Brigitte Dajczer

Early life and education

Brigitte Dajczer was born in Montreal, Quebec, Canada and raised in the Alberta city of Calgary. Her mother is French-Canadian and her father is an immigrant from Poland. Coming from a family of musicians, Dajczer's grandfather had been a Polish concert pianist, while her father had been a performer with the Warsaw Symphony Orchestra. Her father, who loved Eastern European music and pop music, would often put the children to sleep by playing Romani folk songs on the piano. At age four Dajczer began taking violin lessons, and she was writing her own songs by age five. She played multiple instruments by age twelve, including violin, accordion, piano, viola, guitar, flute, and piccolo.

By age fifteen she was performing in local blues bars, becoming proficient at improvisation and also playing with a Calgary rock ensemble. Dajczer graduated with a BFA from the Alberta College of Art and Design, studying drawing and video. She studied classical music at the Toronto Conservatory of Music, and has been a performer in violin at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto. She later earned an MFA in open media at Concordia University in Montreal.

Rembetika Hipsters (1999-2007)

After performing violin with a number of local musicians in Calgary, in October 1999 she was discovered and recruited by the Rembetika Hipsters, a local group known for Greek rebetiko music. Dajczer recorded violin on their 2001 album Architects Of Narghile, also taking the photography for the album cover and contributing backing vocals. She can also be heard on their 2004 album Dinner in Polidroso, and actively performed with the group until 2007. For much of that time she toured Greece with the band, also performing at music festivals, concert halls, and smaller venues across Canada. They performed at festivals such as the 2001 Calgary Folk Music Festival.

Les Gitans de Sarajevo (2000s)

In 2001 Dajczer moved to her mother's hometown of Montreal, where she became involved in the local Algerian music scene. Learning violin from Carmen Piculeata, a well-known local Roma musician, "Briga picked up the feel and ornamentation of Eastern Europe’s regionally diverse sounds and roots." While performing with the Algerian hip hop band Syncop in 2004, Dajczer was recruited by the Montreal folk and klezmer band Les Gitans de Sarajevo. Founded by refugees of the Bosnia conflict in the 1990s, the band plays music that is "grounded in the fiery Balkan tradition but with flavours of Quebecois pop and European world music." Dajczer recollects that “my bandmates gave me a tape and said learn this by tomorrow. Half of the songs turned out to be what [my father] played on the piano [when I was a child]. It felt so familiar and yet it was a bit of a mystery.” The band gave her the nickname "Briga," a term of endearment translating approximately to "my burden" or "sorrow."

Dajczer played violin on their 2004 album En Voyage, which peaked at No. 33 on the CMJ New World Albums chart that August. The album was positively received by publications such as Hour Community, who wrote that "Les Gitans cook up a feverish batch of traditional Balkanic party fare... passion and superb musicianship oozes from all quarters..." In 2005 En Voyage was nominated for a Juno Award for World Music Album of the Year. As of 2006 the band had six members including Dajczer, and that year the band won the Galaxie Rising Star Award. Their album Opa was released in 2007, becoming one of five albums nominated for Best World Group at the 2007 Canadian Folk Music Awards. While a member of Les Gitans de Sarajevo, she also continued to collaborate with other musicians in Montreal, including in the Sephardi and Maghreban communities. In 2007 she performed violin on the album Go Away (With Me) by Canadian artist Kris Demeanor. Dajczer continued to be a member of Les Gitans de Sarajevo as of 2009, when the band released the album Balkan Dance on Gypsy Records.

Solo act and Diaspora (2008-2010)

In 2008 Dajczer formed her own solo act Briga, playing "hybrid high-energy Balkan music" with four backing musicians from Montreal. With backgrounds as diverse as Quebecois, Haitian, Hungarian, and North African, the lineup has remained relatively fixed, and as of 2014 included Briga on vocals and violin, Alix Noel on keyboard and accordion, Tacfarinas Kichou on percussion such as the darbouka, Jeremi Roy on bass, and Marton Maderspach on drums, fiddle, and tupa. For the group Briga began modernizing and re-arranging Eastern European pieces, and also began writing original music and lyrics in English and French.

In 2009 she was given a grant by the Canada Council for the Arts to record a full-length debut album as Briga, working with sound designer Richard Soly at Place des Arts. Diaspora was released as a double disc that August on her own Bahtalo Records. Briga composed all but three of the tracks herself, and performs three traditional instruments beyond violin. Disc one focuses on "pure Balkan Gypsy groove – jazzy instrumental violin music." Disc two is "French chanson," among other influences, and features Briga's vocals. About fronting the band herself, Briga explained that "I just realized that I couldn’t do an album that was all instrumental. I myself wouldn’t want to listen to all of it. I realized there’s this amazing power in the human voice."

Wrote The Record.com about Diaspora, Briga "tackles impossible tempos on her violin with the help of an equally awesome, jazzy band behind her," while reviewer Heather Kitching wrote that the album "is a toast to the great Canadian culturefuck – Balkan jazz, French chanson and contemporary art song, all performed with the youthful exuberance of someone who feels at home in her hyphenated identity."

As of 2009 she continued to perform with artists such as Geoff Berner and Michel Donato, among others, and with Briga she continued to tour into early 2010, performing in cities such as Toronto and Kingston. Also in 2010, the track "Empress" from Diaspora was used as the soundtrack to a short film of the same name. The film went on to win Best Music and Best Art Direction at the Stepping Stone Film Festival.

