New CD! The CD "Brinjal" is on sale for $10- take us home with you! We have made our first CD, and sold quite a few at the Maryland Renaissance Festival where we played the first two weekends, and more at our CD release party, but there are about 15 left!

World Music band Brinjal plays pulsing and lyrical songs from Nations real and imagined, with a large dose of the exotic rhythms and enchanting melodies of the Middle East. We are often accompanied by beautiful dancers. We are available for local Baltimore shows and parties, and MD/VA/PA/DE festivals!  We have an excellent and entertaining multicultural educational show for schools and libraries. The exotic rhythms and unusual tonal scales of this danceable music fascinate young and old. 

Brinjal is based in Baltimore, Maryland, and plays a lively mix of songs from Egypt, Turkey, Greece, Armenia, Israel, the Faerie Kingdom and more.

Above, we are playing at a faerie festival, and at left, AvalonFest,  a music festival in West Virginia. The band began when Nina Amaya, a brilliant Baltimore belly dancer, was asked to perform at this multi-day West Virginia music festival, and told to "bring some musicians with you." Nina Amaya wondered out loud in her dance troupe and on Facebook where she was going to find the musicians to join her in this well paying and awesome gig. The dance troupe, Aubergine, already had a drummer, and lo and behold! two dancers also played flute, and another member's boyfriend had been playing along to all her practice music on his guitar. We tried these five people together, and it sounded (and looked) beautiful! Since then, we have added another dancer as a drummer on the Djembe, and we are often joined by other guests.

Photo credit above and right, Eric Fleischer.

White Hart Tavern, MD Renaissance Festival, 2014

Brinjal with Aubergine guests at the NJ Ren Faire

Nina Amaya- Director, Principal Dancer, Riq, Finger Cymbals
Heather Amos- Darbuka (drum)
Josh Novac- Guitar, Bass
Illya Gemsdottir- Flute, Darbuka, Dancer
Jawhara Edwards- Musical Mentor, Flute, Melodica, Dancer
Amy Fae- Djembe, Dancer

Amy Fae on  drum, John Suskey on accordian, JaeHoun Kim on violin, Luke Goembel on harp Brett Zwerdling on saz, and Jacqui Hossfeld on hammer dulcimer have all joined us at times!

If you have already worked with Brinjal, please consider leaving us a short review at GigSalad. Thank you! We are a pretty new band, and can use some public feedback.

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Partial Set List (we are learning new songs at a rapid rate):
Hine Ma Tov - Hebrew
Mevlana- Turkish
Hadouni Hadouni - Lebanese-American
Misirlou - Greek
Fire Dance - Turkish
Yesilim - Turkish
Rompe, Rompe - Turkish 9/8
Layla - Egyptian
Nihavent Oriental- Turkish
Leylet Hob - Egyptian
Lama Bada Yata Thanna - Arabic
Garoon, Garoon - Armenian
Yalla- Iranian
And more...
Original songs:
Chiftetelli Improv - it's different every time.
Malfstrumm - Heather and Josh's creation to a Malfoof beat
Drum solos - Heather has created quite a few, and sometimes she is joined by Illya and Nina on drum and riq

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