Mechaya

A Night of Contemporary Klezmer Music featuring Chaia and Francesca Ter-Berg; two solo sets followed by a duo

The Foundry Collective,  1 Victoria Rd, North Acton, W3 6FA

January 4th, doors 19:30

Chaia is an electronic composer working at the intersection of Yiddish culture and electronic club music. She weaves archival Yiddish samples with techno and ambient frameworks, creating hybrid folk-electronic compositions that situate ancestral sound within global and liberatory rave culture. In live performance, she weaves together accordion, vocals, and samples - inviting audiences to engage with ritual, intergenerational trauma, and the echoes of ancestral memory. 

Chaia was raised in the klezmer tradition and mentored by Yiddish music pioneers Hankus Netsky, Jeff Warschauer, and Basya Schechter. She now works closely with Yiddish archives to identify, highlight, and catalog Yiddish material for her electronic work. These include the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, The Yiddish Book Center, Yiddish Song of the Week, and the personal archives of Netsky and the Hoffman Family. Chaia’s work has been supported by New York State’s Council for the Arts, the Brooklyn Arts Council, The Goethe Institute, and the Center for Traditional Music and Dance.  

Francesca Ter-Berg is a cellist and composer known for her unique style which blends Klezmer, Improvisation, and electronic synthesis. Her debut EP (Phantom Limb Label achieved Best Experimental Music on Bandcamp + Quietus Best Releases of 2021).  Her critically acclaimed duo Fran & Flora (“Border-defying” – Mojo, “vibrant, mournfully expressive, and creatively imaginative” – Line Of Best Fit) released their 2nd self-produced studio album Precious Collection in April 2024 on Hidden Notes Records (The Guardian Top 10 Folk Albums of 2024). 

She tours and records with Imogen Heap, Tom Skinner, Portico Quartet, Ziah Ziah and prominent klezmorim including Grammy award winner Frank London, Zoe Aqua and Craig Judelman.  She has spent many years developing her Klezmer style, adapting the cello to explore all aspects of the music from accompaniment, tenor lines and bass to melody and simultaneously singing. Francesca writes for film and TV, commissions include the Turner Contemporary and Margate NOW Festival. She performs and teaches at Klezmer festivals globally including KlezMore Vienna, KlezFest London, Yiddish New York and is a Professor of Electronic & Produced music at Guildhall School of Music & Drama.