SONiA Rutstein is someone to be listened to, according to Rabbie Elizabeth Bolton, who accompanies the thin, dreadlocked vocalist on a song titled, “Shorashim” on Ms Rutstein’s soon-to-be-released album “Tango”.
“As a Jewish voice and a voice of her generation, we should be paying attention,” said Rabbi Bolton, a former opoera singer, cantor and spiritual leader of Roland Park’s Congregation Beit Tikvah. “She is calling on us to pay attention to how we are in the world and how we should walk this Earth.”
Ms Rutstein—who professionally simply goes by the name SONiA (quirky letter-case intended)---and her musical collaborator, Laura Cerulli, who together comprise the band disappear fear ( lowercase intended), have been working on “Tango” since last fall. SONiA is the winner of both a Gay & Lesbian Alllaince Against Defamation award and a Gay and Lesbian American Music Award, and is a 2004 Grammy Nominee. Ever youthful in appearance and hopeful demeanor, SONiA, 48 will bring her folk-pop melodies, Latin and Middle Eastern rhythm, and string harmonies Sept 29 to Owings Mills Gordon Center for the Performing Arts, making her hometown the start of a cross country tour.
Original members of the disappear fear ensemble, including Helen Hausmann on violin and Jared Denhard on flute, will accompany SONiA. (Tickets are on sale now at ticketmaster.com or by calling 410-456-SHOW.)
“SONiA is incredible!” raved musican and Hampden resident Howard Markman, who has known and played with SONiA in various capacities since the 1970s. “She has more integrity than most states in the Union”.
A graduate of Pikesville High School and a Beit Tikvah congregant, SONiA visited the Baltimore Jewish Times recently to discuss her life and music.
“Tango” combines songs in Arabic, English, Hebrew and Spanish. How’d you pull that off?
All my CDs have a song or two with a Latin feel. I love Latin music, all kinds, traditional up to pop, and I’ve always wanted to put the songs in their natural language. It would have been a completely Spanish CD, but I went to Israel last summer during the war and it profoundly affected me. I was writing some of the things that I really wanted to share with people. I wrote the songs in Hebrew. I also performed in an Arab village while I was there, and I'm going'Wht is this here? How can there be so much passion and so much animosity?' So I have a song on my new CD in Arabic. I have all four languages translated on the CD. It's been a very big project, all about communciation...Tango is the only word that is the same in all[four] languages.
What inspired "Tango"?
I have a song [on the CD] called "Mi Chamocha," based on the prayer but also on my journey to Israel [last summer]. I went to the area of Karmiel, and I performed in a bomb shelter. People from neighboring villages came to it, we just came together, and it was a very intense but beautiful experience.
Another Hebrew song on the CD is called "Shorashim", which means roots. I was in Vancouver coming back to the United States, and I was in a long line of cars [to re enter the US]. I'm watching overhead, its a beautiful day, and I am watching these seagulls flying into Canada and back, singing. I am thinking 'They can do it, what is the big deal?'The song focuses on trying to distinguish what is made by man and what is made by God. But waht really brings ["Tango"] together is my passion, my love for a world that can live in peace, whether that is on-to-one in a relationship, country-to-country or nation to nation.
You have personal watercolors corresponding to each of the tracks. How does art interplay with the lyrics?
It was a great way of taking the hot colors of the Latin sound and combining them with the textures and warmer tones of the Middle Eastern sounds. I love the way the physical words in Hebrew not only say something special--the sounds--but that the formation of the words visually correspond to what they mean.
How has Baltimore changed you?
This is my home, my base. My grandmother, who is 98 still lives here. My friends live are here. I love the seasons. there is just something[that connect me to Baltimore], I don’t really know why.
And I think we all have a bit of the ‘Crab Syndrome’. There are choices or ideas that you really hold onto tenaciously. It’s a good thing, but not always such a good thing, because it can make you myopic There is a lot of wonderfulness available living here and living at this time in the world.
You empathize with Israel’s situation and the troubles of the Palestinians. What do you want to tell the two sides?
I sing, ‘I think your God likes me and my god likes you, too…’ What I mean , first of all, there is only one God.
I am absolutely about Israel being the Jewish state. However, if this or that area needs to be governed by the Muslims, so be it. I think peace is most important.
Can music help?
Music speaks with the heart, and that is definitely where peace lives. I know the best choices are made with your heart and mind, but I think we need to [better] trust our hearts.
You give 18 percent of proceeds from all disappear fear downloads to the UN World Food Project. Why 18?
Eighteen is chai, life. Originally, download were 99 cents, so 19 cents of the 99 cents is 18 percent, which will feed one child one meal in school, mostly in Third World nations. With education, you can get yourself out of poverty, have a better chance of life—chai.
It’s been 10 years since your sister, Cindy Frank, left disappear fear, which both of you formed in 1987. What is it like on your own?
It was hard at first because I really missed Cindy so much, but Laura is an amazing singer, an amazing percussionist, and I am lucky I found her. Cindy is happy, you know. It is a glamorous life being on the road [SONiA rolls her eyes and chuckles].