Christine Ann and the Bassalindos | World Music

Here is a wonderful letter written by one of Christine’s student. Very touching.

November, 2011.

Dear Norma, Michael, Danny, Ziggy, K Lyn and all who loved Christine,
I only had Christine as a teacher and a friend for a short time and considering how much of an impact she had on my life, I cannot imagine how difficult this must be for you. The shock of having someone taken suddenly leaves no room for understanding. Someone as present as Christine cannot be thought of as simply “not there”. As devastating as the first few days and weeks are, it can sometimes be nothing compared to having to deal with the loss months and years after the fact. I sincerely hope that you are able to find some kind of closure to give you even an iota of comfort. Grieving is a very sane and healthy thing to do and despite the feelings you may have, it is considerably more pleasant a thing to do with company (hint, hint). I understand how frustrating it can be to have the same thoughts and memories about a loved one repeatedly and have to keep them to yourself. And the beautiful thing about Christine is that people must have volumes of stories, memories and moments to share.
Christine was a pure and genuine woman. She had a smouldering and undeniable presence. Everyone wanted to spend time with her and surprisingly, she managed to find time for everyone. She was vivacious and hungry for life. She could make you forget your problems with a smile and inspire you to try to conquer the world. And if you couldn’t smile, she would engage with you on a sweet and quiet level. I trusted Christine within a ridiculously short amount of time when I generally refuse to trust anyone. I trusted her intent, her passion, her expertise, but I also trusted her as a confidante and a friend.
We bonded over our love and compassion for animals. The first time that I met her, I decided that I liked her because she had an urn filled with her late cat, Felicity. Anybody who loves their cat enough to pick up an urn and kiss it was good in my books, I decided. Christine always knew that during a lesson, if I tensed up, that she just needed to get K Lyn and I would relax. She, like me, considered her cats to be her daughters. There needs to be more people like this in our society. It has been my experience that anybody who is able to understand the vulnerability and sensitivity of animals have those same qualities themselves. As resilient as Christine seemed, every now and then you could feel a sadness from her. Having recently lost her dad and her cat, she managed to stay strong but one could hear the depth of her life and mind in her voice.
As a teacher, she was thrilling. I am not sure if I will ever be as connected with a teacher again. Her instincts were flawless, the quality of her teaching was impeccable, her knowledge limitless and her encouragement astonishing. Whenever I got something right, her face would light up, she would jump up from her seat at the piano and give me a big hug. I admired her discipline and was pleased that she saw it in me. I was pleased whenever she saw me though. I would leave almost every lesson feeling better than I did going in. Even if it was a “bad” lesson, Christine would make sure that I felt supported and tell me that you can’t get the good without the bad and more importantly, that you learn from the bad. She was the woman who got me to sing in front of a crowd for the first time in about ten years and to feel secure about it. She amazed me with her encouragement. And she indisputably sought to support everyone. Even when she had been bucked off a horse in mid- September, she did not cancel our lesson the next day because we had a recital in a few days. At the recital, she hobbled around on a cane but gave no sign of discomfort in order to make her students feel confident.
The amount that I learned with her in a year of lessons cannot compare though to how I felt about her as a person.
I would learn something new and interesting about Christine every week. Knowing even a fraction of what she had accomplished was impressive. The woman was alive to properly live! She crammed a few lifetimes into forty-six years but still managed to look like she was in her thirties.
One of the most endearing qualities that Christine had was that whenever she was talking about someone, she would always end the sentence with “I love them…”. She mothered people in her own way. A couple of weeks ago, we were having a lesson and it began to hail outside. She refused to let me leave — it was so extraordinary to have someone care for me in this sweet way that I was touched. I had felt that recently we had grown close and felt very much that I was visiting a friend when I went over to her warm home for a singing lesson.
Her voice, literally and symbolically, was glorious. It was lush and munificent. She taught me the song “Ici Bas” by Gabriel Faure. The lyrics are oddly significant now:

“Ici-bas tous les lilas meurent,
Tous les chants des oiseaux sont courts,
Je rêve aux étés qui demeurent
Toujours…

Ici-bas les lèvres effleurent
Sans rien laisser de leur velours,
Je rêve aux baisers qui demeurent
Toujours…

Ici-bas, tous les hommes pleurent
Leurs amitiés ou leurs amours;
Je rêve aux couples qui demeurent
Toujours…”

