Sanda Weigl: Gypsy in a Tree w/ Anthony Coleman, Douglas Wieselman, Greg Cohen, and Satoshi Takeishi

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Sanda was born in Bucharest, where she began her career as a child star on Romanian national television, singing Gypsy songs learned from street singers and from recordings of the legendary Maria Tanase.

When Sanda was thirteen, political persecution forced the family to move to East Berlin. There her father was reunited with his only surviving relative, Helene Weigel, Bertolt Brecht's widow and director of the Berliner Ensemble. Sanda was immersed in the Brecht/Weill tradition, meeting Lotte Lenya and studying with Helene.
While a teenager, Sanda joined the state-sponsored rock band Team 4, lead by future East German Deputy Minister of Culture Hartmut Koenig. Team 4's song “Der Abend ist gekommen," sung by Sanda, hit number one on the charts and epitomized the swinging sixties, East Berlin style, with its driving pre-Krautrock sound. Though she was one of the first rock stars in East Germany, the songs of her youth in Bucharest still gripped her. At the age of seventeen, Sanda's performance of “Recruti," a Gypsy song still in her repertoire today, won her the gold medal at the International Song Festival in Dresden.

At the height of Team 4's success, Sanda became embroiled in the political unrest of 1968. In protest against the East German army's participation in the Prague invasion, Sanda formed an underground activist group, distributing subversive pamphlets throughout East Berlin. Her involvement with the most radical element of East Germany's dissident community brought her to the attention of the authorities. She was arrested and sentenced to two and half years in prison. International outcry against the government's harsh treatment of the teenage group led to her release from jail, but Sanda still endured three years of hard labor on an assembly line and was barred from public performance for six years.

Labeled an enemy of the state, Sanda was expelled to West Germany, where she started her second career in the Schiller Theater in West Berlin. Her work in the theater included collaborations with many of the most world's important directors and performers, including Luc Bondy, Juergen Flimm, and Peter Zadek. Sanda married dramatist/actor Klaus Pohl, with whom she worked extensively as he became one Germany's leading theater artists. She was assistant director on three of Robert Wilson's pieces,"Civil Wars, Hamlet Machine, and Parsifal.

Theater work drew Sanda back to music. The musicians from the Robert Wilson /Tom Waits piece The Black Rider became Sanda's band as she delved back into her beloved Romanian Gypsy music for critically acclaimed concerts in Hamburg.

With the help and encouragement of Robert Wilson, Sanda and Klaus emmigrated to New York, where Sanda began to explore the downtown music world. At a David Byrne concert at the Knitting Factory, she was reunited with her childhood friend violinist Alexander Balanescu, leading to performances of Romanian Gypsy music with the Balanescu String Quartet in London and Hamburg.
Sanda then met composer Anthony Coleman, who became producer and arranger for her first recording since Team 4, her ultimate tribute to her formative influence: the Gypsy songs of the Bucharest streets. Coleman's unique perspective on East European music, encompassing the rawest folksong to the most esoteric branches of the avant-garde, created anew sound-world for Sanda's voice and her cherished material.

He also brought in many of New York's greatest musicians, including Glen Velez and Marc Ribot, and introduced her to the players who would become the nucleus of her new and magnificent ensemble (Anthony Coleman, Alex Fedoriouk, Curtis Hasselbring, Brad Jones, Ted Reichman, Roberto Rodriguez, and Doug Wieselman). This band quickly became a sensation in New York's downtown clubs, including the Knitting Factory, Tonic, BAM Cafe,a sold-out concert at the critically acclaimed Balkan Cabaret series at Exit Art, and another concert in the JVC Jazz Festival.

She began work on her next project, a return to another great influence of her youth, the cabaret music of Weimar Berlin, including of course Kurt Weill as well as lesser-known composer Mischa Spoliansky. Sanda returned to Europe in fall 2001 at the invitation of Pina Bausch to bring together her Gypsy and cabaret songbooks at the Pina Bausch Festival in Wuppertal, where she also performed in Bausch's version of The Seven Deadly Sins. The band also performed concerts in Hamburg, Germany.
In April and May 2002 Sanda participated at the acclaimed program of contemporary cabaret performers at NEUE GALERIE NEW YORK- New Museum for German and Austrian Art. Her debut album Gypsy Killer [Knitting Factory] was released in July, 2002. Throughout the summer of 2002 and 2003, Sanda toured throughout Europe to sold out performances. Her electrifying appearance at the TheatreSpektakel in Zürich reached audiences of over 1500.

In September 2003, Sanda with husband and playwright, Klaus Pohl premiered their play Canary, at the prestigious Theater an der Josephstadt in Vienna, Austria. The show has enjoyed enormous critical acclaim and a sold-out status since its opening. A future American production is planned for the 2004-05 season at the Culture Project @ 45 Bleecker in New York.

In 2004 Sanda spent an enticing time in Romania exploring the Roma culture by delving deep into Transylvania. Traveling to unmapped towns and villages, Sanda sought out and found a treasure trove of new material and collaborators for her next album, Gypsy in a Tree. Sanda has also reshaped her band to include: Anthony Coleman, piano, Brad Jones, bass, Doug Wieselman, clarinet,guitar, horns and Satoshi Takeishi, hand percussion. Sanda’s future as always, offers extremely innovative and promising projects including: participating at the prestigious 2005 and 2007 Ruhr Triennale in Germany.She resides in New York City and in Vienna,Austria.

Critical acclaim has followed:

To call Weigl's voice "powerful" would be an understatement. She has an impressive vocal range.
Her interpretations are dramatic, even theatrical, but never "over the top"… but Weigl's purpose is not to shock, but rather to communicate the vibrant life force inherent in the music. Which she does admirably, with an energy and panache that speaks of her intimate familiarity with the material. Always though, it comes back to Weigl's extraordinary voice. And if you're a fan of vocal ethnic music of any sort, that's something you don't want to miss. Bill Tilland, BBC http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/world/reviews/weigl_killer.shtml

Sanda dusts off the travel-stained repertoire (of the Gypsy music) with cabaret stylings and art-songs arrangements…she has a healthy sense of absurdism, the kind of Balkan black humor you find in Kusturica's Yugoslavian Gypsy films…Time Out NY http://www.timeoutny.com/rock/353/353.music.weigl.rev.html

Sounding at times like a Tom Waits-bred cross between Cape Verdean Chanteuse Cesaria Evora and German vocal visionary Dagmar Krause, Sanda draws from her Romanian Gypsy heritage to create music steeped in tradition, yet very much of the moment… George Varga, Union-Tribune San Diego
http://sandiego.citysearch.com/profile/248742

The Pina Bausch Festival…Sanda appeared on stage dancing with lithe feet and a great sense of rhythm, stunning everyone with an all around motile and expressive voice…Wuppertaler Zeitung, Germany