Bios and Background
GRAND MASTERS OF GYPSY MUSIC
Grand Masters of Gypsy Music band features:
Yuri Yunakov, sax; Selajdin 'Sal' Mamudoski,
clarinet; Erhan 'Rambo' Umer, keyboards; Rumen Sali Shopov, percussion.
Yuri Yunakov, the superstar of the saxophone, was born in Haskovo, Bulgaria, in 1958, and has been the recipient of much critical acclaim. In 2011 Yuri received a National Heritage Fellowship Award from the National Endowment for the Arts, the highest honor for an American folk musician. A self-taught virtuoso, Yuri comes from a family of Turkish Romani musician who include his father, grandfather, uncles and brother. Yuri was catapulted to international fame for his pioneering work in Bulgarian "wedding music" with Ivo Papasov, and their legendary band Trakiya which attracted thousands of fans and hundreds of imitators. Their thrilling music showcases virtuosic technique, electrifying improvisation, rapid tempos, daring key changes and eclectic musical literacy. This contemporary style of wedding music was named for its ubiquitous presence at life cycle celebrations such as weddings, baptisms, and circumcisions where dancing and music are a requirement. Wedding music is known for its haunting melodies, dense ornamentation and complex rhythmic patterns.
Yunakov immigrated to New York in 1994 and formed the Yuri Yunakov Ensemble, which toured widely in Europe and the U.S., including concerts at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, the National Folk Festival, and the Monterey World Music Festival. Yuri is featured in the new Canadian documentary about the saxophone, "The Devil's Horn"
The New York Times has written "Yuri Yunakov led his ensemble in Bulgarian and Gypsy tunes... racing ahead in dizzy-speeding curlicues and zigzags. They played as if Bulgaria's national drink were rocket-fuel!" And The Vancouver Courier has hailed Yuri and his ensemble for "entrancing melodies, shifting time signatures and those unbelievably rapid tempos that Yunakov navigates with ease. His solos especially stand out for their pure exuberance."
Selajdin 'Sal' Mamudoski was born in 1988 and raised in NY in a Romani family from Macedonia. He plays clarinet at Romani, Albanian, Macedonian, Turkish, and other Balkan family and community celebrations. He was a student of Romani saxophonist Yuri Yunakov for many years and frequently performs with him. Sal toured the US with Yunakov's Romani Wedding Band in 2007, and he performed with the Sazet Band at the 2015 Herdeljezi Festival, both sponsored by VOR.
Erhan 'Rambo' Umer, born in Bitola, Macedonia in 1973 and moved to NY in 1986, comes from a long line of professional Romani musicians: his father was a drummer with the National Macedonian Ensemble "Tanec". Erhan is a keyboard player and vocalist who performs for weddings and celebrations for his community of Macedonian Roma and also for Albanians, Bosnians, Serbs, and Turks. Erhan toured the US with Yunakov's Romani Wedding Band in 2007, sponsored by VOR.
Rumen Sali Shopov, a Rom from Gotse Delchev, a crossroads town in the Pirin region of Bulgaria, is a master of Greek, Macedonian, Bulgarian, Romani, and Turkish musical styles. He performs and teaches in the Bay Area on tambura (long-necked fretted lute), bouzouki, dumbek (hand drum), and drum set, as well as the Bulgarian tapan (large double-headed drum). He was concertmaster of the Nevrokopski Folk Ensemble and led several of southwest Bulgaria's most popular bands. Sali has toured extensively in the US, including with Yuri Yunakov in 2007 and has headlined at many VOR events. His CD Soul of the Mahala, recorded with his son Angel for VOR, was released in 2006.
VOICE OF ROMA
Sani Rifati is Voice of Roma's President and founder, production/tour manager, dance researcher and instructor, and activist. Of Romani decent, Sani was born in 1962 in Kosovo, emigrated to the United States in 1993, and now lives in Berlin. His career as a dancer and singer began early in childhood in his Romani neighborhood, and he has given numerous dance workshops in Europe and the US. Sani produced VOR's North American tours with Esma Redžepova in 2004 and 2016, Yuri Yunakov in 2007, and Kal in 2006 and 2008. Sani is producing VOR's first summer camp on Balkan Romani music and dance in Sutka, Macedonia, July 24- 31, 2017.
Carol Silverman, panelist and VOR Board member, is an award winning Professor of Anthropology and Folklore at the University of Oregon. Carol has been involved with Balkan Romani culture for 40 years as a researcher, teacher, activist, and performer. Focusing on Roma in Bulgaria and Macedonia and the American and West European diasporas, her research explores the intersection of politics, music, human rights, gender, and state policy with a focus on issues of representation. Her current project examines the issue of appropriation in the globalization of Romani music. Her book Romani Routes: Cultural Politics and Balkan Music in Diaspora (Oxford University Press, 2012) won the Merriam Prize from the Society for Ethnomusicology.
ABOUT THE MUSIC
In Bulgaria during the 1970s and '80s, "wedding music" was officially suppressed by the socialist government, but thrived in private settings as a means of countercultural expression. During this period Yunakov was one of the leading stars who fought to continue playing for Romani and non-Romani audiences alike, and he was jailed and fined numerous times. The music's popularity has grown across Bulgaria, Romania, Greece, Macedonia and Turkey, and has also gained enthusiastic audiences and critical acclaim in Western Europe, Canada, Australia and the US. This tradition-bending music includes nods to jazz and rock, with frenetic time signatures and live-wire improvisations played out as show-stopping duels between Yunakov and his ensemble, creating harmonies which have made him a legend in Bulgaria since the 1970s. The program will be drawn from Romani, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Turkish, and Albanian repertoires.
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