Music of the Balkans: Bosnia and Bulgaria

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Music of the BalkansBosnia and Bulgaria
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Historical Overview

• Bosnia was republic of Yugoslavia from 1945-1991.
  Declared independence 1992.
• Ethnic groups Serbs, Croats, Bosniaks
• Religions include Orthodox Christianity (9th
  cent.), Catholicism, Judaism, Islam (under
  Ottoman Empire1463-1878).
• Region marked by ethnic violence.
• Sarajevocapital city of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

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The Highlands
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Music of the Highlanders

• Songs tend to be polyphonic, vocal.
• Songs used in local rite of passage festivals,
  with dance.
• Girls sing with their own singing groups (only
  unmarried women sing).

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Ganga

• Vocal genre of highland villagers, sung in male
  and female singing groups.
• Alternation of solo (leader) and group.
• Short phrases, emphasis on dissonance.
• Narrow vocal range.
• Aesthetic goal contribute accompanying pattern
  through close dissonance described as cutting,
  chopping, or sobbing.
• Topics are gender-specific.

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Newly Composed Folk Music

• Songs composed in the style of folk songs.
  Regulated by and used to further the political
  aims of the state.
• Style usually excludes rural aesthetics in favor
  of urban/Western standards.
• Is NOT folk music, but a completely different
  genre.
• Emerged 1960s-1980s in Yugoslavia, provided basis
  for young urban musicians looking for national
  style.

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Tamburitza Orchestra

• Played by professionals.
• Instrumentation is folk orchestra made up of
  folk string instruments.
• Promoted by state-managed cultural system in
  Yugoslavia.
• Performed rural genres as well as newly composed
  folk songs.
• CD 2/13 (lowlands wedding song)

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Tamburitza
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Bosnian Musician Mensur Hatic

• Balance between national and international
  style.
• Living in US.
• CD 2/14 Last Stop Brcko Inspired by living
  near train station

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Music of Bulgaria
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Overview

• Demographics most are ethnic Bulgarians. Turks
  and Rom (Gypsies) are minorities.
• Language Bulgarian (Slavic language)
• Religions Most are Eastern Orthodox
• Under Ottoman Empire for 5 centuries
• Like Yugoslavia, was under communist regime from
  1940s to late 1980s

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Womens Village Music

• Womens singing
• in western regions antiphonal (2 choirs,
  alternating) and diaphonic (part singing, with an
  active part over a drone). Often end with
  aspiration or yelp.
• Like in Bosnia, women tend to sing for courtship
  and rites of passages, as well as work.
• Aesthetic goals of group singing similar to
  ganga here, to ring like a bell

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State-Sponsored Folk MusicThe Mystery of the
Bulgarian Voice

• 1950s Filip Kutev, composer, director of
  National Ensemble of Folk Song and Dance
• Presented modernized folk songs
• 1987 world music becomes marketing term.
  French label releases Le Mystere des Voix
  Bulgares.

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Ivo Papasov

• Clarinetist, of Turkish and Rom heritage
• Founded group Trakiya in 1974
• Created new form of popular music based on
  traditional wedding music (Balkan jazz)
• Style includes use of compound dance meters,
  improvisation, scales and ornamentation from folk
  music
• Incorporation of drum set and electric
  instruments, as well as polished sound

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Hristianova Kopanitsa

• 22322
• Begins with folk tune
• Followed by improvised solos