Come Spend an Evening with "Girls in Trouble"

Now, don't go second guessing yourself...it wouldn't be sound.  The title means exactly what it says!  And sound has everything to do with it.  For your pleasure, "Girls in Trouble," the art-pop song cycle about the complicated, edgy lives of the women of the Torah will dissemble in beguiling, intimate, indie rock style - distilling for contemporary tastes the often scandalous, murderous tales of Biblical heroines. 

Co-sponsored by the Jewish Federation of the Berkshires, Hevreh of Southern Berkshire, and Congregation Ahavath Sholom, Brooklyn-based "Girls in Trouble" led by songwriter-vocalist-violinist Alicia Jo Rabins, accompanied by drums and bass, will appear in concert at Hevreh, 270 State Road, Great Barringotn, at 7:30pm on Saturday, October 27. 

The cost is $10 and reservations may be made at 413-442-4360, ext. 10.

Prior to the performance - which will swing widely between the classical formalism of Bach, the rustic evocations of country, and non-musical storytelling - Rabins will hold Torah study at 6:45pm and Hevreh's Rabbinic Intern, Jodi Gordon, will lead Havdalah at 7:15pm. 

Then, with a scholar's head and poet's heart, Rabins - whose compositions draw parallels between the female characters in the Torah's tales and herself - in gorgeous song and captivating story will disinter the long dead women, bringing them to vibrant energy as reflections on contemporary living.

Torah maven Rabins - a classically trained violinist since the age of three who studied avant-garde composition throughout high school and played fiddle for 8 years with the acclaimed klezmer-punk band Golem - holds an MA in Jewish Women's Studies from the Jewish Theological Seminary and an MFA in Poetry from Warren Wilson College.

Teaching Torah and Jewish texts, often in conjunction with performances of "Girls in Trouble,' Rabins expresses a particular love for working with practical applications of mysticism.

With her teaching and performance having taken her to a Limmud Conference in the United Kingdom, the Great Synagogue in Stockholm, the New School for Social Research, Hebrew Union College, and many progressive Jewish Day Schools, Rabins poetry has found home in the American Poetry Review, The Boston Review, Ploughshares, and within anthologies from NYU Press and Knopf, as well as via publication by the Artscape Press (1995) of her award-winning chapbook, The Girl Who Wants to be a Landscape.

"Girls in Trouble," which has performed across the United States, Canada, and Europe, has released two albums, and garnered critical praise from the "Huffington Post," the New Yorker, and LA Weekly.

Rabins, the recipient of grants and scholarships from Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, the Bread Loaf Writers Conference, the Six Points Fellowship, and the LABA Fellowship at the 14th Street Y, has served as a cultural ambassador for the United States State Department, performing American fiddle music from Central America to Kuwait.