The first time she sung this for me, she began to cry at the end and had to take a minute to recompose herself. It astonished me that a woman who was so professional and practised could still reach down and find the most vulnerable feeling within and give it a melody. I remember thinking at that time that she was beautiful. I remember thinking that I was honoured to have shared a moment like that with her. As positive and energetic as she was, life affected her deeply. I will never sing this song and not feel her memory strongly.
I was looking so completely forward to becoming a closer friend with her and to be her student for decades to come. I always wanted to impress her and I unfortunately thought that I had more time to do so. Although I regret not giving her my all, every day, every minute I saw her, she has managed to inspire me to now go on and do this. That is how magical she was.
My deepest sympathies accompany you and yours right now but also for all the years to come as Christine will be missed as long as all who knew her will live. This is devastating. It is overwhelming to not have someone there who was so present and animated. I hear her voice in my head still and am scared that a day will come that I do not remember what it sounds like.
I would like to thank you for making Christine what she was and helping her be what she wanted to be. It did seem like she was “living her bliss”, didn’t it? I am humbled to have met her.
Every time we fall silent in her memory and every time that we cry, I think about what she would want and I know that she would want us to not be quiet and to not be sad. It would be a waste of precious time she would say, right? Well, sorry, Christine, but we are going to be sad and quiet for a while. We want to be greedy and we want you back. At least for one last smile. Because it’s not fair. Then, eventually, we’ll show you what we are made of too. And hopefully, we will make you proud.
Please know that even though you don’t know me well that you can count on me to try to help you out in whatever way that I can. Whether it is to babysit K Lyn or help out with her in any way, I would love to help and she knows me (she lived for Christine’s affection so she must be very lost). I can come over to clean the chinchillas’ cage or help find homes for them as I know a few animal rescues who work with exotic animals. I can help get donations to the SPCA in her honour. I can do cover art for a tribute album for Christine (I have been thinking about doing a portrait of her for several months now) or just cry over tea (or preferably a glass of wine). Please let me know. I am available to help the people who helped Christine. Anytime. Whether it is now, next week or ten years from now.

Summer Geraghty

It is with profound sadness that we announce the sudden passing of our beloved Tina on 29 October, 2011. Tina graduated from Concordia University, first in journalism and later in music, which was her true passion. An accomplished singer-songwriter who worked on numerous musical projects, she also created The Bassalindos, which spread her angelic voice and enthusiasm across the world. Tina adored life, the people who surrounded her, and cared for her beloved pets. Always active and full of energy, she loved sky diving, sailing, and scuba diving. She is now reunited in heaven with her father, Michel, and leaves behind her loving mother, Norma Zakaib, her brother, Michael, her life companion Danny McLaughlin, and lots of family and friends here at home, in Lebanon, Greece, and throughout the world. Visitations will be held Wednesday, 2 November, at Urgel Bourgie (1255 Beaumont Ave.), from 2 to 5 and 7 to 9 pm. Funeral services will be held Thursday, 3 November, at St. Nicholas Antiochian Orthodox Church (80 de Castelnau St. East), at 11 am, followed by the burial at Mount Royal Cemetery. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to St. Nicholas Antiochian Orthodox Church or the SPCA.

A very dear friend recently told me: “I would take a bullet for you.” I giggled a bit, on the other end of the line, feeling strangely touched.
“No, I mean it, I really do, I would so take a bullet for you!” she exclaimed emphatically. “I believe, you” I told her. “I would take a bullet for you too, anytime.”
While I don’t expect either of us will be in a literal line of fire anytime soon, life sure does shoot its share of painful slugs into our hearts and mind with stunning regularity. The semi great thing about these virtual bullets of circumstance is that, unlike real bullets, your true friends will feel the pain right along with you. So, in your grief, fear or misery, you are actually not alone. Now, don’t get me wrong, I am not sadistic and needing my friends to suffer if I am having a bad time. I found out though, that the sympathy and solidarity of real friends in hard moments is what helped me get over the latest slings of fate and mortality. It’s easy to rejoice and party when things are going well. Though I swear that sometimes my more catty acquaintances congratulate me with a bitter sneer visibly mixed into their wooden smiles- but that’s another story. Luckily that’s the not the norm. I try to give a lot of love and compassion and so, I guess I do get a lot back. I don’t do this in a calculated way. It started by giving what I most needed, and then I realized.. “hey, this feels really good; really right. I feel more in harmony with the world when I am kind. It’s better all around. Kindness to strangers, soul mates, squirrels or your even ornery neighbor does have its rewards as a little trophy on the day’s mantelpiece of your soul .

