This recently formed band is one of the groups of emerging artists supported by 2MBS Fine Music Sydney. Chutney has just released its debut album Ajar, showcasing its work and diverse origins. Merging classical tradition with music from jazz, pop, swing and musical theatre, CHUTNEY’s music has its own character that has led the group to perform, tour, teach and record to an increasingly large audience.
Catherine Peake discusses the music of the band CHUTNEY with its leader Ben Adler
Chutney has been described as a klezmer-fusion music band. What have been the group’s main influences and what are the challenges in creating and performing your music?
Chutney was born as a result of pianist Paul Khodor pestering me for years with the repeated suggestion that ‘we should start a klezmer band’. Klezmer is the folk music of Jewish Eastern Europe, which also migrated to the USA and Israel, among other places, in the twentieth century. Paul and I are both classically trained, so our music holds a deep deference to the classical tradition and its harmonic language. Jazz, funk, Latin and gypsy flavours also feature strongly. However, we are CHUTNEY – a rich composite of disparate ingredients – so you may also detect notes of disco, reggae, swing, Dixieland, pop, musical theatre, circus, and film genres!
Our music has been a joy to create and perform, and audiences universally find it engaging, uplifting, and energising, regardless of whether they are Jewish, classically educated, have a background in world/folk music, or are totally uninitiated. Our only challenge lies in convincing people to listen. Our genre-blurring approach to music making can confuse institutions, as it defies easy categorisation. Additionally, the absence of a permanent lead singer can cause audiences raised on pop music to falter.
You have said that music builds bridges and fosters connection like nothing else. Why do you think this is so, and can you tell us how your music is part of this connection?
I have long argued that music at its best is the communication of emotion through sound. Consequently, it expresses what words cannot – the ‘universal language’. As I wrote with friend and festival director Nawfel Alfaris in opposition to the Sydney Festival boycott two years ago, “how can art not challenge and dismantle the preconceptions of our minds when it speaks the language of our hearts? When everyone in a room feels the rhythm as one, it’s hard to find room for hate.”
CHUTNEY is a Jewish band. We love playing for our own community, but we find special value in playing for other communities. We have performed for a mostly Arab audience at the Sound of Terra Festival in Casula/Liverpool for three consecutive years, and have taught audiences how to dance the hora (traditional circle dance) in towns like Winmalee, Wodonga and South West Rocks. We are proud to provide many of these audience members’ first experience of Jewish culture and people.
Part of your work has been introducing your music to high school students. What does this involve and how do students engage with the music?
We are consistently inspired by students’ energy and open mindedness. I have arranged some of our music for both string orchestra and wind band, so we send the relevant parts to schools a few weeks in advance. When we arrive, they are already sufficiently familiar with the notes that we can delve deeply into stylistic, performative, and cultural/historical content. We also provide a safe and encouraging environment for every student to improvise a solo on their instrument, many for the first time!
After a couple of hours and a dinner break, we put on a CHUTNEY show for the local community, including the students’ families and friends, and perform the songs we have workshopped side-by-side with the students. Sharing the stage with professional musicians gives students a huge buzz and they invariably leave highly enthused.
CHUTNEY has recently released its first album – can you tell us what to expect?
Ajar is a potpourri of our best 13 tracks, honed across 100 plus shows over the past four years. It is a spicy mix of instrumental and vocal, old and new, fresh arrangements and original compositions. We take you on a whirlwind tour through Russia, Ukraine, Romania, Italy, Austria, Germany, Israel, Egypt, Latin America, and the USA – all refracted through the dual lenses of our cultural identity: contemporary Australia and timeless Jewishness. CHUTNEY: a rich composite of disparate ingredients.
The voices of APRA award-winning singer songwriter Ilan Kidron, musical theatre star Doron Chester and soul diva Sarit Michael surmount the unbridled virtuosity of the band, whose members have played with the Australian Chamber Orchestra, Monsieur Camembert, Human Nature and Marcia Hines. From traditional klezmer dance tunes to samba, from the jazz lounge to the concert hall, from Beethoven to Britney Spears (this particular track was recently named by Rolling Stone a Song You Need to Know!), Rimsky-Korsakov to The Godfather, Mozart to Fiddler on the Roof – we’ve left the door ajar for everyone’s tastes!
What are CHUTNEY’s plans and projects for the future?
Having successfully toured our album down to Victoria via Canberra and the Albury-Wodonga region in April, we are looking forward to hitting the road again later this month as support for Melbourne Ska Orchestra in New South Wales and South Queensland. We are planning even bigger shows in Sydney as our audience continues to grow, and look forward to touring internationally in the years to come.