summer brought us to Toronto, for the fabulous Ashkenaz Festival, which I had dreamed about going to for years but never managed.  Packed into the Toronto Harbour with some kind of comics festival and a Bluejays game, were so many of our friends and heroes!  And we played a great set to a really nice and appreciative crowd.

Besides that, a little foray for members of the band into the world of Yiddish Tango, with singer Jane Enkin and violinist Brigitte Dajczer, with a demo recording currently in mixing, and hopefully some interesting things to come!

During the fall we worked intensively on developing our musical language and group improvisation, with great and challenging exercises, as well as working on new arrangements and new material.  This culminated in a wonderful intimate house concert where we got to present some of our new material and works in progress.

Now it’s time to hit the Google calendar and get out the trusty booking pen, and start setting up 2015!  We plan to continue developing and exploring our group improvisation, our instrumental hisbodedus, and to get another recording together in the summer.  We’d love to reach new audiences in the chamber music and improvised music scenes, 2015 should be a year busy with performances near and far, and hopefully somewhere near you!  Keep checking back on this page or sign up for our mailing list/Facebook page to stay tuned.

Many thanks for all your support, for your presence, for your encouragement, and for coming so deep into the space with us in our performances.  Wishing you all the best for the year, and looking forward to seeing you all soon,

Yoni, on behalf of

Siach Hasadeh