The Cedar Presents
MARI BOINE TRIO with Aida Shahghasemi and Jeremy Ylvisaker
Thursday, October 3rd, 2019 / Doors: 7:00 PM / Show: 7:30 PM
All Ages
Seated
$20 Advance / $25 Day of Show
This is a seated show with general admission, first-come-first-served seating. The Cedar is happy to reserve seats for patrons who require special seating accommodations. To request seating or other access accommodations, please go to our Access page.
General Admission tickets are available online, by phone, Electric Fetus, and The Cedar during shows.
“Sung in the Sámi language and drawing on the influence of the indigenous Sámi chant known as yoik, [Boine] veers towards the mystical while being grounded in earthiness. Vaguely comparable to Celtic counterparts in some ways, Boine’s music nonetheless has a voice all its own.”
ABOUT MARI BOINE
Imagine the ice and snow of the Arctic landscape, the bitter cold of the Northern wind, the hint of compelling blue under a crystallized lake. Close your eyes. Then listen. Really listen. You’ll feel a voice before you even hear it. It’s like none other. It’s a voice that brings the landscape alive with a mesmerizing purity; a voice that represents a thousand years of ancestral connection to an unyielding frozen space.
This is Mari Boine.
Musician. Songwriter. Singer. A genre-bending trailblazer with a taste for jazz, folk, rock, and world. An artist whose music is inspired by and infused with her Sámi roots. A woman who knows who she is, where she’s come from and what she stands for. A music icon who has inspired indigenous artists the world over.
Mari Boine. She’s got soul.
“It’s completely irrelevant what you call her music. Her music that blends seamlessly into the rhythms and sound picture of our times. She could have sung her songs a thousand years ago or a thousand years into the future and still retained the same depth and resonance. In other words, it is like Mari Boine’s voice reveals just the smallest sliver of eternity,” said one critic about her album Gávcci Jahkejuogo (Eight Seasons).
When Mari Boine made her music debut in the early 1980’s, she was an angry young woman. And she had every right to be. Christianity, repression of the Sámi language and the oppressive culture of “the big men down south” – these all weighed heavily on the mind of a girl raised in her native language but discouraged from performing traditional yoik. After all, it was “devil’s work.”
“The first music I ever heard was from my parents, singing hymns. We had no records or television in our home. My strict religious parents never allowed that. We did own a radio, but it was restricted to listening to the news, weather forecasts and Sunday church service,” says Mari. “But of course, when our parents were out or at night, we discovered music from all over the world on those radio channels. In fact, I first heard jazz on that radio.”
Outside the family home, Mari absorbed the music of nature, like the wind “singing” and in spring – birdsong.
Performing first in Norwegian and English, Mari eventually switched to her native tongue Sámi – “a good language to sing in, so rich for the voice,” she said. Mari channeled her personal and political frustration into the 1989 breakthrough album Gula Gula, which propelled her into popular culture both at home and internationally and gave her a platform to advocate for Sámi.
“It’s not that I was always a political activist,” she says. “And I certainly never profess to represent Sámi. It’s just that music gave me a profile and gives me a platform, so I use it. By telling my own personal story as a Sámi, I feel I’m sharing a piece of my people’s story. After all, my songs describe the pain of oppression and the struggle to reclaim self-respect, but I also sing about the joy of growing up within a culture that has such a close bond with nature.”
In 1993, Mari’s album Goaskinviella (Eagle Brother) was awarded the Norwegian equivalent to a Grammy. A decade later, Mari was recognized with the Nordic Council’s Music Prize. This special award acknowledged her artistic achievements, but also her ability to connect with a global audience while still maintaining her integrity as a Sámi.
Mari Boine’s newest album is See the Woman. And as to be expected from Mari Boine, this new album is a twist.
“For this project, I really wanted to do something different. So, I reached back into my past, to the kind of music I listened to when I was younger. Much of the music I’ve been making up until now has a shamanistic beat at its core. My new project is full of keyboards and synthesizers and to me, it’s more experimental. These sounds create space for me to tell more complex stories.”
“It’s been a real challenge to see whether my own vocal style (which is heavily influenced by traditional Sami styles) can work in a language that isn’t my mother tongue. I think I’ve pulled it off. It’s an album I’m very proud of.”
Visit Mari Boine’s Website
Mari Boine performing “Jearrat Biekkas” courtesy of Universal Sounds Switzerland’s YouTube channel.
About Aida Shahghasemi
Aida Shahghasemi is a Minneapolis based vocalist and musician. She studied Psychology and Anthropology at University of Minnesota with a focus on the restrictions of the voices of female vocalists in Iran, where she was born and raised until the age of thirteen. She received her Masters degree from New York University in Art and Public Policy, exploring her interests in the intersection of art and socio-political movements. She has worked with different New York and Minnesota based social justice art organizations and has served as an assistant director at Hamline University's Making Waves Social Justice Theatre Troupe. She has been a touring member of Iron and Wine and Marketa Irglova’s band while also being a recording artist on two of Glen Hansard’s albums. She is a recipient of the 2017 McKnight music fellowship.
VISIT AIDA SHAHGHASEMI’S WEBSITE
Aida Shahghasemi performing “Beman” courtesy of Lila Merik’s YouTube channel.