N16Life Winter 2017

Humans
of N16
Award-winning, multinational She’koyokh present
themselves as a klezmer band. But they source their
music much more widely, singing folk and gipsy songs
from the Balkans and Turkey. They have performed in
such eminent European concert halls as Amsterdam’s
Concertgebouw, the Gasteig in Munich and London’s
Southbank Centre.
Listen to She’Koyokh:
www.shekoyokh.co.uk/music/
Watch She’Koyokh:
www.shekoyokh.co.uk/videos/
SUSI EVANS, CLARINET
(FOUNDER MEMBER OF
SHE’KOYOKH)
She'koyokh is a Yiddish word meaning
“nice one!”. The name was suggested by
Jim’s dad who grew up in East London
which, when he was a boy, had a large
Yiddish-speaking Jewish community.
The band formed in 2001 after meeting
at Klezfest, an annual klezmer summerschool
at SOAS University of London run
by the Jewish Music Institute.
Festival of Jim is a small family-run
festival in the woods in East Sussex. Jim
Marcovitch was She’Koyokh’s founding
accordionist; he tragically died of cancer
in 2008 aged 34. We had been playing
together almost every day for the
previous seven years and were like family.
He was a total maverick and we did some
crazy gigs on trains and buses, playing in
the sea, dancing on tables and busking at
a firework festival in Spain.
I live in Stoke Newington. I was born
in Hemel Hempstead but my dad is
from Yorkshire and my mum’s from
Sunderland.
I started on violin when I was six but
gave up when I was seven. A few years
later I took up music again because my
brother and friends were all doing it.
Otherwise I would have been a golfer!
My parents love music and have always
been very supportive. They paid for
my brother to go to a specialist music
school when he was 13, and I followed him
there when I was 16 and now we are both
“SOMEONE THREW AN
APPLE AND IT EXPLODED
ON MY CLARINET”
professional musicians. My mum plays
the Northumbrian pipes and runs her own
folk band, writing all the arrangements
herself.
Once, someone threw an apple and it
landed on my clarinet just as I was playing
the last note of a gig. It exploded, and my
clarinet was sticky for weeks. I’ve also
been bitten by a dog when playing a very
high note and had eggs thrown at me
when busking during siesta time in Spain.
We obviously need a cage in front of the
stage like the Blues Brothers!
In She’koyokh we have 3 kids in total
and another on the way! Babies come to
rehearsals and go on tour. I take Matt
& Chris’ baby to nursery once a week.
Last week Meg went to Zika’s so he could
look after her toddler and his children
while Meg did some band admin. We pay
a babysitter with money from the band
fund so that Meg and Chris can spend
three hours sending emails to promoters.
ÇIĞDEM ASLAN VOCALS
I’m from Istanbul; my family is from
Sivas in eastern Turkey originally.
I sing in Turkish, Kurdish, Greek and
the Balkan languages. People like listening
to the music of different cultures and tell
me even though they don't understand
the lyrics they can still feel it.
I have always sung but performing semiprofessionally
started when I was at uni in
Istanbul, then professionally after I moved
to London.
I had seen the band perform outside in
Euston and I remember thinking what a
lovely band, I wish I sang with them. The
following year, I met personally with the
members and jammed. They invited me
to sing with them for couple of concerts.
This was almost 10 years ago, and I am still
with them.
Our songs tell stories about various
things from love to migration; dialogues
between mothers-in-law comparing gifts to
the bride; women indecisive about who to
marry; wild goats and unmarried women,
angry women telling their lovers off...
My favourite song is Sila Kale Bal in
Romani by Saban Bayramovic, the king
of Roman music. The lyrics say, “Mother I
am in love with this girl, she has dark hair
and green eyes and if she doesn’t marry
me I'll die.”
My dad for years insisted that I go back
to Turkey and do my job as an English
teacher but this stopped when he saw me
on a mainstream newspaper’s front page.
My Mum was surprised to see my gig
was sold out and apparently asked my
sister if all those people were there to
listen to me!
Our gigs in Spain performing at
WOMAD or in Hungary performing
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