Wednesday, September 21, 2022
Jewish Cultural Center ”Oneg Shabbat”, 8 pm
„R O O T S O L O G Yˮ:
• Bojana & Nebojša Brdarić (SRB)
Bojana & Nebojša Brdarić (promo photo)
BOJANA AND NEBOJŠA BRDARIĆ started their musical career in childhood, in 2001. Active as a duo, at the same time they collaborate with many famous Serbian musicians, including: Ljubiša Pavković, Brankica Vasić – Vasilisa, Pavle Aksentijević, Asim Sarvan, Ljuba Ninković, Slobodan Trkulja, Nenad Gajin – Coca, etc. After their first appearance on the television show Jeka, in 2004, they were invited to record permanent recordings with the RTS Folk Orchestra for the Sound Archive of Radio Belgrade. Since 2005, Bojana and Nebojša are also members of several so-called ethno-groups: Stupovi, Zanovet, Zlatopis and Biber. As a duo, they released their first album Nasleđe in March 2018. The release features nine traditional folk songs from Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina and North Macedonia, performed in a polyphonic manner, typical for the Balkan region. Sister and brother Brdarić are currently mixing the songs for their second album. At the Todo Mundo festival, Bojana and Nebojša will perform with several other young artists: Andreja Krstić (percussion), Amir Pilavdžić (keyboards), Grigorije Avramović (guitar) and Pavle Petrović (bass).
• Jako el Muzikante (E)
Jako el Muzikante (photo: © simonblackley.com)
JAKO EL MUZIKANTE, the Sephardic dandy, the roguish hustler from the café aman, barely survives singing at weddings and at bar mitzvah parties, as well as pilfering what he can from his drunken and entertained clients at the cafés. Cafes where the classless met. Cafes where coffee was prohibited but where hashish was routine. Cafes, where Greek exiles born in Western or Turks born in Greece, used to gather with Armenians, Slavs… and with Jews of Sephardic origin, who had Ladino or Judeo-Spanish as their mother tongue. In those cafes, one century ago, incipient globalization was brewing, while the roots of their respective identities, at the same time permeable, survived. Over time, those melodies from the café aman were forgotten because of the complicated situation that those artists went through. Jako’s daily life would change dramatically after the Ottoman empire’s traumatic dismemberment. But not all was lost: some of those pieces have been recovered from the memory of the descendants of those Sephardim. Enough to record an album of exceptional aesthetic quality, bringing to life and into the stage, a century later, those songs that connect so well with our present reality and yearnings. Xurxo Fernandes, the artist who created the project and who embodies Jako, travelled to Israel and Turkey, to search for what remained of that culture and, specifically, of its last moments of artistic splendour during the Ottoman Empire: the repertoire of the early twentieth century. Ven al Luna Park (Come to the Luna Park) is the first official album of the project. It is a book with a CD, with abundant documentation and references on the themes, produced by Fernandes himself, written in Ladino, English and Rashí (Ladino written in the Hebrew alphabet). And Ven al Luna Park is also the concert that we will enjoy at the Todo Mundo 2022’s edition. Grab your mug and get ready for a 100-year journey back in time. In addition to Xurxo (voice, percussion), the Jako el Muzikante trio consists of Nabil Naïr (clarinet) and Wafir Shaikheldin (oud).
Thursday, September 22, 2022
Drugstore, 8 pm
„P A R T Y A R Dˮ:
• Džambo Aguševi Orchestra (NMK)
Džambo Aguševi Orchestra, 2019 (photo: Goran Potkonjak)
From humble beginnings in the small Macedonian city of Strumica to conquering stages across the globe, the DŽAMBO AGUŠEVI ORCHESTRA has risen to the very top of the international music scene. Džambo Agušev is widely celebrated Macedonian musician. His family had been musicians for generations. At the age of 11, he became a member of his uncle’s Kočo Agušev orchestra, where his father Džemal already played for years. Determined to continue developing, Džambo did not let the attention sway him from focusing on maturing as a musician. While he was deeply rooted in the brass band genre of the southern Balkans, young Džambo kept his ears open and listened to music from both West and East. Džambo listened to Jazz and Turkish, Funk and Soul music, movie soundtracks and classical, all the time using his Gypsy heritage as the roots from which he developed his own distinctive trumpet style and sound. As Džambo matured into adulthood he founded his own band and became leader of the Džambo Aguševi Orchestra and so built his reputation playing weddings across the region. In 2006 they entered Kumanovo Trumpet Festival. Result: first place! Džambo continued to win at Kumanovo every year up to and including 2011 – after this the organisers ”banned” him from competing, so to give other musicians a chance! Džambo then entered the Pehchevo trumpet festival and blew minds there, he and his Orchestra winning all the prizes going. Džambo knew he was thus ready to step up and enter the ring against the heavyweight Balkan brass bands in Serbia’s famous Dragačevski Sabor in Guča (also known as the Golden Trumpet competition). And in the summer 2011, Džambo received the first prize and wrote his name in the history of this famous event: both the judges and the audience praised the Orchestra and its young leader. Džambo could have rested on his laurels, earning a fortune playing glitzy weddings and big festivals. Yet the young virtuoso was not satisfied with such a career and had, since then, looked towards winning an audience across Europe and beyond. During the years the band collaborated with many local and regional musicians from Husnu Senlendirici and Serhan Cagri from the East of the continent to Bosnian star group Dubioza Kolektiv and Rumanian brass masters Fanfare Ciocarlia to the most recent one with singer Natacha Atlas. Brasses for the Masses (Asphalt Tango Records 2020), the newest release of the Džambo Aguševi Orchestra got praises from international critics and received the German Critics Pool award in 2020.
