Dalok Galopp Interview

Andrea is the guest of Civil Radio, in the Dalok Galopp Show which is a bi-weekly program of Songs.hu

Wednesday, 16th July 15:00 (Central Europe Time)

Andrea Gerak link directory

Everything at one place about Andrea: all the available links to concert dates, interviews, reviews, articles, CD-s, MP3 downloads, photos, videos, podcasts, social networking sites, singers, musicians, Hungarian and international music sites and even to the more private sides of the artist. Most of them are English and/or Hungarian.



gerakandrea.lap.hu

Microsite

Andrea Gerak to take away: here is the microsite for your blog or webpage. Concert dates, songs, videos, news - always fresh!

Fix TV Interview

Andrea Gerak is a guest of Kreatív Klub (="creative club") on the Hungarian channel Fix TV.

June 9. Monday 11:45 (Central Europe Time, GMT+1)
Replay: June 13. Friday 11:45

It will be broadcast in Budapest and within its 60km radius

Watch it on the net: fixonline.hu.

Concerts in June

Andrea Gerak soon in her homeland Hungary again!

Public performances this month:

June 22 Sunday 20:00
Edelény, Borsodi Tájház
"Music of Hungarians from the Carpathian Basin""
Andrea will perform at the evening of Vujicsics Ensemble and Hungarian Hurdy-gurdy Orchestra
A Borsod Arts Festival program
Entrance fee: 800HUF

June 26 Thursday 19:00
Dubicsány, Fignár Festival Court
A Borsod Arts Festival program

Full calendar
Previous concerts

Csángó Night and Dance House

The Sweden-based Petrás Incze János Csángó Foundation is holding a charity event at the Hungarian House in Stockholm. All the benefit from the concert will go to support social and cultural needs of Csángó Hungarians in Moldva.

Time: 24th May 2008
Place: Magyar Ház - Ungerska Huset (Bromma, Lövåsvägen 12, Stora Mossen subway station, green line towards Hässelby) Map


15:00-17:00 dance house for children (Hungarian folk dances)
17:00-19:00 Csángó Night Concert
19:30- till about Midnight dance house for adults (Hungarian folk dances)

Entrance fee: adulsts 80.-SEK, children 30.-SEK

Excellent Hungarian, Japanese, Indian, Polish, Swedish and Latvian artists will perform at the concert of folk music and classical music:

● Barozda (Csongor Simó violin, Lajos Toró viola, József Simó double bass, hurdy-gurdy, koboz): traditional music from Transylvania and Moldva,

● Barna Both (piano) performs his own compositions ("The Little Prince" and "Nocturne"),
● Andrea Gerák Csángó folk songs from Moldva,

● Japanese students of Sonoko Kase play piano,
● Lakshmikanth (tabla, voice) and Saikira (indiai harmonium): classical Indian music,
● Magnus Smedman Band (Swedish bagpipe and hurdy-gurdy): Swedish folk music,
● Milda Zigure and Ineta Zigure Latvian artists (violin and piano)
● Kinga Práda Sagvik (flute),
● György Stuber (Hungarian bagpipe, Moldva Csángó bagpipe, hurdy-gurdy and flute): folk music from Transylvania and Moldva, first ever Csángó bagpipe stage performance in music history!,
● Zsuzsanna Gaal, Gabriella Dybowski, Thomas Svanfeldt és György Stuber Hungarian folk dances.

Dance house music will be played by Barozda and György Stuber.

Donations can be sent to Foundation Petrás Incze János Csángó Alapítvány (Postgiro: 636 25 57 – 8 Receiver: Csángó Fonden Petrás Incze János)

Thank you in the name of Csángós.

Our event is dedicated to commemorate the late Csángó musicians Gergely Mesterke (-2004), Péter Minuc (-2002), Mihály Dima(-2005, Petru Ghiurca bagpipers and János Zerkula (-2008) fiddler who visited Sweden in 2002

Contact: +46 8 254038
Magyar Ház (Hungarian House) in Stockholm

Civil Radio Interview

Saturday, 26 April, 11:30 AM Europe time (GMT+1):

Interview with with Andrea Gerak singing live in the studio.
Listen online

Asiye - Concert Video

Andrea Gerak presents a Turkish folk song at Budapest Fringe Festival, in her program Set Forth Along a Road. In the song, a boy sings about loosing his love, Asiye.

