Friday, April 7th
8:00 pm
The Balkan Cafe at the Hungarian House [1]
213 East 82nd St
between 3rd & 2nd Ave
Manhattan
$12.00
The Yuri Yunakov Ensemble performs Bulgarian and Romani (Gypsy ) music from the Balkan countries of Bulgaria and Macedonia. This music is renowned for its haunting melodies, dense ornamentation, complex rhythms, and stunning improvisations. The geographical position of the Balkans in southeastern Europe and hundreds of years of Ottoman Turkish rule have created a wealth of influences from both East and West.
The ensemble plays in a contemporary styled called "wedding music," so named for its ubiquitous presence at life cycle celebrations such as weddings and baptisms where dancing and music are a requirement. This style, which gained popularity in the 1970's, emphasizes virtuosic technique, improvisation, rapid tempos, daring key changes, and eclectic musical literacy. A multiplicity of styles, such as jazz and rock, and a multiplicity of sources, such as Turkish and Indian musics, are combined with Balkan rural and urban folk musics. In Bulgaria, "wedding music, " while officially suppressed by the socialist government, thrived in private settings as a means of countercultural expression.
This is the real thing.