• Fanfara Station (I / TN / USA)
Fanfara Station, 2021 (photo: Edo Florio Di Grazia)
FANFARA STATION is a trio that brings the power of a brass band and electronics to North African vocals and percussions. It is a trance-inducing celebration with a brass band, an entire North African rhythm section and pumping electro-dance beats setting the pace – all created by just three musicians, thanks to some skillful use of loop stations and live overdubbing of an arsenal of instruments. Inspired by singer, composer, woodwind-wielder and noted percussionist, Marzouk Mejri’s memories of his father’s brass band in Tunisia, the Naples and Florence-based trio set out to build their own. Canadian-born trumpeter and trombonist Charles Ferris (trumpet, trombone, tuba, loops) layers up the loops and drops glittering improvisational flourishes while master programmer Ghiaccioli e Branzini (electronics and programming) directs the dance-floor dynamics. Fanfara Station pays tribute to the epic feats of the Mediterranean’s migrants, the musical cultures of the African diaspora and southern Europe’s ancient links to the Middle East, the Maghreb and the Americas. Their first album Tebourba was released in 2018 under the label Aqualoca Records and the same year Ernesto Pagano chose to make a documentary about Marzouk Mejri (voice, percussion, Tunisian winds, clarinet, loops), the band’s leader, entitled Life of Marzouk, as his life is like crossing a bridge linking the history of Southern Italy with that of North Africa, from the last century to the present day. And even further back as Mejri, besides being a virtuoso of many instruments (he brought Maghreb’s darbouka, or goblet drum, to Italy), is also a scholar and a tireless promoter of popular traditions through art. Since the release of the first album their name and their great performances on stage had become more and more popular. In October 2019 Fanfara Station was the winner of the 12th Edition of the Andrea Parodi Awards, the most important contest in Italy dedicated to world music. In the same year the trio won the prestigious Parodi Prize and also took home the prize’s Critic’s Selection Award. Their second album Boussadia, recorded in Tunisia and Italy, and released in June 2022 by Garrincha GOGO, a well-known Italian indie label, features a Tunisian griot, Boussadia, a storyteller connected with the stambeli musical genre of Southern Tunisia. Boussadia is inspired by a traditional mask of the Tunisian Stambeli music ritual. In the Tunisian language, the title of the album’s single Nagran refers to both the ceaseless rhythmic movement of a woodpecker’s head and a percussionist’s hand, while in the Neapolitan dialect it means something grand. Multiple meanings and entanglements of people, language and music.
Friday, September 23, 2022
Jewish Cultural Center ”Oneg Shabbat”, 8 pm
„S K R I V E N I D R A G U LJˮ:
• Dunja Knebl & Roko Margeta (HR)
Dunja Knebl & Roko Margeta (photo: Doringo)
After their premiere duo performance at Etnofest (Palić, 2018), DUNJA KNEBL & ROKO MARGETA decided to record an album by themselves. Although the age difference between them is almost half a century, they both love traditional folk music, and interpretations that sound ancient and contemporary at the same time. The album Svilarica svilu prede (The Spinstress is Spinning Silk) was self-released in 2019, with 14 traditional songs from Croatia, arranged in an “un-traditional” manner, with instruments coming from all over the world. The album landed in the Transglobal World Music Chart (January, 2020). Their second album Songbook Songs (2021), which was listed as one of the best albums of 2021 in the Balkan World Music Chart, is an “autobiographical” journey through Miss Knebl’s life with the help of 14 songs from different countries arranged on basis of songs from songbooks. Although Dunja Knebl began singing in public at 47 (in 1993), she has released 21 albums to date, interpreting forgotten or nearly-forgotten folk songs from Croatia and other countries. She performs alone – accompanying herself on the guitar, Indian harmonium, sansula, small percussion – or with other musicians. She founded the band Kololira in 2013, with which she has released three albums so far. Roko Margeta, a multi-instrumentalist, just like Dunja lived and got his education in different countries (Egypt, China, India, Indonesia). He joined Kololira in 2018 as the youngest band member and a very accomplished musician playing on a wide array of instruments: keyboards, Indian harmonium, ukulele, kalimba, sansula, swarmandal, tanpura, tapan, frame drum, drums, guitar, exotic flutes (from Indonesian to Irish). In addition to his work in Kololira, Roko is a member of several groups: Lizards Exist, Monkey Mind, Et’nas, Kosan. Besides being engaged in the field of music (playing, singing, music production, and music for films) and programming (Supermind – sound design), Roko is also enhancing skills linked with circus events and performs in such. He began collaborating with Dunja Knebl in 2018, when he joined her group Kololira. The concert at the 10th Todo Mundo festival is their second live performance in Serbia, and the first one in Belgrade. Just before their performance, Dunja will receive the Vojin Mališa Draškoci award for the year 2022 (given for the tenth time by World Music Association of Serbia).