It wasn't easy to perform it acapella, in the middle of all the noise coming in from the other concerts...

Fringe Pictures

Andrea Gerak at Budapest Fringe Festival

Interview on Népzene.hu

Karolin Benkő's interview in the portrait series of Népzene.hu (=folkmusic.hu) titled The"mysterious voice", Andrea Gerák

Ten years abroad, two years between* (for * see Editor's note in bottom) Sweden and Hungary - right now and according to her plans, more often in Hungary - rejoicing the audience of all ethnicities, ages or music tastes with velvety, tinkling-soaring voice. On the 30th of March, she joined the Fringe Festival program with a concert at Vörösmarty tér and Teátrum Hajó.

What kind of songs did you sing at the Hajó, in the "Set Forth Along a Road" program?
Mainly Hungarian, Turkish and Irish songs were on the repertoire. It was a 40-minute show, mostly with acapella songs, this much was a good length. I also fit a real exotic piece into it, a song from the Solomon Islands... The Vörösmarty tér audience was very much mixed, moving around, most of them strangers, but I am used to this - and they received it well.

Solomon Islands are indeed far from Hungarian melodies... How did it make it into the chosen ones?
There is a song which was arranged by the Deep Forest long ago, called "Sweet Lullaby". It became a big hit. I liked it too and recently I heard another version of it by a Canadian composer, that one is also great. I started to search for the roots of this song and found the original which is a little song from the islands: it was recorded 40 years ago*, performed by an indigenous woman.

Which means that although you are a Hungarian folk singer, you don't exclude foreign melodies either.
No, not at all... While I look for Hungarian folk songs first - if I find one that would fit into that particular show or music offered to me for cooperation. If not, I will take something else. The point is that something in it has to capture me, touch me. For me, the most important is the aesthetic experience, the feeling I can convey.

And what "captures" you?
For example a charming little song, in Baegu language... It was quite difficult to learn the lyrics by the way, had to do it syllable by syllable - but I made it at the end. Not so long ago, I heard a a Finnish song in a church with a melody completely different from Hungarian church chants, still it spoke to my heart.
I like Spanish sound too: it is especially exciting because I discover a kind of parallelism between Spanish and Hungarian music in one song after the other in the works of a musician collegue Ángel Orós (Cambridge 2003 by his artist name and he did most of the music to the Fringe show). About one motive or another, instantly comes to my mind its Hungarian folk song "counterpart", even if originally they had nothing to do with each other, they still fit very well.

The music of Cambridge and other you are working with uses electronica pretty much...
Right, and I don't find this as a reason to be barred, even from folk music genres. Everything depends on the complete sound, the impact, the musical-aesthetical experience created. Electronic music also has its own right within the ethnic genre, one just has to know how to dose and form the elements.

By the way, how are you doing with Swedish songs?
Their pronounciation is very difficult, therefore not too well...*

Do you like your Swedish life?
Yes I do. In many regards, days are easier, more organized, fluent, of better quality and cooler than in Hungary. But despite all difficulties, this is still my country and the "Hungarian spirit" can't be compared. Otherwise Swedes also keep their folklore: traditional music and dance is always part of events. A fact though that the dancehouse culture we are familiar with is not so common over there. Of course, it also depends on that the biggest city where I live, Stockholm is much smaller than Budapest - so it is logical that music and cultural life in general is less colorful than in the Hungarian capital. That's why we did Hungarian dancehouse for them. :-)

What other program are you preparing for, while here?
Those who are interested, can see this "festival show" at Benczúr Klub on the 9th of April, in a little bit extended version, with more new songs. I might put a Russian or Gypsy song on the repertoir, but I still have time, for now I am forming it, thinking it over, organizing it. Maybe, there will be one more concert.

