Frank London & Adeena Karasick - Salomé Woman of Valor (2020)

The album "Salomé: Woman of Valor" (2020) is a conceptual avant-garde work, a collaborative project between American trumpeter and composer Frank London (Grammy-winning founder of The Klezmatics) and poet, performer, and philologist Adina Karasik.

The album is a musical and poetic opera/performance that reimagines the biblical image of Salome through the prism of contemporary Jewish mysticism (Kabbalah) and feminism.

Historically, Salome has often been portrayed as a treacherous seductress (from Oscar Wilde's drama to Richard Strauss's opera). Adina Karasik rewrites this story, transforming Salome into a force of female liberation, rebellion, and spiritual strength. The libretto, written by Adina Karasik, is built on incredible verbal acrobatics, phonetic wordplay, sound poetry, and polyglot metaphors.
Frank London's music combines the massive, hypnotic rhythms of Indian and Arabic percussion (tabla, dhol) with dense electronic textures and expressive, improvisational trumpet and shofar solos.