• Ramsch & Rosen (A)
Ramsch & Rosen (photo: Werner Redl)
Contemporary folk music – between before and now, without fear of experimentation, but always noticeably close to the roots… Julia Lacherstorfer (violin, viola, vocals) and Simon Zöchbauer (trumpet, zither, vocals) rummage through old pictures and manuscripts for old melodies, and once the layer of dust has been carefully wiped away, what emerges often turns out to be a real soul treasure. What they find is magical: delicate tones and airy words, light melodies and heavy ballads, wrapped in the sounds of violin, zither, voices and trumpet. Without drums, but always powerful. Without lard, but with a lot of feeling. RAMSCH & ROSEN make music that bridges the gap between a time when the clocks ticked differently and a present in which you can be connected to the whole world and have to choose the valuable elements from the incredible variety of possibilities that precisely fit the individual. A kind of folk music emerges that cannot be separated from the performers and must come out of them – and within – with depth, but also with a wink. “The most beautiful moment is when everything begins to merge in a concert: us with our music, our music with the audience, the audience with space and time so that only the present moment with its sound and its images exists.” This reduced way of making music and creating experimental sound aesthetics, paired with sacral and traditional influences, acts like a musical balm into which one immerses oneself and does not want to reappear so quickly. On the contrary. The music of Ramsch & Rosen is like a loving hug. As a duo, Julia and Simon released two albums: Bellver (2014) and Bergen (2016). The music from the second album will be the backbone of the program that will be performed at the Todo Mundo festival. They also perform as the Ramsch & Rosen Quartet (with the addition of piano and double bass).
Saturday, September 24, 2022
Jewish Cultural Center ”Oneg Shabbat”, 8 pm
„N A I S T O K U M A Š T Eˮ:
• Meybahar (H / GR)
Meybahar (promo photo)
Can you imagine the vibe of the santouri – the ravishing dulcimer of Greece – and the singing violin? This is MEYBAHAR! A deep shot through the islands of the Aegean Sea, Asia Minor, and the Middle East inspired by the ancient heritage of modal music, and the music of our time, as meeting points of different cultures. Their first album, Abyss, (Fonó, 2019) delivers a multi-cultural fusion of melodies from these different traditions. Abyss founds its place on one of the TOP 10 lists of Balkan World Music Charts in 2019. The band’s sound features tunes directly inspired by their Greek and Turkish music heritage and original compositions written by the band. Meybahar has an uplifting eastern spiritual ecstatic quality. The band grew out of the duo of Marilia Pilti (Greek santouri), and Kopcsik Márton (violin), which just sound perfectly matched together. They also organized five wonderful music events in Budapest-based Fonó, called Meybahar Evenings and invite to perform and work together worldwide known musicians such as Ross Daly & Kelly Thoma and Haig Yazdjian, Martha Mavroidi. Since 2022 the band’s music has developed by a new formation, which brings a new Meybahar repertoire on stage with singing and the accompaniment of the oud.
• Perija (NMK)
Perija (photo: Gjorgji Anastasovski)
“With the latest incarnation of neo-hippie-folk-postpunk psychedelic-trance… the band Perija, carrying a sound that touches upon the Middle East, the Balkans, North Africa… traditional music and complex maqam scales, uneven rhythms… where in languages from these regions they speak about human rights and freedoms. They were welcomed as the favourites of the present (sub)culture scene with good reason, and sent off with a feeling that their time is yet to come“ – Coming from the fingers of Ljupcho Jolevski, a journalist at Slobodna Evropa, after their performance at the biggest world music festival in Macedonia, OFFest. PERIJA is a dark folk band that plays with many music influences, from the traditional music of the areas they live in, middle-eastern maqam music and some north-African styles, to blues, post-punk, atonal and jazz. Their songs are in different languages of the Balkans, as to share an idea of equality between nations and ethnicities, and the themes of their songs are ranging from important social issues of the present (poems from acknowledged authors), newspaper clippings, to old, and often morbid village songs (some of them collected by friends who travel to villages and record them, some of them found in very old recordings). Perija is a Turkish root word denoting fairy, and it is this mythological connection with the darkness of the Balkan forests, a feeling that they try to convey in their music. The band consists of Lea Milinovikj (oud, tambura, cumbuş sas, percussion), Dea Delina Plevneš (percussion, vocals), Katerina Dimitrovska (vocals, tambura, kemane, percussion, yaylı tambur), Ognen Zlatanov (cumbuş sas, oud, tambura, vocals). Perija released two studio albums: Loc (self-released, 2017), Falan Filan (Sharla Records, 2021) and two EPs: Kokalo (Sharla Records, 2020) and Live at ESNS 2021. Falan Filan was voted No. 5 in the Balkan World Music Chart (the first quarter of 2019). At the moment they are working on their third studio album, Tavşan Kanı.
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