Kinisi Through the Balkans

We have built Kinisi Festival over the past three years. Since 2012 we have been traveling throughout Greece and the Balkans to meet each and every participant in person. When you go in search of music and sounds you find people and stories. We have found a great many, and sometimes the very same story retold, the versions criss-crossing like the wires tangled around many a Balkan lamp-post. Here we have a small selection of the pictures and sounds that best capture our experiences so far. This year we will be posting from Bulgaria, Romania, and – once again – from Albania and Greece, during our final journey in preparation for Kinisi Festival 2016. Take a more thorough look here.

The Uskakan Orkestar, led by Hussayn Kanturovski on trumpet, plays in a circle around the bride while the crowd hoists the groom into the air. Gun shots fire out intermittently. A binaural recording.

The Prilepski Zvezdi, the Prilep Stars, play at a circumcision party in the Roma Neighborhood. Toni, a percussionist and one of the band’s leaders along with the Sevim the sampler maestro, told us that they planned to play for about eight hours. Toni is a seasoned pro who regularly plays with Esma Redzepova, as did his father Buzo, who was one of her 47 adopted children and musical protégés. The singer introduced the mother of the seven-year old boy for whom they were hosting this “wedding". A circumcision is a major celebratory occasion, so here it’s called a wedding, and demands the services of the best musicians available. The boy’s mother led the opening dance, hooking arms with all the women at the gathering. Slowly they danced, fingers linked and lifted to shoulder height, with sparkling, sequined, gauzy dresses, and coiffed with glittered hairspray curls.