Our Bands
Zlatne Uste Balkan Brass Band, now in its 41st year, is the foremost presenter of traditional Balkan brass music in the US. They have performed for concerts, weddings, and festivals across the US and in the Balkans, from the esteemed halls of the Kennedy Center in Washington to the illustrious Guča Brass Festival in Serbia, which draws hundreds of thousands of visitors. They were the first musicians from abroad to perform Serbian music at Guča, and they have been invited guests five times. Their 2010 visit was featured in the documentary Brasslands. They have released four albums of music for listening and dancing. In 1986, they created the Zlatne Uste Golden Festival and have joyously sponsored it ever since.
Balkan Soul Band has been performing since 2018 for the Bulgarian Cultural Center of Washington, DC, the Bulgarian School of Baltimore, and the Bulgarian Cultural Center of NJ, PA, and DE. The band performs mostly traditional Bulgarian songs and dance tunes. In the past year, the band began expanding its repertoire with Romanian, Serbian, Albanian, and Macedonian music.
Yana Kirilova (vocals) is 11 yo. Stanley Kirilov (doumbek, tupan, and vocals) is 13 yo. Stanley studies doumbek with Polly Tapia Ferber. He also studies Tupan with Genadii Rashkov. For the past few years Yana and Stanley have been studying Bulgarian singing with the Thracian singer Tsonka Dimitrova. Kalin Kirilov (digital accordion) is a Prof. of Music at Towson University. Kalin teaches music theory, ear training, ethnomusicology, and creative music technology.
Szikra plays traditional Hungarian dance music of the Csángó people from Moldva and Gyimes in Romania. The energetic, ancient pulse of this music ignites the dancers' fervor, and inspired the band name Szikra, which means “spark” in Hungarian. Csángó dances are lively and easy to follow, and include both line and couple dances, many with syncopated rhythms.
Since its formation in 2014, Szikra performs regularly at cultural events and Hungarian dance house parties (táncház-es) in Maryland, Virginia, Washington D.C., Michigan, New Jersey, and New York.
Niva is an all-woman band that plays and sings Macedonian roots music - alternately lyrical, mournful, ecstatic and spooky music that used to be the soundtrack of everyday life back in the day.
Songs about unhappy betrothals, love gone wrong, bandits hiding in the hills, and cruel mothers-in-law, dances that wrap you in a twisting circle - Niva can make you hoot and holler one minute and cry your eyes out the next, even if you can't speak Macedonian. Niva is: Bridget Robbins - kaval; Emily Geller - tapan and vocals; Helen Marx - tapan and darabuka; Kristina Vaskys - tambura and vocals.