Pharaoh's Daughter is an American Jewish
world music
"World music" is an English phrase for styles of music from non-English speaking countries, including quasi-traditional, Cross-cultural communication, intercultural, and traditional music. World music's broad nature and elasticity as a musical ...
band from
New York City
New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...
. Formed in 1995 by
Basya Schechter
Basya Schechter is an American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, composer, producer, cantor, and music teacher. She is the lead singer and founder of the world/folk rock band Pharaoh's Daughter and has released two solo albums. She has ...
.
History
Basya Schechter
Basya Schechter is an American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, composer, producer, cantor, and music teacher. She is the lead singer and founder of the world/folk rock band Pharaoh's Daughter and has released two solo albums. She has ...
formed Pharaoh's Daughter in 1995 while attending
Barnard College
Barnard College is a Private college, private Women's colleges in the United States, women's Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college affiliated with Columbia University in New York City. It was founded in 1889 by a grou ...
.
The band's name is a reference to Schechter's given name, a
Yiddish
Yiddish, historically Judeo-German, is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated in 9th-century Central Europe, and provided the nascent Ashkenazi community with a vernacular based on High German fused with ...
variant of the Biblical daughter of
Pharaoh
Pharaoh (, ; Egyptian language, Egyptian: ''wikt:pr ꜥꜣ, pr ꜥꜣ''; Meroitic language, Meroitic: 𐦲𐦤𐦧, ; Biblical Hebrew: ''Parʿō'') was the title of the monarch of ancient Egypt from the First Dynasty of Egypt, First Dynasty ( ...
,
Bithiah
The Pharaoh's daughter () in the story of the finding of Moses in the biblical Book of Exodus is an important, albeit minor, figure in Abrahamic religions. Though some variations of her story exist, the general consensus among Jews, Christians, a ...
.
They debuted in 1999 with the independent album ''Daddy's Pockets'' and were signed to
Knitting Factory Records
Knitting Factory Records is an indie music, independent American music label that is notable for promoting a variety of artists, including the music of deceased Nigerian political activist Fela Kuti. The label promotes a variety of music artist ...
later that year.
The label then released the band's second album, ''Out of the Reeds'' (2000). Their 2014 album ''Dumiyah'' was produced by
Jamshied Sharifi
Jamshied Sharifi (born October 17, 1960) is a Tony Award-winning American composer, conductor, musician, and record producer. Born in Topeka, Kansas to an Iranian father and an American mother, Sharifi was exposed to music at an early age, lear ...
and featured contributions from
Steven Bernstein,
Shir Yaakov Feit,
Adam Levy,
Mauro Refosco
Mauro Refosco (born 16 October 1966), is a Brazilian percussionist. He is best known for his work with singer David Byrne and the American rock band Red Hot Chili Peppers. He was a member of the experimental supergroup Atoms for Peace – featur ...
, and
Marcus Rojas
Marcus Rojas (born February 23, 1963) is an American tubist from New York City.
Early life
Rojas was born in New York City on February 23, 1963, and grew up in Red Hook, Brooklyn. His early influences included Eddie Palmieri, Willie Colón, and ...
.
Group members have been involved in a variety of other notable projects. In particular, Basya Schechter has released two solo albums and has performed with the groups
Darshan
Darshan, a Sanskrit word meaning "sight" or "viewing", may refer to:
Ceremony and religion
* Darshan (Indian religions), the auspicious sight of a divine image or holy person; also a school of Hindu philosophy
* Darshan (Judaism), a Scriptural ...
and
The Epichorus.
Musical style
Pharaoh's Daughter's sound draws from American
folk
Folk or Folks may refer to:
Sociology
*Nation
*People
* Folklore
** Folk art
** Folk dance
** Folk hero
** Folk horror
** Folk music
*** Folk metal
*** Folk punk
*** Folk rock
** Folk religion
* Folk taxonomy
Arts, entertainment, and media
* Fo ...