I digress. Let’s get back to our friends. A recipe for a good friendship, I have found is to let your friends talk, not to judge them and to catch them when they fall. I am sure to always try to keep an open mind and to let my pals be themselves—eccentricities, weirdness, moods and all. I do have a very mixed bag of friends. I know someone is more than a party buddy when they open up their hearts to me and share their troubles, and their hopes, thoughts and dreams too. Connecting on that deeper level takes out some of the lonely “each person is an island” dynamic of our unique life experience. Getting personal means letting walls down. That means less isolation right away. We can each be an isle of one, but with the knowledge that we have something deep and important in common with other takes away some of intrinsic aloneness.

The component of friendship that is most important to me is loyalty. There is a special unspoken loyalty amongst women. No no’s include: flirting with the hubbies or boyfriends of your friends, (duh) and dating their exes without permission and vice versa. Intoxication is not an excuse either, folks. There is the unspoken rule that we always are on the side of our friends in any “story” they relate to us. I am big on that kind of loyalty. Sure if your friend is maniac killer, you may can any semblance of allegiance to amity and quickly call the cops. In discussing all this with my friend of the bullet comment— we discovered that that the irksome bogus “friends” that we know who disappoint us are intrinsically insecure. This makes their choices weak—see, loyalty take cohones, folks. Fear and weakness makes them turn selfish to protect themselves and hence, less than dependable and demoted from true blue BFF to pseudo acquaintance. Any real friend of mine has to have a certain fire, a lot of spine, and some tingling moral fiber of caring for others. I need to respect and admire my friends a lot. I like being a muse and accomplice to what is most ferociously shielding, sympathetic and noble in them.
“I don’t know about you, but I want my friends to have my back”, Ms Bullet explained. I I can cheerfully say that my little posse is my cheering squad, my bodyguards as well as my personal shrinks, spies and court of elegant and entertaining companions.
“Hell, I side with my friends even when they are dead wrong!” Another passionate and colorful confidante confessed to me in an incensed moment of heated conversation on this very same topic. Amen to constancy. Real friends are rare. Be sure that yours know how to demonstrate loyalty and empathy and say to hell with fear and what others think, because, someone true makes you forget all about that island.

