Poster by Rebekah Bouche
More info: ​https://www.facebook.com/events/805662513220826/

The culmination of months of work, buried in my studio over most of the Summer. I was commissioned by the JW3 to score a series of short films about Jewish life from the BFI archives. Working on this project was an honour and a huge challenge but I got there, with the help of some amazing friends and talented colleagues/collaborators. 

The films premier at the UK Jewish Film Festival in Glasgow & London on the 17th  November at 1pm. London is almost SOLD-OUT, there is a Q&A after with myself, Maureen Lipman, Isy Suttie, Director Jon Spira & Mekella Broomberg (JW3).

More info and tickets here.

Director: Jon Spira
Commissioned by: Mekella Broomberg / JW3
Narration: Isy Suttie
Score produced by: Francesca Ter-Berg, featuring composition contributions from Michael Wingora & Oren Marshall)
Drums: Simon Roth
Tuba: Oren Marshall
Clarinet: Michael Winograd
Fiddle: Anna Lowenstein
Voice/Cello/Electronics/Sound Design: Francesca Ter-Berg
Engineering: Francesca Ter-Berg & Barnabas Poffley
Mixing: Rick Leigh, St Luke's, Islington
Mastering: Tim Turan, Turan Audio, Oxford
Produced and recorded at Lighthouse Studio Margate, Lima Limo HQ Bermondsey & Zenubian Space Hither Green

Thank you to:

Arts Council England kindly supporting us with a generous project grant over the coming months as we seek to share our music far & wide.
Andy Halliday @ Phantom Limb for booking our shows and being incredible
Esther Tewkesbury @ Kartel Music Group for pushing us and knowing how to get things happening :)
James Vella & Will McCarthy for your continued support in getting our music heard by as many folks as possible.

​A little experiment from a show I was invited to perform at Antara Festival near reading last September (2018).  It was great to develop my solo material for this boutique intimate setting, a barn amongst friends and colleagues. I stayed for the whole weekend, chatted to fascinating people around the fire, ate incredible South Indian food 3 times a day and made many new friends. Thanks to Varun & Anupa for inviting me to this special gathering. 

The show went well I think, bit off piste at times, but that is the nature of these things. I'm happy with what I made in the moment and hope to keep building on this. 

Recorded by Gareth Finnegan & Camilo Tirado
Mixed by Camilo Tirado
Video by Boyan Georgiev ​

Thanks to the support, once more, of the Help Musicians UK Transmission Fund I was able to head over to Quebec this Summer and attend KlezKanada. This is the largest gathering of Yiddish Culture experts and enthusiasts in the world, for one week in the Laurentian Mountains outside Montreal. There are trees and a lake and lots of amazing humans making music every waking minute of the day and night. We stay in rustic 'bunk houses' which are basically boxes and it gets cold at night, but its stunning beautiful and so inspiring to be there, reconnect with my Klezmer buddies over seas and jam into the night. My duo buddy Flora Curzon was also awarded the Transmission Fund so we got to go together and play a couple of shows, both at the festival and at the legendary La Sala Rossa in Montreal, which turned out to be a big hit - we even sold out of CDs! Perhaps it was our British charm (does that even exist any more/is it relevant? apparently in the commonwealth, yes!) or intense string playing, but either way we had the best time. Here's some memories from our trip :) Looking forward to hopefully making it back again next year! 

We also stopped off via New York City and Burlington, Vermont - two of my favourite places in the whole world. Road trip style adventure was had, and we even had time to visit Bread & Puppet Theatre Company in the Northeast Kingdom which was an extra special treat :)

More soon! xx

Passing through (but never truely leaving) VERMONT!!!! Sunflowers, Lakes, Bread & Puppet, The Radio Bean, Rye Bagels & MAPLE SYRUP!!!!!!! My heart is back in tow with all things that are best about this world :)

I am excited that several tracks from Fran & Flora's album Unfurl are featured in this heart-wrenching and beautiful documentary by Marina Parker, which will be aired on the 3rd July on BBC 2 at 9.30pm. Follow this link to watch! xx

Wow, just back from a dream tour with the dream band, performing Frank London's Ghetto Songs at the 3,000 capacity Elbphilharmonie, Hamburg and stunning Goldoni Theatre, Venice, where I made my debut solo singing apprearnce attempting to bring to life Bossa Nova classic 'O Morro Nao Tem Vez' by Antonio Carlos Jobim. The Line-up included Frank London (Bandleader/Trumpets, NYC), Brandon Ross (Guitar, NYC), Greg Cohen (Bass, NYC/Berlin), Ilya Sheyveys (Keyboards/Accordion, Latvia/NYC), Sveta Kundish (vocals, Israel/Berlin), Karim Sulayman (vocals, Chicago). Seriously -  could it get any better? What CAN'T this kind of band do? I hate rehearsing. But not this time!! - was more than a total pleasure to play and spend time with these guys for a week :)

My first time to the weird and wonderful land of Venice. Little did I know there was a Venetian Jewish (very bizarre and cool) dialect. In my time off I tried as many regional delights as I could including local wines, cheeses, feasting on Cichetti (little breads topped with an array of goodness) and my new discovery - White Polenta topped with Baccala Mantecato. Talk about slow cooking - this dish takes 3 days to make if made properly!

...After FAI i headed down to Boston (which was still freezing!) to have some lessons with of my favourite lessons - Mike Block (cello) and Anthony Coleman (improvisation/composition). This period of my trip, as I now know, was way way way too short. But the small time I spent with Mike and Anthony was immensely rewarding. It's a great feeling to be ready to go and work on technical and creative things which have become hurdles with such incredible and inspiring musicians and teachers...Looking forward to the next chapter.

And finally...NYC

Well - NYC is always great. I had hoped to spend more time there and up-state but alas I had to cut my trip short. I did, however, have time to catch up with my New York Klezmer family, schvitz (yiddish for sweat) my arse off and eat pickles and borsht in the Brooklyn Russian Banya and catch John Zorn play at Happy Lucky no.1 space in Brookyln for the inaugural weekend of the new weekly residency series- some incrizbdle artists playing over the coming year. Go check it out! I'll be spending a longer period of time in NYC and nearby later on in the year! Until then, lots of other exciting things in the mix.

More soon
Francesca x