Is the summer also booked?
Looks like I have a lot of invitations, cooperations, many of them are in other countries and I am glad about them. I have contact with a lot of foreigner musicians, like in England or Spain. In Hungary, I am planning things together with FolkFree and we also found each other with Berkó, and in Sweden with Barozda. Despite of the busy schedule I know and the disease I fought recently taught me to know there are limits and one has to be able to say "Stop." and find a balance. But of course, I will try to take on those that I feel really important. I have a lot to do: amongst others, I would like to publish an older album of mine, "Árva az a madár" (Lonely Is The Bird) as a correct CD, in an expanded form.

What do you like most in your profession?
I enjoy singing solo, as well as breathing together with a band. I like that I can reach into this unfailing, bottomless treasure chest, take out a gem, admire it and set it into a frame so that it can become a jewel. And that others can also admire it.

- Karolin Benkő

ORIGINAL ARTICLE IN HUNGARIAN

(Editor's note: *= factual corrections made compared to the Hungarian text)

Womens' Day Gala Concert

Yesterday Andrea Gerak performed in Sweden for a Gala Concert celebrating 100th anniversary of the International Womens' Day. The event was a cooproduction between the Embassies of Italy, Hungary and Venezuela, opened by Italy's Ambassador, also attended by the Ambassador of Honduras.


The Italian Cultural Institute in Stockholm provided perfect settings for the musical performance.

Andrea's acapella Hungarian folk songs enchanted the audience, as well as the arias sung by Venezuelan born soprano Gabriela Gonzales-Toledo, accompanied by Anders Wadenberg on piano.

"It was a wonderful evening with a great audience and I enjoyed being on both sides on the stage: it's a pure joy to sing in this auditorium with excellent acoustics and atmosphere, just as well as to listen.

My thanks go to all those who made this experience possible.

I found a new favorite place in Stockholm where I would attend future concerts very gladly as a listener or performer." - Andrea Gerak

The two singers after the gala

MIX Magazine Interview

Bird, Flying High - two-page article with Andrea Gerak in the February issue of MIX Magazin.

You can meet Andrea's husband and find out about some of her other favorites as well.


BIRD, FLYING HIGH

She is representing folklore traditions, national values in a world which can be described mainly with disappearing borders. Promoting worldwide the "Hungarian fire", everything that is beautiful and worthy. Andrea Gerak is awaited with love everywhere, from Sweden through Germany still to London. Wherever she appears, the scene is loud from songs of different nations, melodies of one thousand year. Right now here at home, in Hungary.

She arrives hand in hand with her Swedish husband who wouldn't take his eyes off from his wonderful Hungarian wife. Whenever they can, they travel together the world which is more and more open and accepting, but impatient and on the run. Fortunately, Andrea is able to exclude the outside world, enjoying completeness with a book in her hand, in the warmth of home. While other times, in her friends company, she talks effusively, gesturing in a "Hungarian way".

Ózd, Kazincbarcika, Debrecen…
Listening to her Grandma in Debrecen as a small child, she was wishing for singing so beautifully once. For fifteen years, it was folk dance that filled her life: going to dance houses, Transylvanian villages, watching folk performers. However, the time has come when the power of her voice finally demanded its space: at her age of 30, she committed herself to singing. The girl born in Ózd, grew up in Kazincbarcika and Debrecen, and the years spent in Borsod region, its influences determine her character still today. "We would run around in the streets all day long, went to dance rehearsals and our parents didn't need to worry about dangers. Interestingly enough, already that time I was wishing to live in a big city. For a long time, Debrecen meant this for me."

One of the former socialist countries
"Tradition that we are carrying with us since hundreds of years, lives within the people - says Andrea with shiny eyes - It's like as if more and more people understood the importance of preserving national values, cultures, while the boundaries are being washed away and the world is getting more open. By my experience, when the regime changed in Hungary, the foreigners showed an increased interest toward us, but after a while we became just one of the former socialist countries. Nevertheless, they still highly appreciate Hungarian music, Hungarian culture.