Christine Ann Atallah,
Montreal 2011

░▓░☆░▓░☆ ░▓░☆░▓░☆░ Sitting at home sick with the flu, does have its advantages. It leads to deeper reflection on subjects that usually no one has the time to delve into. I have been hanging out with a real life scientific nerdy type just like in the show the Big Bang Theory. I am a brunette singer-songwriter and the show’s protagonist is a blonde actress. Like her, I tease my charmingly naive scientific friend and love shoes. The main character in Big Bang is a string theory theoretician. My friend is called Doctor Z., or Ziggy, as we call him, complete with cute little intellectual glasses. Dr. Z, like Dr. Sheldon Cooper, is a theoretician, meaning he does not do the experiments in the field, but does the math. Doc Z is published and cited in countless journals and papers around the world .He happens to be my closest friend and we hang out continuously. His specialty is theoretical plasma physics and controlled thermonuclear technology. What?!! He often calls me the Higgs Boson particle. “What do you mean by explain that? Could you explain?” I always ask, pleased because I am somehow sensing a compliment. My resident pocket-sized genius then launches into a half hour lecture about atoms, their nucleus and the surrounding electrons. “Are you still with me?” he inquires laughing. I nod impatiently in the affirmative, eager for instant wisdom. “Now going down deeper into the nitty gritty of the composition”, he explains, “Modern science knows that protons and neutrons are made up of tinier quarks”. The physicists are perpetually searching ever deeper for the smallest piece of sub atomic matter. The extra miniscule particle of all still eludes discovery. This is the mysterious God Particle. It’s the pivotal proof required to prove the new Theory of Everything, which is replacing the former Standard Theory which has stood for some 40 years. Even poor dear Einstein could not find one unifying link for all the forces he spoke of: gravity, the weak and strong parts of electromagnetism and atomic forces. Those last two are quantum physics, by the way. Gosh, don’t you feel smart now? I read that the balance is so precarious that a couple of atoms more or less and everything would fly apart. What holds it all together is remarkably tiny. No wonder we are going in deeper and smaller for the big questions. Anyhow, the grander account of a reality where these elemental forces are balanced is called String Theory. One of the wildly wonderful notions in this new model is all the dimensions. The new theory wants to prove that the universe is made up of eleven dimensions: ten for space and one for time. Einstein’s stopped at a mere four: three of space and one of time. While trying to clear up my confusion, I figured out that the Theory of Everything has many other overlapping names: Brane world scenarios, Superstring theory, M theory, Matrix Theory. I kid you not. Truth is stranger than fiction, it seems. So in string theory, matter is made up of vibrating filaments called strings and membranes, or branes of energy. Cool no? These dancing loops and strands are boogying in all eleven dimensions. Freaky good. Branes are the layers and they exist unaware of the others. We are perched on just one. I wonder what my evil twin is up to in the next dimension… What I understand is that the entire universe and all its dimensions are made up of music—those little strings vibrating in cosmic waves outwards. Oh dude, this feels really good as a theory to me. Music is sound, which is a type of energy, so this makes perfect sense to me. Now after all this we get back to that little wee God particle, even more undetectable that those infinitesimally small neutrinos. By the way, according to Ziggy, you are swimming in billions of the things right now and they are even passing through you as you read this. The Higgs Boson is a particle that carries the Higgs field. The Higgs field is thought to exist throughout the entire Universe. As massless particles pass through the Higgs field, it accumulates them, and the particles gains mass. Therefore, should the fabled little Higgs Boson be discovered, we’ll know why matter has mass, and the Nobel Prizes will be handed out like hotcakes. So, like that those lost little particles accumulating around the God particle, Doc Ziggy finds as I travel through a room, or through life, people attach themselves to me and form a cluster; a mass of people. What may be at the heart of that dense magnetic field of wonderfully diverse people is often me, hence Christine as God Particle. I think he means that like gravitons and Higgs Boson particles, I can create a kind of sphere of energy around me. It’s a wonderful thing that I can draw people in, in a positive way. Start to worry, if, after you collide with me I nickname you Glinos, Squark, Slepton, Kaluza-Klein or we start disappearing into a mini black hole. So get out there and become your own God Particle. Bring energy together for good times, good vibes, positive reasons, and to unify, create, console, nurture, inspire and uplift. It’s what I always try to do. To read up on the real life exploits of the scientist in my life Dr. Z. Abou-Assaleh visit:.: http://z.assaleh.com (Artwork by artist Mette Host)

_____________
“The first question which you will ask and which I must try to answer 
is this, “What is the use of climbing Mount Everest?” and my answer 
must at once be, “It is of no use.” … So, if you cannot understand 
that there is something in man which responds to the challenge of this 
mountain and goes out to meet it, that the struggle is the struggle of 
life itself upward and forever upward, and then you won’t see why we go. 
What we get from this adventure is just sheer joy. And joy, is, the 
end of life. We do not live to eat and make money. We eat and make 
money to be able to enjoy life. That is what life means and what life 
is for.”

George Leigh Mallory, mountaineer who died while trying to scale Mt. 
Everest

We each have a mountain.. Our own private Mount-Everest. It could be a goal, a fear, an unrequited love, a scarily ambitious project that makes us freeze like a deer in the headlights or a risky adventure we always wanted to try. It could be something that you deeply desire and keep putting off strangely, as if you don’t deserve it or as if you feel that you are simply not good enough to do, yet or ever. Is your sense of wonder still there? You feel older, less reckless and you don’t risk daring to dream big anymore? Maybe you feel that it’s irresponsible to take chances? All understandable, and even admirable, if we are being sensible and looking out for ourselves and others. The wisdom of the moment and simple joys are perhaps not enough when you are on a safe path looking wistfully up at your mountain. This desirable peak does not have to be life altering or record breaking. It could simply be what your heart desires, deep down, where you are too busy to go or to linger questioning. Do you want to ride a horse on the beach, or open a bookstore in a seaside town? How about that novel you always imagined you could write or that degree that you want to obtain? For some it’s a vertiginous career change or the nerve to ask that seemingly unattainable person out on that frightening, but much desired date. Do you aspire to learn another language, to design a breathtaking building or learn how to fly a plane? Do you long to pack it up and live somewhere exotic far away from all that’s familiar? Do you see yourself riding a motorcycle into a sunset, or kneading bread by hand? Do you imagine yourself on safari taking photos of dangerous creatures, or tending to sick children in underprivileged regions? Do you want to speak mandarin, sail, hide in a cabin in the Rockies, tap dance, meditate for seven years, dance tango, find your soul mate, battle oppression as an activist, be a speaker even though you have a fear of crowds, join the circus?… Whatever it may be.. The list is endless. You fill out the blanks of your fancies. You know, where you go when you get that far away look in your eyes and fail to hear what people are saying to you and respond with a blank: “Hun?”

