UPDATE, 9-28-22: SOLD OUT, waiting list overfull.
Thank you very much.
Thursday, September 29, 7:30 Show (7 door): Peia: To The Well- Concert & Film Release
(Tickets $22.50, On Sale August 1; drop by the store or call 541-345-8986 top reserve) NASA approved air scrubber on the stage, masks encouraged.
To the Well film + concert release tour is a culmination of several months of grant study in the Gaeltachts (Irish speaking regions) of Western Ireland. Peia’s tour will focus on the songs and stories she gathered during her studies, as well as some old favorites. Joining Peia will be Irish & Appalachian fiddler Andrew Finn Magill.
To the Well film and concert release tour Film Link: To the Well: To the Well Show Format: Film screening: 20 minutes Q + A: 15 minutes w/ Peia Intermission Concert: 60-75 minutes
Further Event Description: “I could sing in over 20 languages yet I knew not a single song from my family nor one word from their ancestral language. I lacked true north and something in me remained searching and rootless.”
With equal parts thirst, gratitude, and the kind of urgent, grief-soaked willingness to peer into a deep well after long pilgrimage, Peia stood on the west coast of County Kerry, Ireland and held the songs of her ancestors in her mouth like so much bread after generations of famine. The result of years of study, this is the tale of finding the source of an erased origin: a holy well of songs still as alive and vibrant as the good green hills, as sturdy as the standing stones.
It is said culture can be forgotten in but two generations. Every modern person in the so-called west suffers from the legacies of colonization: a sense of separation from place-based lifeways that erupt from the land itself, manifesting in the forms of dance, foods, rituals, ceremonies, folk arts – and song.
Amnesia is a hallmark of our species, but so is remembering.
And to remember, we must listen deeply.
For Peia’s To The Well Film Release and Concert Tour, we invite you to come and to drink deeply from an ancient shared source. While we are all descendants of lands that gave shape and sound to our cultures, we also need courage to confront what is reflected in the water. To go to the well is to take the long road back to ourselves. It is not an endeavor to do alone: this kind of healing happens in community. For this journey, we will accompany you with some new and favorite songs, yes, but also a viewing of the short film followed by some Q&A from the audience.
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Peia Luzzi is an American born song collector, writer and multi-instrumentalist based in the mountains of Appalachia. Like water from a deep well, she draws inspiration from her ancestral roots of Irish and Old World European folk music. Peia’s voice dances nimbly from Child Ballads and 17th C. Gaelic laments, to Waulking Songs, and Bulgarian mountain calls. She has traveled & studied extensively over the past 10 years to reconnect with her own ancestral song tradition. Uncovering melodies wrinkled & wise with time, while taking care to honor their language and stories, Peia brings a piece of herself to each song she carries.
Trained in Opera at the New England Conservatory in Boston, Peia set off to India, South America and the European continent in 2010 to begin her exploration and study of traditional folk songs.
In 2012 she released her first solo album The Dance of Devotion – a collection of poetic love songs and chants. Peia found her voice in her second release, Four Great Winds, Self released in May 2013 and picked up by Sounds True for global release in 2015. Following the initial release of ‘Four Great Winds’ Peia gained international notoriety and requests for performances in Europe, Australia, Bali, Brazil and Canada. Her music has taken her around the world, gained over 10 million views on YouTube, and sparked collaborations with many world-class artists including: legendary poet and Rumi scholar Coleman Barks, author, mythologist & storyteller Michael Meade, Folk-Roots group Rising Appalachia, Renaissance Lutist Ronn McFarlane, Iranian tar master Ali Ghamsari, Grammy Award Winner Peter Kater and Irish singer Eílish Kennedy.