, Jewish
klezmer
Klezmer ( or ) is an instrumental musical tradition of the Ashkenazi Jews of Central and Eastern Europe. The essential elements of the tradition include dance tunes, ritual melodies, and virtuosic improvisations played for listening; these wou ...
,
avant-garde
In the arts and literature, the term ''avant-garde'' ( meaning or ) identifies an experimental genre or work of art, and the artist who created it, which usually is aesthetically innovative, whilst initially being ideologically unacceptable ...
,
new-age
New Age is a range of spiritual or religious practices and beliefs that rapidly grew in Western society during the early 1970s. Its highly eclectic and unsystematic structure makes a precise definition difficult. Although many scholars consid ...
,
Renaissance
The Renaissance ( , ) is a Periodization, period of history and a European cultural movement covering the 15th and 16th centuries. It marked the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and was characterized by an effort to revive and sur ...
,
electronic
Electronic may refer to:
*Electronics, the science of how to control electric energy in semiconductors
* ''Electronics'' (magazine), a defunct American trade journal
*Electronic storage, the storage of data using an electronic device
*Electronic c ...
, and
Middle Eastern
The Middle East (term originally coined in English language) is a geopolitical region encompassing the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, Turkey, Egypt, Iran, and Iraq.
The term came into widespread usage by the United Kingdom and western Eur ...
music.
Band members
Current
*
Basya Schechter
Basya Schechter is an American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, composer, producer, cantor, and music teacher. She is the lead singer and founder of the world/folk rock band Pharaoh's Daughter and has released two solo albums. She has ...
—
lead vocals
The lead vocalist in popular music is typically the member of a group or band whose voice is the most prominent melody in a performance where multiple voices may be heard. The lead singer sets their voice against the accompaniment parts of the ...
,
guitar
The guitar is a stringed musical instrument that is usually fretted (with Fretless guitar, some exceptions) and typically has six or Twelve-string guitar, twelve strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming ...
,
oud
The oud ( ; , ) is a Middle Eastern short-neck lute-type, pear-shaped, fretless stringed instrument (a chordophone in the Hornbostel–Sachs classification of instruments), usually with 11 strings grouped in six courses, but some models have ...
,
saz,
percussion
A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a percussion mallet, beater including attached or enclosed beaters or Rattle (percussion beater), rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or ...
*Daphna Mor —
recorders,
zurna
The zurna is a double reed wind instrument played in Central Asia, West Asia, the Caucasus, Southeast Europe and parts of North Africa. It is also used in Sri Lanka. It is usually accompanied by a davul (bass drum) in Armenian, Anatolian and Ass ...
,
ney
The ney ( ; ) is an end-blown flute that figures prominently in traditional Persian, Turkish, Jewish, Arab, and Egyptian music. In some of these musical traditions, it is the only wind instrument used. The ney has been played for over 4,500 ye ...
,
melodica
The melodica is a handheld free-reed instrument similar to a pump organ or harmonica. It features a musical keyboard on top, and is played by blowing air through a mouthpiece that fits into a hole in the side of the instrument. The keyboard usu ...
, vocals
*
Meg Okura Meg Okura (born August 9, 1973) is an American jazz violinist, composer, erhu player, and leader of the Pan Asian Chamber Jazz Ensemble, based in New York City. She is also a member of the band Pharaoh's Daughter, Emilio Solla y La Inestable de Bro ...
—
violin
The violin, sometimes referred to as a fiddle, is a wooden chordophone, and is the smallest, and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in regular use in the violin family. Smaller violin-type instruments exist, including the violino picc ...
*
Shanir Ezra Blumenkranz
Shanir Ezra Blumenkranz (born 1975) is an American bassist and oud player who has recorded and performed extensively with Cyro Baptista's Banquet of the Spirits, Daniel Zamir's Satlah, Rashanim, Pharaoh's Daughter, and John Zorn. Blumenkranz stu ...