Delight, sorrow, life, power
„I feel the fire and vitality in the Hungarians – she continues, sipping her tea. – I have visited many countries but I must say, the Hungarian soul is extremely rich in feelings, both in delight and in sorrow. I was thinking of a final return home, but on the other hand, I am attracted by other countries, lands, and really want to be acquainted with other cultures, with other people. I have seen many great cities, one of them is my current hometown, Stockholm. I am amazed by busy crowds, by the bustle of a metropolis. On the other hand, I dislike that somehow people are limited everywhere. In any country, different way, but the personal freedom is always violated. In some countries it concerns the everyday actions, in some others the spiritual freedom.

"ABBA is still hip"
Andrea sings Irish, Gypsy or Turkish songs, yet Hungarian folk song are closest to her heart. Besides Hungarian and Swedish musicians, she works with Israeli, Spanish, Canadian collegues. She performs at festivals, concert halls, exhibition openings and churches. Not only likes music of different ethnicities, but light music as well: „ABBA is still hip – she says -, but jazz or rock also touches me. Some of my other all-time favorites are Mike Oldfield, Vangelis, Presser, or for example Kormorán.

Test of time
"According to the strictly traditional fraction, the folklore tunes can be transmitted exclusively in their original forms - she talks -, but the innovators, like me, can see many opportunities in the new approach. These melodies have already passed the test of centuries, have proved their highest value. I believe, with the necessary respect to traditions, we can take courage from ancestral tunes when interpret them in new forms."

Although Andrea's curiosity led her to new lands in the last 10 years, her desire to be home became stronger since a while. She spends more and more time in Hungary, often accompanied by her Swedish husband who is enthralled forever by Andrea's voice, openness and naturalness.

T.Sz.
Photos: Mónika Papp

Favorites of the globetrotter girl from Borsod

Book: my current fave is Harry Potter
Food: mashed chestnut with whipped cream
Drink: green tea
Bedtime story: The Little Prince
Music: still Hungarian folk...
Song: impossible to choose one, I have a lot
Landscape: any high point, such as a lookout tower, mountain top, a tower, etc, where I can look far away
Movie: there are a couple of films I could watch ten times more: like Picasso's Adventures, Forrest Gump, Matrix and such

Free download

Today, on 15/January it's Andrea's birthday and as a treat the listeners, all the songs on her MySpace profile are available for free download.

Interview on Radio Fusion

Andrea Gerak is the guest in the Hungarian program Human Rights Were Born For You, of Fúzió Rádió, with a lot of music.

10/January, 13:00 Central Europe time

On air: 11th district of Budapest and 5-6km around it, FM 93,5 MHz.

Listen online

From the Pacific to the Atlantic

A song travelling through the ether, after having been recorded 40 years ago in a village of Malaita, Solomon Islands in the South Pacific. A folk song called Rorogwela, a lullaby sung by an elderly woman.

Since then, the melody became well known, such names composed music to it as Deep Forest or Jan Garbarek, or recently the Canada based Existence Records gathered electronica masters to remix the song and presented Deep Forest Sweet Lullaby Remixed album with 16 artists.

Andrea Gerak's voice appears in two other versions, composed by the Spanish Cambridge which are spreading around all over the world on websites such as Last FM, YouTube or SoundClick.

Last week the Rorogwela Sunset Mix was featured at the 100th edition of Electrical Language Podcast and now it is played on AMPed, the Official Podcast of the Association of Music Podcasting, Andrea herself introducing the track.

Listen to the AMPed Show #102 online, with an international artist selection from Russia, Sweden, UK or download it

Featured on UBL

Andrea is a featured artist of the month in the Newsletter of Ultimate Band List

View it online here

Electrical Language Podcast no 100

Listen to the 100th edition of Electrical Language Podcast where Andrea introduces one of her songs in cooproduction with Cambridge 2003 (Ángel Orós)



A weekly 30 minute podcast of Podsafe indie music from the UK and beyond, brought to you by Gabor Kovacs from Hampshire, UK. The music ranges from acoustic to electronica to "indie rock". The electrical language podcast plays good music from: Hungary, Iceland, Malta, Sweden as well as the UK, North America, Australia and New Zealand.

Lonely Is The Bird - video

First co-operation between Andrea Gerak and Effi Shoshani Israeli composer.

