Jill Rogoff (Special Event)

Whether accompanying herself on guitar and lap-harp or singing a cappella, JILL ROGOFF brings to her audiences a rich tradition of music from around the world. Originally from New Zealand, she currently lives in Jerusalem, and has mined the musical heritage of many cultures. Her repertoire embraces traditional Celtic and British Isles songs, Jewish music from many communities, early music, and contemporary material that also includes her own songs. Jill also sets poems in several languages to music. For many years, Jill has appeared at the Jacob?s Ladder Folk Festival, the national folk-music event in Israel. She has featured on several different programs on Israel National Radio, and radio shows in North America and Great Britain. Jill has given five sold-out concerts in recent years at the prestigious Abu Ghosh Vocal Festival near Jerusalem; in one of her appearances there in 2005, she collaborated with Israeli cellist Adiel Shmit and violinist Motti Shmit in an unusual program of Bach and traditional Ladino songs. She has recorded six solo albums to date. Through An Open Door, released in 1990, features a range of traditional songs from England, Ireland and Scotland. The Celtic Cradle, released in 1995 in North America, is a rare and varied collection of traditional lullabies. The album was honoured in 1995 with the Gold Seal from NAPPA, (the National Parenting Publications Awards) and the Parent?s Choice Silver Honour Award. Most of the songs are sung in the original Celtic tongues (Gaelic, Scots Gaelic, Manx, Welsh, Cornish and Breton). Her third solo release, in 1997, is Across the Narrow Seas. This collection focuses mainly on Ireland and Scotland, but also includes Jill?s setting of a poem by the late Poet Laureate of Britain, C. Day-Lewis. The King?s Well, released in 2003, features some of her own songs and poem-settings. A non-commercial, live album, In the Heart of Winter [2006], presents songs by the late singer-songwriter Ray Scudero and other contemporary writers. Jill has just released her fifth commercial album, The Voice of the Wanderer. This showcases traditional Jewish music from around the world in several languages. On the ethno-musicological side, Jill has completed a unique compilation of Jacobite songs, incorporating 302 songs in English, Lallans, Scots Gaelic, Gaelic, Manx Gaelic and Cornish, which she hopes to see published in the near future; another recent project was the preservation of some rare traditional French songs. She is helping to preserve for posterity little known Jewish songs from the Balkans, and has been invited to do the same for the repertoire of para-liturgical music of the Italian Jewish community.