Collaborations and Turbo Folk Stories (2011-2012)

Briga continued to tour into 2011, also collaborating with a number of local musicians. In 2011 she was a guest violinist on the track "Give Up" by indie rock group Half Moon Run. The single was included on their debut album release Dark Eyes on Indica Records in March 2012, and the album did well on the Canadian music charts. Both Allmusic and Sputnik Music compared "Give Up"'s sound to Radiohead, with the latter describing the song as a "standout" on the album." Also in 2011 Briga contributed solo violin and background vocals to the album Victory Party by Geoff Berner, which is influenced by the Eastern European klezmer tradition as well as punk and folk. Both Dark Eyes and Victory Party were nominated at the Canadian Folk Music Awards. By the summer of 2011 Briga was touring with members of the Zheng Jazz Ensemble as guest musicians.

Around 2011 she was given a grant to study music in Bulgaria with virtuoso violinist Georgi Yanev, who had agreed to teach Briga after she pursued him for several months. Briga recollects that "he just threw me in the water—sink or swim. ‘Let’s go play a Gypsy wedding.’ But I survived and it was the trip of a lifetime.” The several months in Bulgaria provided much of the inspiration for her 2012 album Turbo Folk Stories, which mixes diverse genres. The track "Moje Brat Mitko," for example, was described as "a mashup of French chanson, morose Balkan pop and creepy psychedelic rock, fueled by ominously tremoloing funeral organ." While most of the songs incorporate her vocals, tracks like "Duj Duj" are instrumental only. Roots Magazine wrote that in the album, "Briga examines the contradictions in this music – of having to endure love and hate together, of having to drink and dance. The resulting abandon is palpable … in what is really an accomplished journey through the music of the Balkans."

Turbo Folk was nominated in the Pushing the Boundaries category at the 8th Canadian Folk Music Awards in 2012, and that year the album was also nominated at the ADISQ Awards. In July and August 2013 Briga toured cities such as Vancouver, London in Ontario, Berkeley and Chico in California, and Regina in Saskatchewan.

The Ratchet Orchestra (2012)

Briga contributed violin to the 2012 album Hemlock by the Ratchet Orchestra, an avant garde jazz musical group based in Montreal. Based on the compositions of Nicolas Caloia, Hemlock was produced by Godspeed You! Black Emperor bassist Thierry Amar. It was nominated for Instrumental Album of the Year at the Juno Awards of 2013.

While performing at the Mill Race Traditional Festival of Folk Music in 2012, Briga befriended flamenco dancer and vocalist Tamar Ilana and folk musician Jessica Hana Deutsch. According to Ilana, her and Deutsch would "have late-night jams in our dorms, and we started playing with Briga in that context, trading songs, learning from each other." The three musicians began bringing their bands to perform together in Toronto and Montreal.

Wake and recent projects (2013-2015)

By the summer of 2013 she continued to play with Les Gitans de Sarajevo and tour as Briga, performing at festivals such as the Vancouver Folk Music Festival. In 2013 she won the Galaxie Rising Star Award as Briga, and the following year she released her third solo album Wake, "a concept album exploring her father's mysterious Polish/Jewish roots." She toured in support of the new release throughout 2014, for example appearing at the Hamilton University World Music Festival and the Montreal Jazz Festival. As of November 2014, Briga was touring as part of the Briga Trio, and also at times performing alone using her violin, a loop pedal, and an OP1 synth.

An educator she has hosted classes and fiddle workshops in Europe, the US, and Canada, teaching at festivals such as the Vancouver Folk Festival, Rhythm and Roots Festival, and California WorldFest. In the summer of 2014 she collaborated with artist Lorraine Oades and programmer Patrice Coulombe on The Violin Lesson, a mixed-media installation piece which premiered at Concordia University’s Hexagram Black Box venue. Wrote Matthieu Sabourin of Canadian Art, "In The Violin Lesson, classical-music training meets Guitar Hero. This interactive installation invites the public to learn how to play the violin with the assistance of multimedia technology."

As of 2015 she had performed or recorded with projects such as SoCalled, l'Orchestre Symphonique Andalous de Montreal, Hassan Hakmoun, Magillah, Rabbi Haim Louk, H'Sao, Izra L. Rimbotaye, Salaam Quebec, RadioTango, Kris Demeanor, Michael Abikhzer et L'OSAM, Amanda Mabro, and Mimoza among others. She also recently finished a tour as part of Geoff Berner's Victory Party Band, playing in locales such as Vancouver.

Style and influences

As a solo artist Briga writes and performs lyrics in both English and French, often accompanying her music on violin, fiddle, or other traditional instruments. Drawing on influences such as world, classical, pop, rock, punk, hip hop, funk, jazz and groove, she often incorporates Bulgarian and Serbian traditional dance music, as well as Grecian klezmer music and "a little bit of good old Canadian folk." She often performs and records arrangements of traditional Balkan music, including Eastern European folk and Romani folk. Active in the world music scenes of Montreal, in 2013 she stated that “all my Balkan and Roma influences come from the real community. These people are friends of mine, yet few people seem to know they’re here. From the group Les Gitans de Sarajevo... I learned the ornamentation for Serbian tunes."

With The Rembetika Hipsters

With Les Gitans de Sarajevo

With The Ratchet Orchestra