Title song of the album Lonely Is The Bird

Theme: Hungarian folk song from Moldva

Andrea Gerak: lead vocals, photos
Effi Shoshani: music arrangement, all instruments

Text in English:

Lonely is the bird
That has no mate,
I am lonely as well,
I don't have one either.

One of my eyes is crying,
Let the other one cry too,
Let them both cry
Like a rainshower.

God should have made it so
That I wouldn't have seen you,
The word about me wouldn't have gone
Along with the word about you.

My name wouldn't have been named
Along with your name,
So that now my gloomy heart
Wouldn't be in deep mourning.

Download song: go to this page.

Folk songs from Domaháza - Video

Traditional songs from Domaháza which is a village in Borsod county (Northern-East Hungary), close to the Slovakian border.


Live recording, photos from the Brugges Festival.






Download it or buy the CD Authentic Hungarian Village Music

Two songs in Top 10 on SoundClick!

SoundClick, the premier destination among music communities is celebrating its 10th anniversary. They used the First Internet Charts (compiled in various genres from streamed plays and hot votes), and today, we are proud to see that on the World Fusion Charts, two songs are in Top 20 where Andrea Gerak is singing!

Don't Fall Asleep is #2
This song also has a great position on the World Music Charts: #24!

And Yay, I've Been Freezing is #7

The fact that Andrea met
Cambridge 2003 (Ángel Orós) exactly through SoundClick some time ago, and the fruits of their co-operation are spreading around at other cyber places like Last FM, MySpace, YouTube and at live performances, gives one more reason to thank the staff of this independent music community for their work.

And these tracks will not be the last songs where these two artists work together.

In Sweden: Don't Fall Asleep on your mobile phone!

Wow, here is the WOW! The huge Way Out West Festival in Göteborg which starts just tomorrow.

One of Andrea Gerak's songs, Don't Fall Asleep also participated in the competition for indie artists to perform, in front of such names as Erykah Baduh or Kanye West.

The song ended up in the middle range, which is great, if you look at that it was only submitted but not advertised at all. We thank for everybody who found it and voted on it!

Now this song is available for download as a ringtone, you find it on the AllEars site, around place #114.

Andrea uses this on her phone as alarm, it's an excellent wake-up tune!

One sms and it's yours!

Tonight on the radio

Andrea Gerak live tonight in the Budapest studio of Tilos Rádió (which was the first independent radio in Hungary and the word means "forbidden") in the weekly show Népzene (Folk Music)

Time: 22:00-24:00:
Listen:
90.3 FM (in Hungary)
103.7 - UPC cabel
www.tilos.hu

Madárka - Little Birdie (Video)

Andrea Gerak singing a Hungarian folk song, improvising with Sandor Fekete-Kiss composer, at a concert in Hungary.
The original piece is almost 18 minutes long, this is the end part.
Last track from the album Árva az a madár - Lonely Is The Bird



Pictures: spring nature photos from Sweden.

Theme: Hungarian folk song from Moldva

Lyrics:
Madárka, madárka,
Áraszd meg a vizet,
Áraszd meg a vizet,
Hadd írjak levelet!

Apámnak s anyámnak,
Szűbeli mátkámnak,
Apámnak s anyámnak,
Szűbeli mátkámnak.

Music arrangement: Sandor Fekete-Kiss
Vocals: Andrea Gerak
Song recorded: live at Symmetry Festival Budapest, 2003
Photos, video: Andrea Gerak

Sell Andrea's songs - earn money

Easy:

1. Click on RESELL

2. Follow the instructions: sign up or log in to Musicane

3. Get the code

4. Embed it to your website, blog, profile

5. Get 10% of the sales through your site

Rorogwela Sunset Mix video

You can also open the video's YouTube page and write your comment there.

Andrea Gerak Sings Rorogwela

LISTEN:
Rorogwela Blue Beach mix
Rorogwela Sunset mix

Hungarian singer Andrea Gerak and Spanish composer Angel Oros (also known as Cambridge 2003) present a song originated from Oceania, the famous Rorogwela.

