World Music In Rockville

Many people may not be aware that Our Fair City — Rockville, Maryland — and the surrounding county have a thriving folk music scene. Montgomery County is not known for having tons of musical venues but the folk scene does not require huge auditoriums and dark watering holes.

In fact, here in Rockville there’s a folk hub that is perking along nicely, thank you. It’s more than the periodic coffee houses at our many churches, and community open mics. Regional music association Focus Music has a regular concert series at Branded ‘72 (on Gude).

And then there are house concerts. These are — you guessed it — concerts in people’s homes. It is an incredible environment in which to hear music, because you can really focus in. And for the performers, they know they are playing to an audience that is there to listen.

On Saturday night, Cheryl Kagan and David Spitzer, the team that brings you the Folk ‘N Great Music house concert series, hosted the DC-area debut of the Guy Mendilow Band. They play a blend of many different world traditions with impeccable musicianship, an engaging charisma, and just plain good attitude.

Not only that, but Guy Mendilow is himself both a citizen of the world (grew up in Israel, and has lived on, it seems, just about every continent) and also a long-time student of indigenous musical traditions. So the evening included Guy’s amazing overtone singing, use of the berimbau (made from sticks and cabling from old tires), found percussion, the mouth harp, and more. The songs themselves, many of which Guy discovered from centuries-old traditions in his travels, are sung in languages ranging from Hebrew to Portugese and of course English.

I did take some video (quality iffy, used a cell phone) and this song is in a language Guy made up!

(Personnel: Guy Mendilow, Andy Bergman, Aubrey Johnson, Marcelo Woloski, Tomoko Omura)

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