—
bass
Bass or Basses may refer to:
Fish
* Bass (fish), various saltwater and freshwater species
Wood
* Bass or basswood, the wood of the tilia americana tree
Music
* Bass (sound), describing low-frequency sound or one of several instruments in th ...
*Yuval Lion —
drums
The drum is a member of the percussion instrument, percussion group of musical instruments. In the Hornbostel–Sachs classification system, it is a membranophones, membranophone. Drums consist of at least one Acoustic membrane, membrane, c ...
*
Jason Lindner
Jason Lindner (born February 1, 1973) is an American pianist, keyboardist, synthesist, sound designer, composer, arranger and producer.
Life and career
Lindner was brought up in Brooklyn, New York City.Matzner, Frank A. (August 18, 2014"Jason Li ...
—
rhodes piano
The Rhodes piano (also known as the Fender Rhodes piano) is an electric piano invented by Harold Rhodes, which became popular in the 1970s. Like a conventional piano, the Rhodes generates sound with keys and hammers, but instead of strings, th ...
,
keys
Key, Keys, The Key or The Keys may refer to:
Common uses
* Key (cryptography), a piece of information needed to encode or decode a message
* Key (instrument), a component of a musical instrument
* Key (lock), a device used to operate a lock
* ...
*Mathias Kunzli — percussion
*Uri Sharlin —
accordion
Accordions (from 19th-century German language, German ', from '—"musical chord, concord of sounds") are a family of box-shaped musical instruments of the bellows-driven free reed aerophone type (producing sound as air flows past a Reed (mou ...
, vocals
Former
*Benoir - guitar, vocals
*Daniel Freedman — drums
*Noah Hoffeld —
cello
The violoncello ( , ), commonly abbreviated as cello ( ), is a middle pitched bowed (sometimes pizzicato, plucked and occasionally col legno, hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually intonation (music), tuned i ...
*Alan Kashan —
santur
The santur ( ; ) is a hammered dulcimer of Iranian origin.--- Rashid, Subhi Anwar (1989). ''Al-ʼĀlāt al-musīqīyya al-muṣāhiba lil-Maqām al-ʻIrāqī''. Baghdad: Matbaʻat al-ʻUmmāl al-Markazīyya.
History
The santur was invented ...
*Jen Gilleran: tabla, vocals
*Martha Colby: cello, vocals
*Jarrod Cagwin: percussion (frame drums, clay drums, dumbek)
*Tracey Love-Wright: flute, clarinet, crumhorn, vocals
Discography
*''Daddy's Pockets'' (Orchard, 1999)
*''Out of the Reeds'' (
Knitting Factory
The Knitting Factory is a nightclub in New York City that features eclectic music and entertainment and is co-owned and co-operated by Knitting Factory Entertainment. After opening in 1987, various other locations were opened in the United Stat ...
, 2000) - rereleased on
Tzadik
Tzadik ( ''ṣaddīq'' , "righteous ne; also ''zadik'' or ''sadiq''; pl. ''tzadikim'' ''ṣadīqīm'') is a title in Judaism given to people considered righteous, such as biblical figures and later spiritual masters. The root of the word ...
in 2004
*''Exile'' (Knitting Factory, 2002)
*''Great Jewish Music: Sasha Argov''
Tzadik
Tzadik ( ''ṣaddīq'' , "righteous ne; also ''zadik'' or ''sadiq''; pl. ''tzadikim'' ''ṣadīqīm'') is a title in Judaism given to people considered righteous, such as biblical figures and later spiritual masters. The root of the word ...
, 2003 The song "Anakhnu lo rakdanim" (we're not dancers) 5:01
[https://www.klezmershack.com/bands/argov/music/argov.music.html]
*''Haran'' (OY, 2007)
*''Dumiyah'' (Magenta, 2014)
References
External links
Official Website*
Pharaoh's Daughter on MySpace
American folk musical groups
Musical groups established in 2005
Musical groups from New York City
Shemspeed Records artists
Tzadik Records artists
Psychedelic folk groups
Jewish folk rock groups
{{US-band-stub