The melody was made well known in Sweet Lullaby, the probably most recognized song of Deep Forest, which counts as a ground breaking piece in creating the World Music genre, and is a widely adored success track, since 15 years. Their first version was followed by several remixes and Jan Garbarek also fell in love with the theme and made a jazzy saxophone piece out of it, the Pygmy Lullaby. Through the years, other musicians also arranged this song, but interestingly enough, no new vocal recordings can be found. This was the challenge for Andrea Gerak when picking up this particular song. She got the final inspiration kick from the album that came out just a few weeks ago: Deep Forest "Sweet Lullaby" Remixed by Toronto based Existence Records, which approaches the song from 16 different facets of techno, presenting new moods in each.

The question was given: can something new still be done with this theme?

First of all, as lyrics of the original Rorogwela recording were not available, Andrea listened to the authentic singing of a late Baegu woman called Afunakwa, and wrote down the text, reconstructing it syllable by syllable, which is a great contribution to preserving a treasure of world traditions.



With her enchanting singing, Andrea Gerak lived up to the challenge, as well as Cambridge 2003 who, in his New Age, sound track and electronica works is always trying to respect and convey the feeling of the subject. So did he very well in two versions of the song.

The Rorogwela Blue Beach mix is more exotic and epic, it is based on the text of the song. It has the pathos and respect towards the deceased father of the children, and another source of inspiration was Whale Rider by Lisa Gerrard. Spicing it up with a few tunes from Eastern-Europe makes it even better connected to the globe.

The Rorogwela Sunset mix is sweeter and lighter, and is more based on the delicacy of Andrea Gerak's singing. One feels the sweetness and sensuality of the islands of Oceania in a well-balanced track.

Uniting the special sensitivity of Andrea Gerak's vocals and the knowledge and creativity of Cambridge 2003, the result is a creditable tribute to a pearl from the people of Solomon Islands.

Credits
Theme: traditional Baegu song from Malaita (Solomon Islands), sung by Afunakwa, recorded by Hugo Zemp in 1968, released on the Fataleka and baegu Music of Malaita CD by UNESCO.
Arrangement, all instruments: Ángel Orós (Cambridge 2003)
Vocals: Andrea Gerák

References:BBC Music, Nuevas Musicas Forum, Music Industry News Network, Blogtér, Népzene.hu, MP3 Magazin, Kakukk.ro, World Music Central, World Beat Planet, WVOF, Backpackers-Planet, Sinhala Jukebox, News Zoom, Music Worldwide, Tradivarium, Radio Energy Corfu

What people say: - "I love this music style, one can relax very well to such music. About your singing, I've already mentioned: it's simply impossible to express it with words, how excellent it is. you should make a whole album of such song, it is so good!!" - Gy.K.
- "It's Magic!" - B.G. - "I think this is one of the most beautiful songs in the world." - R.G.

Don't Fall Asleep - concert video

Andrea Gerak performing for a Christmas concert in Stockholm, 2006.



Credits

Theme: traditional Hungarian folk song
Arrangement, music production: Angel Oros (Cambridge 2003)
Musicians: Andrea Gerak - vocals, dance, Angel Oros - keyboards, Jose Aurelio Ferrandez - duduk, ney, Edgar Molina - percussions
Video: Jan Gustafsson (Enhancia)

From the album "Árva az a madár - Lonely Is The Bird"

Video: Don't Fall Asleep (a cappella)

Andrea Gerak sings a beautiful Hungarian folk song

Brugges Festival Photos

Andrea Gerak & Barozda performed for the Brugges Festival of World Music on 12/November/2006.
Read review here

Click on the picture to view gallery

Christmas concert photos - 2.

16th of December 2006, Stockholm, Arsta Folketshus

Andrea Gerak performing the song Don't Fall Asleep



















Video of this performance comes out soon!

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Experimental mysticism - Review

Sobre Las Aireadas Olas, a Spanish New Age and World Music blog recommends Andrea Gerak with these words:

"The Hungarian voice that will keep one excited. Without fear, she experiments with traditional subjects, mainly with those coming from her country, approaching them from different angles. Nothing resists her; neither new age, nor world fusion, nor a cappella interpretations...

Without a doubt, if you like folk music as well as experimental tunes, Andrea Gerak will capture you with her hipnotic vision of music..."