I once met a girl who came to me to learn to sing. Voice was her Everest. She worshipped singing so much that she told me that the biggest fantasy she would allow herself in music was that of being an artist’s roadie. This filled her unspeakable gratification. She used the word “honor” in that context. Her apprehension was that people would laugh at her if she tried to sing and that they would tell her that she wasn’t good. Sound familiar? It was a hard uphill battle for me to fight her inner demons of fear. I got her quite far from where she started. She was a lovely singer actually, and chose very poignant and positive songs like Abba’s: I Have a Dream. Check out the lyrics and you’ll be touched. I’ll never forget her brave intent face singing Janis Joplin’s: Me and Bobby McGee with playful disbelieving joy, something like the delirious exhilaration climbers have when reaching a fabled peak. We debunked her misgivings one by one. Somewhere along the line she gave herself permission to sing, to be, to climb. It was glorious to witness. At the top of her personal Kilimanjaro, she glowed, she cavorted and she laughed. She didn’t need to take it to the stage and lights.

Finding life to be swift and short, I used to want to be immortal by leaving a mark upon humanity, once I gave up on vampires. (kidding) Then, I consoled myself by the fact that one day everything would be cosmic dust anyhow. I worry less about all that. To be safe, I was painted, much photographed, inspired artworks as a muse, wrote many songs and filled volumes of journals. I think I’m covered. I figured out that just by being here, each of us leaves an indelible mark on the world, however small. I do believe that art endures, as do discoveries and inspiring actions of people or nations. Love itself endures and echoes through children, legacies, by example and by its sheer perpetual force by managing to exist and flourish in a speedy, treacherous and often selfish world.

So, my whole life is spent clinging onto my mountain as I scrabble on up, sometimes barely clinging. Some days I fall and slide. I look at those safely down far below. They are so small and seem removed from danger. I imagine they are probably happy in their safety. Or do they seem a bit dull, sluggish and resigned? Some days I claw my way up to a new rung and look down. A life in music field is one big perilous mountain. The joy is in the doing. I may not even reach the summit, but already the view from here is great and I feel that I’m honoring my days by doing what makes me feel most alive. I won’t have any regrets and wonder: “what if?” If I fall, so what? Really, so what? Nothing is permanent, besides, in climbing, when you are attached, the pull of the fall is upwards.
Browsing around on the internet one sunny morning I found some explanations of mountain climbing parlance that I stumbled upon. I will leave you with these as food for thought.
Anchor: is a kind of a climbing gear that is nothing more than a rope connected to a belayer. (climber who is attached). It gives you support, and not just you, but your companions as well. How it works is that you have to keep feeding it out to the climbers who are following you.
Bouldering: means finding large rocks and practicing climbing on them. It’s a good way to train and get stronger.
Crimp: is the art of looking for holds where none exist.
Elvis: (I kid you not!) Refers to a physical condition that is characterized by the shivering of one’s legs, either as a result of being fatigued or being weak.
Leading: means being in front of the rest of the team and setting the pace for the same
Now, I don’t know about you, but it’s pretty hard to overlook these incredibly evocative images of rootedness, interconnection, breaking down goals, blind hope, weariness, leadership and courage. I really appreciate these metaphors and will anchor myself to those are around me on my climb and crimp onto nothingness and still lead and boulder up even if I am rocking and rolling like Elvis, the climbing shake rattle and roll of stubborn striving.
Now people, up and at your peaks, no looking back or down.. just up up up. Happy climbing.

