Jewlia Eisenberg is an American composer. As founder and bandleader of Charming Hostess

Charming Hostess

Charming Hostess is a band that grew out of the Oakland avant-rock scene in the mid-1990s.-Current work:Today, the music primarily springs from three women with an emphasis in the body—voices and vocal percussion, handclaps and heartbeats, sex-breath and silence. The work grows from diaspora...

 she coined the term "Nerdy-Sexy-Commie-Girly" to describe her genre of music which spans an eclectic range of styles.

Originally from New York City, Eisenberg became an integral member of the San Francisco Bay Area and the New York Downtown music

Downtown music

Downtown music is a subdivision of American music, closely related to experimental music. The scene the term describes began in 1960, when Yoko Ono—one of the Fluxus artists, at that time still seven years away from meeting John Lennon—opened her loft at 112 Chambers Street to be used...

 scenes in the 1990s.

Her music is both physical, using voices, vocal percussion, handclaps, heartbeats, sex-breath and silence and also intellectual, exploring such topics as Bosnian genocide in Sarajevo Blues

Sarajevo Blues

Sarajevo Blues is a book of poetry first published in 1992 during the siege of Sarajevo by Semezdin Mehmedinović. Mr. Mehmedinović's book was translated into English by Ammiel Alcalay in 1998. Mr...

 (2004) and the political/erotic nexus of Walter Benjamin

Walter Benjamin

Walter Bendix Schönflies Benjamin was a German-Jewish intellectual, who functioned variously as a literary critic, philosopher, sociologist, translator, radio broadcaster and essayist...

 and his Marxist muse in Trilectic (2002). Both of these works were released on John Zorn

John Zorn

John Zorn is an American avant-garde composer, arranger, record producer, saxophonist and multi-instrumentalist. Zorn is a prolific artist: he has hundreds of album credits as performer, composer, or producer...

's Radical Jewish Series on Tzadik

Tzadik

Tzadik/Zadik/Sadiq is a title given to personalities in Jewish tradition considered righteous, such as Biblical figures and later spiritual masters. The root of the word ṣadiq, is ṣ-d-q , which means "justice" or "righteousness", also the root of Tzedakah...

.

She has been commissioned from such sources as by the Sloan Foundation and the Goethe Institut SF and has received numerous awards, including: Trust for Mutual Understanding grant for collaboration with poets in ex-Yugoslavia, the Puffin Foundation grant for her Red Rosa project, a Katzenstein Fellow for collaboration with experimental architects and engineers as an Artist-In-Residence at MIT, a Rockefeller Foundation

Rockefeller Foundation

The Rockefeller Foundation is a prominent philanthropic organization and private foundation based at 420 Fifth Avenue, New York City. The preeminent institution established by the six-generation Rockefeller family, it was founded by John D. Rockefeller , along with his son John D. Rockefeller, Jr...

 Multi-Arts Production Fund Grant for The Grim Arithmetic of Water, with aerial dance

Aerial Dance

-Aerial dance:Aerial modern dance is a sub-genre of modern dance first recognized in the United States in the 1970s. The choreography incorporates an apparatus often attached to the ceiling, allowing performers to explore space in three-dimensions...

 choreographer Jo Kreiter, a Goldman Fund Tikea Fellow for project-based radical film and music work with youth, and a Weisz Fellow for field research and recording among Jewish women in the Gondar

Gondar

Gondar or Gonder is a city in Ethiopia, which was once the old imperial capital and capital of the historic Begemder Province. As a result, the old province of Begemder is sometimes referred to as Gondar...

 region of Ethiopia. Eisenberg enjoyed a retreat as part of the Djerassi

Carl Djerassi

Carl Djerassi is an Austrian-American chemist, novelist, and playwright best known for his contribution to the development of the first oral contraceptive pill . Djerassi is emeritus professor of chemistry at Stanford University.He participated in the invention in 1951, together with Mexican Luis E...

 Resident Artists Program in October–November 2006.

Early work

Eisenberg's music got a kick-start at University of California in Barrington Hall. It was there that she founded the first incarnation of Charming Hostess. At that time the West Oakland scene was also home to bands such as Fibulator and Eskimo. Half of the members of Charming Hostess were also in Idiot Flesh

Idiot Flesh

Idiot Flesh was a band formed in Barrington Hall, a student co-op at the University of California at Berkeley. They formed in 1985 under the name Acid Rain, and their demo album "We Were All Very Worried" was released as a cassette-only edition in 1987...

 and Sleepytime Gorilla Museum

Sleepytime Gorilla Museum

Sleepytime Gorilla Museum is an American experimental rock band, formed in 1999 in Oakland, California. The band fuses classical, industrial, and art-rock themes throughout their music...

. Eisenberg has described the genre of early Charming Hostess as "klezmer-punk/balkan-funk". Members included Jewlia Eisenberg (voice, direction), Carla Kihlstedt

Carla Kihlstedt

Carla Kihlstedt is an American violinist, vocalist, and multi-instrumentalist from Lancaster, Pennsylvania currently living in Oakland, California....

 (voice, fiddle), Nina Rolle (voice, accordion), Wes Anderson (drums), Nils Frykdahl (guitar, flute, saxophone, percussion), and Dan Rathbun (bass).

Quotes

--from Boston Phoenix, Jon Garelick, (April 1–7, 2005)

Discography as leader

• The Bowls Project, as Charming Hostess. (Tzadik Records
  Tzadik Records
  Tzadik Records is a record label based in New York City specialising in avant-garde and experimental music. The label was established by the eclectic composer and saxophonist John Zorn in 1995; Zorn is the executive producer of all Tzadik releases...
  
  , Radical Jewish Culture, 2010)
• Punch, as Charming Hostess. (Recommended Records, 2005)
• Sarajevo Blues
  Sarajevo Blues
  Sarajevo Blues is a book of poetry first published in 1992 during the siege of Sarajevo by Semezdin Mehmedinović. Mr. Mehmedinović's book was translated into English by Ammiel Alcalay in 1998. Mr...
  
  , as Charming Hostess. (Tzadik Records, Radical Jewish Culture, 2004)
• Thick, with Red Pocket. (Tzadik Records, Oracle Women’s Series, 2004)
• Trilectic, (Tzadik Records, Radical Jewish Culture, 2002)
• Eat, as Charming Hostess. (Vaccination Records, 1998)

Listening

• Jewlia Eisenberg interview. BBC's The World - by Benjamin Temchine, Sept 2005.