Multiple music arts grant-award winner Alexandra “Olenka" Gadzik emigrated from the Carpathian Mountains of Poland with her parents and sister in 1977. Growing up in multi-cultural New York City nurtured in her a love and affinity for world music.
Now with Olenka's second fully orchestrated release, Rhythms of Another Life, her world fusion rhythms and spiraling Euro-fringe melodies, sing the stories of women, foreigners, and belonging in a global culture. The CD is receiving heavy airplay on radio and is now available at olenka.com, CD Baby and iTunes. Olenka blends funky ethnic grooves and instruments with jazz-caliber musicianship, poetic lyrics, and a pop-friendly sound. Her passion for integrating world music with state-of-the-art production is long standing. In 1989 she collaborated with Peruvian buskers, or street musicians, in New York City on her worldbeat song “Cold Faith". It featured the Peruvian zampona (panpipe) player Ricardo Silva, orchestrated with the recently invented Chapman Stick guitar/bass. That same year “Cold Faith" appeared on the compilation of New York bands entitled Fresh Kills and it now appears on Olenka's debut CD Making Arrows.
Her recent release, Rhythms of Another Life, was part of her project “World Rhythms in Original Music" for which she received a grant from the Iowa Arts Council. In applying for the grant Olenka competed with large organizations like the Cedar Rapids Symphony Orchestra and the Des Moines Opera Company. Hers was the largest grant awarded for an individual artist project in that season. The project included a 20-venue tour and the recording of the CD Rhythms of Another Life which was co-produced by percussionist Jamey Reid. Songs like “Tumbleweed" and “Different Drum" combine world rhythms, in particularly odd meters like Indian seven and Finnish thirteen beat patterns, with a full production and a Western pop sensibility. The CD contains liner notes with rhythm notation and descriptions of the world rhythms used.
Olenka's live performance ensemble Otro Mundo features guest musicians including flamenco, Latin and Gypsy jazz guitarists and ethnic percussionists. Otro Mundo combines world jazz like bossa nova and fado songs with an original repertoire and touches of flamenco dance. Her live projects also include the Slavic/Nordic women's a cappella vocal ensemble Zloti Village Chorus which sings a Slavic repertoire with Olenka's English lyrics and translations. The Zloti Village Chorus is currently the only chorus in the world singing Slavic material in English.
Now with Olenka's second fully orchestrated release, Rhythms of Another Life, her world fusion rhythms and spiraling Euro-fringe melodies, sing the stories of women, foreigners, and belonging in a global culture. The CD is receiving heavy airplay on radio and is now available at olenka.com, CD Baby and iTunes. Olenka blends funky ethnic grooves and instruments with jazz-caliber musicianship, poetic lyrics, and a pop-friendly sound. Her passion for integrating world music with state-of-the-art production is long standing. In 1989 she collaborated with Peruvian buskers, or street musicians, in New York City on her worldbeat song “Cold Faith". It featured the Peruvian zampona (panpipe) player Ricardo Silva, orchestrated with the recently invented Chapman Stick guitar/bass. That same year “Cold Faith" appeared on the compilation of New York bands entitled Fresh Kills and it now appears on Olenka's debut CD Making Arrows.
Her recent release, Rhythms of Another Life, was part of her project “World Rhythms in Original Music" for which she received a grant from the Iowa Arts Council. In applying for the grant Olenka competed with large organizations like the Cedar Rapids Symphony Orchestra and the Des Moines Opera Company. Hers was the largest grant awarded for an individual artist project in that season. The project included a 20-venue tour and the recording of the CD Rhythms of Another Life which was co-produced by percussionist Jamey Reid. Songs like “Tumbleweed" and “Different Drum" combine world rhythms, in particularly odd meters like Indian seven and Finnish thirteen beat patterns, with a full production and a Western pop sensibility. The CD contains liner notes with rhythm notation and descriptions of the world rhythms used.
Olenka's live performance ensemble Otro Mundo features guest musicians including flamenco, Latin and Gypsy jazz guitarists and ethnic percussionists. Otro Mundo combines world jazz like bossa nova and fado songs with an original repertoire and touches of flamenco dance. Her live projects also include the Slavic/Nordic women's a cappella vocal ensemble Zloti Village Chorus which sings a Slavic repertoire with Olenka's English lyrics and translations. The Zloti Village Chorus is currently the only chorus in the world singing Slavic material in English.
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