Christine Ann Atallah,
Montreal 2011

♪•♫•♪♫•♪♫•♪♫ ♪♫• There are a lot of ups and downs in a musical career. It can be a brawl at times… fighting the clock, fighting yourself and even your own thoughts. I try to keep in positive and to live a balanced life. I work out, dance tango, play with my cat and try to have time away from the computer, and even from music itself.. though, at times it is my refuge also, but in a different way from work. I wish I could live by the seaside in a big windy rambling house. I would record in my coach house studio and breathe fresh sea air between takes. I would own a red baby grand. Another fond escapist dream is to live on a boat… but that makes recording harder ha. Yep, that precious tube microphone sliding druing a take. My best vacations are diving under the sea. Now on land, I dive daily into my work.. pounding away at recording sessions and dealing with artists, schedules and the minutes of sensitive feelings around me.. yes, including my own. I never imagined it all like this, nor can I imagine it otherwise now. At least there is no glimmer of routine. Ding, there I go for the next round. Wish me luck! ✰
by: Christine Ann Atallah

The Alchemy of love is a mystery of mysteries. What makes one person so essential to us? Of what stuff is that magical attraction made of? Of course we can reduce it to the basest scientific and evolutionary functions. This is not the kind of love that I am musing on at this moment. It’s the kind that can keep you by a person’s side through adversity, through pain, through despair. It’s the kind that makes you strong as you carry the weight of affliction with no end in sight. It is nourished on a smile, on the visceral memory of the beloved voice raised in unguarded rapture at the most private moment. It sees very far, it rides the tides with fierce but quiet determination. It is fed on shared dreams and the intoxicated tingle of your two souls blending in one moment, strong, invincible against death itself. It humbles you and purifies you, it makes you a willing vassal— a doting attendant charmed by minute details you offer up to the beloved as secret tribute. A simple meal can is an oblation to your private deity, your heart’s regent. Sleepless at night, admiring a face dearer than the costliest masterpiece, you cover a bare, much worshipped shoulder. This gesture above the adored sleeper seems like you are sheltering fragility itself. Indeed, these inexplicable and impenetrable manifestations occupy most of our thoughts, hopes and fears; well, mine at least. So, perhaps this is why so much of our time; and my time, is spent on love… feeling it, searching for it, nurturing it, bemoaning it and writing and singing songs about it.
#love #valentine’s day

By Pink Noodle (Duncanville, TX USA) - Christine Ann Atallah who took to the bright lights early, made her first television appearance at the remarkable age of four years old. Born in a conservative Arabic family, she heeded her musical calling early and ran away from home at 17. Still a rebel today, she commands attention, speaks out for women and is a fascinating and erudite entertainer. This belly-dancing, sensual Diva of operatic training, is born for to perform, born to sing. Her voice has been compared to Natacha Atlas, Fairuz and Souad Masi with shades of Kate Bush. Her band- The Bassalindos, have been likened to Pink Martini and the Gypsy Kings, yet they sound like no one else. Christine had early training in classical singing and this led on a memorable onscreen performance in an Academy Award nominated film Jesus de Montreal.Christine took to the screen and sang for the soundtrack in three memorable movements from Pergolesi’s Sabat Mater. The film swept the Genie Awards in Canada and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Film. Until this day, people remember the hauntingly beautiful singing of the intense, dark haired beauty. Christine’s vocal beauty, inspiring poetry and melodies on plaintive Middle Eastern keys collide beautifully with Western jazz scales and pop chords to soar and surprise. The instruments are exotic- the oud, the kanoun, mixed in atop acoustic jazz instruments weaved with catchy pop choruses and memorable melodies. In her original compositions, Christine„s sensuous voice highlights the unique blend of Arabic, Latin, jazz and pop facets into a rare gem. The music and lyrics are unforgettable and the tempi evocative of the percussion of desert countries, harem princesses, and moonlight nights on the dunes under the stars. You will be enchanted and want to embark on Escapades time and again. Christine was literally discovered out of a cast of a thousand in a megalithic tour of Verdi’s opera: Aida. Later, in New York she composed original compositions alongside producer Clifford Anderson of the Sonny Rollins Band. While in New York City, she composed, studied dance, recorded and appeared in more films and music videos. She completed her university training in music with distinction and founded The Bassalindos, selling out notable festivals and getting rave reviews for her sophisticated and innovative multilingual world-pop sound.