DVA with Tunji Beier

“Dva” (pronounced D-vah) is simply the Macedonian word for “two” which expresses the great love of playing together as a duo shared by its two members: Tunji Beier and Linsey Pollak.Linsey and Tunji first performed together at the “Border Crossings Festival” in Germany in 1996 and have played together ever since.  Although they have travelled very diverse paths and studied different musical traditions, they find their playing extremely compatible. They create improvisations and  compositions that draw on the traditions of Macedonia and South India, their greatest musical influences. Linsey’s collection of wind instruments is unique with 40 years experience in making & experimenting with wind instruments. He has come up with new single reed designs, such as the  various clarinis (narrow bored clarinets) made from bamboo, wood, aluminium and glass as well as various hybrid bagpipes based on the gaida (Macedonian bagpipe) which he studied in Macedonia and also the conical bore Saxillo. These wind instruments are combined with Tunji’s Mridangam (South Indian drum), Kanjira (South Indian tambourine with a lizard skin), Jaw Harps and other percussion instruments that Tunji has mastered while living in Nigeria, India and Europe.Audiences respond enthusiastically to the intense musical relationship between these two artists, and while their music has its roots in Eastern European, Sth Indian and African traditions, they have developed it along their own very personal lines. Their repertoire of original compositions is constantly changing and although based on a solid structure their performances are not rigidly planned and there is a great deal of improvisation that is both technically and emotionally dazzling.

listen to mp3 audio tracks from Dva

by candle light  by candlelight

Crow & Kanjira  Crow and Kanjira

ebenezer.mp3  Ebenezer

lik lik.mp3  Lik Lik

soursop.mp3  Soursop

For Bookings or further info

Contact: linsey@spiderweb.com.au

For Canada & USA contact: www.stationbleue.com

Tunji Beier www.tunji.org/dva.html

Tunji has been inspired by drumming from a very early age and has continued to seek and develop his work. Tunji has adopted the teaching he has received from various teachers from Classical Western, Jazz, South Indian Classical, West African – Yoruba & Persian masters into a unique style of his own incorporating electronics and looping. Special attribute must be given to his Guru TAS Mani & his wife R.A.Ramamani of the Karnataka College Of Percussion for accepting Tunji into their home as a disciple at the age of 16. Tunji is currently working in Gary Daly’s projects Sanctuary & Bungarribee, Shaun Parker’s dance Piece “AM I” with Nick Wales as musical director which premiered at the Sydney Opera House for the Sydney Festival 2014 & Linsey Pollak’s new project “Mrs.Curly & The Norwegian Smoking Pipe”.

Linsey Pollak

For over 20 years Linsey has made an international reputation as a performer, musician-in-residence, musical director, instrument maker/inventor, and composer. A life-altering experience was an 8 month stay in Macedonia, where he studied the Gaida (Macedonian bagpipes). When he returned to Australia he founded the Multicultural Music Centre of WA and later created many multi-cultural music ensembles including the National Cross Cultural Ensemble “Slivanje”.

Linsey has performed all around Australia and internationally, and has recorded 30 albums. He is also well known for his solo music/performance art shows such as “The Art of Food”, “Knocking on Kevin’s Door” and “Live and Loopy” which have toured to Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, North America, Brazil and many festivals in Europe. He has also worked as a musical instrument maker for 40 years and has designed a number of new wind instruments and specialises in crafting woodwind instruments of his own design.

“Some partnerships, were meant to be. Dva is unique in both instrumentation and output, Pollak having invented many of the wind instruments he plays. Beier, meanwhile, plays an array of hand-drums from Africa, India and points in between. Their combined influences -primarily the music of Eastern Europe, India and Africa – add up to a swirl of colours as they enjoy almost telepathic dialogues on self-penned or traditional compositions, which give way to thrilling improvisations. Dva is at the forefront of Australian creative music.”

– John Shand –  review in “Limelight”

Other reviews:

This amazing creation will resolutely refuse to be pigeonholed for marketing or retailing convenience, so all too few will ever hear it. Those lucky enough to do so will be swept away by music of astonishing scope, energy and beauty. That just two men can create all these sounds is remarkable enough, yet they do so with such unfailing artistry across such a broad spectrum of influences from Eastern Europe to India to Nirvana. Pollak blows into the most unlikely objects and makes them sing, while Beier is simply one of the most accomplished percussionists in the land. Don’t hesitate.

“Dva” is an album that demands to be listened to carefully to fully appreciate its intended feel. It’s sometimes crowded, sometimes ambient but always intriguing. If you’ve heard Pharoah Sanders or The Master Musicians of Jajuka, and appreciated their sound, then you will love the genius of “Dva”.

About their 3rd album (June 2005):

“Even the dullest of us are fascinated by difference. Watch a child stare at a disabled person, a crowd gather at the scene of an accident, or heads turn at a man in a purple suit. Some get it from sci-fi films, fantasy novels or drugs, some from exotic food, wondrous places or meeting new people. What’s at stake is a sense of having one’s life expanded from a just room, a suburb or even a country into something approaching the infinite. It can be derided as escapism – sometimes true – but such instinctive curiosity is also what broadens minds, fires imaginations and breeds tolerance.

Tunji Beier and Linsey Pollak offer a path to the same destination via music. To enter their sonic world is to dare to leave the known behind, and to step back in time to what it was like when you first heard music as a child. Often you don’t know how the sounds are made, but you are prepared to give yourself up to them and be rewarded by the wonder, the playfulness, the piercing melancholy and the flashes of wit. Then there is the implicit beauty of those sounds, and the seamless way that ancient instruments and exotic new inventions blend, as do acoustic instruments and digital technology. Behind those sounds, behind the vibrant composing and improvising, lie two rampant imaginations, harnessed to a fierce discipline of performance.

After two magical live CDs, this is the duo’s first studio album, and each piece is will take you somewhere you – and often the musicians! – haven’t been before: other worldly sounds that are always intensely, irrepressibly human.“

John Shand, music writer, The Sydney Morning Herald and Limelight.

“It’s inspiring to hear music with such freedom, expression and musicianship”.

Mark Williams

For Bookings or further info

Contact: linsey@spiderweb.com.au

For Canada & USA contact: www.stationbleue.com