Department of Music

• Thursday, April 15, 2010
• Old Cabell Hall
• 8:00pm
• $10/ $5 Students/ Free for UVA students who reserve in advance

In its Spring 2010 concert, the 18-member strong UVA Klezmer Ensemble, under the direction of McIntire Department of Music’s Director of Music Performance, Joel Rubin will perform with special guest, Socalled, a new program of original compositions and instrumental klezmer music on Thursday, April 15 at 8:00 pm. The ensemble, made up of UVA undergrads and grad students, faculty and other members of the greater Charlottesville community, is dedicated to exploring klezmer and other Jewish musical traditions from the 18th century to the present. The concert will feature new klezmer hip hop compositions by Socalled as well as on repertoire from the klezmer traditions of the mid-18th to early 20th century Eastern Europe and North America. The band will be joined by trumpeter John D’earth, director of UVA’s jazz program, along with students from the Jazz Ensemble.

Socalled is a musician, photographer, magician and writer based in Montreal. He was born Josh Dolgin in Ottawa, Ontario and raised just north, in Chelsea, Quebec. As a kid he was always in musicals and drew cartoons for the Ottawa Citizen. He hated soccer. He was bribed by his mother to continue piano lessons until high school, then he picked up the accordion. He wrote for the newspaper and played in any kind of band – salsa, gospel, rock, funk – then discovered MIDI and hip hop. He worked with rappers, he made madd beats, he got into studios. He graduated from McGill and made a 50-minute animated film for the Canada Council, meanwhile writing for Hour Magazine and performing. He has now appeared on a dozen recordings as pianist, singer, arranger, rapper, writer and producer. He rocks the machine in David Krakauer’s Klezmer Madness!, sings with Toronto-based Beyond the Pale, performs with home-base band Shtreiml in Montreal, and with LA-based the Aleph Project. He conducts the Addath Israel choir for High Holidays. Socalled performs and records widely with a crew of mixed-up freaks and geniuses from around the world, including Killah Priest, C-Rayz Walz, Fred Wesley, Susan Hoffman-Watts, Frank London, and Irving Fields.

Socalled has garnered tremendous popularity, especially in France, where he tours regularly, and through his videos, which have gone viral on the internet. He is the subject of the National Film Board of Canada-sponsored documentary, “The Socalled Movie,” which was released on youtube on March 16th. Socalled and his group just performed at the popular South by Southwest Festival in Austin, Texas. For more information visit: http://www.socalledmusic.com/ or http://www.myspace.com/socalled.

The concert will be the culmination of a 5-day residency from April 11-15, 2010 co-sponsored by the UVA Jewish Studies Program, which will also include various classroom visits and meetings with students in the McIntire Department of Music and the Jewish Studies Program.

Watch the music video for You Are Never Alone.

New 'Socalled' Documentary to Premiere on YouTube Rental Service