The Heart of a Woman, And Other Poems

Charming Hostess is a whirl of eerie harmony, hot rhythm and radical braininess. Our music explores the intersection of text and the sounding body– complex ideas expressed physically, based on voice and vocal percussion, handclaps and heartbeats, sex-breath and silence. We live where diasporas collide, incorporating piyyutim and Pygmy counterpoint, doo-wop and niggunim, work songs and Torah chanting. The texts speak of mysticism and sex; angels and demons; and the trials and joys of love and sex…

It is difficult to imagine two greater opposites. On the one hand, Jazz, the rough companion who made ends meet in the big cities of the 20th century. On the other, Emily Dickinson, the quiet poet from a Calvinist family, who spent all of her life in the rural community of Amherst, Massachusetts. When Dickinson died at the age of 56 in 1886, jazz had not been born yet. It was no more than a dark premonition, lingering in the dank swamps of the Mississippi delta.
Do they go together? Without doubt. But to achieve this union requires a unique talent. Great musicianship. A feel for words, images, and sounds. It requires the ability to invent tunes that linger in the ear and move the heart. Only then can we fully appreciate the brittle, secretive art of Emily Dickinson…