Balkan Mountains Music Festival in Shandaken

by Brazzamatazz Productions
Balkan Mountains Music Festival in Shandaken
Sat, 23 Sep 2023 (EDT)
03:30PM - 07:00PM
Event past
Glenbrook Park
48 NY-42
Shandaken, New York 12480
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"Balkan" means "chain of wooded mountains" in modern Turkish and has been the Turkish word for the Balkan Peninsula since Ottoman times. Some of the countries of Eastern Europe that are situated in or near the Balkans are Greece, Albania, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Serbia, Croatia and Turkey.

On Saturday, September 23, the Phoenicia Library will celebrate the music and dance of the Balkan peninsula with a FREE festival of musical and choral groups playing and singing odd meters and unusual scales and harmonies in a gorgeous setting at Glenbrook Park in Shandaken.

Schedule
3:30 pm - Eva Salina's Community Choir
4 pm - Dance Instruction
4:30 pm - Pontic Firebird
5:30 pm - Mac & Cheez Balkan PowerTrio
6:30 pm - Bourbon and Breastmilk

Everyone is welcome to join this free event.

Balkan Mountains Music Festival in Shandaken
Saturday, September 23, 2023
3:30 pm – 7:30 pm
FREE

Glenbrook Park
48 NY-42
Shandaken, NY 12480
Map: https://goo.gl/maps/NcdiFhWzjJQF6jc1A
Facebook Event: https://www.facebook.com/events/1150930535491665
LINKS
@macncheezbpt
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/macncheezbpt/

EVA SALINA'S COMMUNITY CHORUS
Eva Salina's Community Chorus will share beautiful folk harmonies from Corsica, Croatia, Georgia, and Ukraine (and maybe even a song in English for good measure).

MACNCHEEZ BALKAN POWERTRIO
MacNCheez Balkan PowerTrio is an acoustic group specializing in traditional and modern village and urban folk music from the southern Balkans.

Their repertoire features music from Macedonia, Serbia, Albania, Bulgaria, Greek, and Turkey and is strongly influenced by Roma and Ottoman cultures and traditions. This music is typically performed for social-cultural occasions as such as weddings, holidays and annual village festivals celebrating the seasons.

Tim Allen (saxophone), Matthew "Max" Fass (accordion) and Johanna Dun (percussion) bring an ancient-modern musical synthesis from the regions where East and West overlap and present it in their own style to audiences throughout the Hudson Valley and beyond.Pontic Firebird plays Greek party music from the Black Sea region.

PONTIC FIREBIRD
Founded in 2011 by violinist Beth Cohen, Pontic Firebird has been flying ever since. Made up of all stars of the American Balkan music scene, Pontic Firebird shares propulsive and uplifting Greek dance music from the Black Sea region today in Turkey (the Pontos). Pontic Firebird is Paul Brown, Beth Cohen, Adam Good, and Jerry Kisslinger.

Paul Brown (Acoustic Bass/Bass Guitar) has been playing music for 44 years, studying bass and improvisation at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, and oud and makam with Haig Manoukian and Necati Çelik.Comfortable in all styles of music from Eastern Europe, he has been house bassist for the EEFC Workshops since 1996. Paul plays electric and acoustic bass with Édessa, Evet, Pontic Firebird, Sherefe, and Kavala, among many other bands.

Beth Bahia Cohen is a violinist of Syrian Jewish and Ukrainian Jewish heritage. Inspired at a young age by the sounds she heard at family gatherings, she spent many years studying with master musicians from Hungary, Greece, Turkey, and the Middle East. She performs and teaches these traditions on the violin and various bowed strings. She’s a faculty member at Berklee College of Music & Tufts University and a recipient of 2022. Massachusetts Cultural Council Traditional Arts Fellowship. She has been performing with Pontic Firebird since launching the group in 2011.

Adam Good is a Brooklyn-based multi-instrumentalist and composer working with contemporary modal music in the traditional styles of Turkey, Greece and Eastern Europe. His musicianship on guitar, Turkish ud, tanbur, and knowledge of Turkish makam has made Adam a fixture of the Balkan and Middle Eastern music scenes in the US and abroad. Adam plays regularly with the ensembles Dolunay (Turkish music), Greek Judas (heavy metal Greek rebetika), Pontic Firebird (Greek Pontic), and with clarinet master Souren Baronian's ensemble Taksim.

Jerry Kisslinger (daouli, dumbeleki) ) is a founding member of Zlatne Uste Balkan Brass Band, and currently plays with ZU and Kavala Brass Band as well as Pontic Firebird. He has performed with other top Balkan groups, including the Yuri Yunakov Orchestra, Akshambelah, the Macedonian roots band Odglasi, Turli Tava, Pece Atanasovski, and the pioneering New York Balkan band The Balkanizers. Jerry’s discography includes Édessa and Friends: Balkan Border Music, and Di Shikere Kapelye, with Frank London’s Klezmer Brass All Stars, as well as four recordings with Zlatne Uste: Golden Lips (Global Village) No Strings Attached (Rounder Records); In the Center of the Village; and Do Zore (Until Dawn; and guest appearances on Raif Hyseni 24 and Dolunay’s Our House.

BOURBON & BREAST MILK
Bourbon & Breast Milk is a community choir that's been singing in the Mid Hudson Valley for going on 6 years! We collect village songs from the Balkans, the Caucasus, and Ukraine, and sing them for our friends! Come join us!!