Mountain Tale
Mountain Tale
This project originated due to a strange whim of Mischa Alperin: “Some time ago, around 1995, I developed a vision of a family where the father would be from Tuva, the mother Bulgarian, the daughter a Russian, and the son Jewish”. With the help of Jaro Medien’s producer, Uli Balss, Mischa’s dream tranformed into a musical melange having the following ingredients: The Bulgarian Voices– Angelite ( “the mother”), Huun-Huur-Tu (“the father”), Sergey Starostin (as the Russian soul), and Mishca Alperin (as the Jewish son).
The philosophical ground for this project was the common nature of meditation in music. Mischa Alperin remembers: “For a long time I had been studying the common denominator of meditative structures in various folklorist forms of expression. For instance the Russian tradition of lengthy songs. A similar mood and similar colors might be found in Tuvan songs of the steppe, and is also reflected in the musical landscape of folk songs from the Radopi region in Bulgaria, as well as in many Jewish songs.”
The end result is truly mesmerizing. As the journalist Peter Grahame Woolf has noted: “[…] This happy concert demonstrated, with frequent touches of sly humor, a joyful fusion that can take place when musicians from different traditions join forces, helped by an inspired facilitator, in the hope that a whole might emerge which is more than the sum of its parts.” originality of the project was also pointed out by Steve Wonder: “[…] In my opinion this project should continue. It is a big beautiful occurrence and I would like to work together with the project in future”. And the Mountain Tale has rightfully continued by giving birth to an interesting trilogy one can enjoy at JARO Medien.
Their voices are fascinating, their style of singing and ornamentation is archaic, distinctive and rooted in centuries of local tradition. The Bulgarian Voices Angelite stands for the worldwide spread of the famous Bulgarian women choir singing since 25 years. Their international success (shows at the Nobel Price Award, the Red Square in Moscow or at the Grammy nomination 1999) and the non breaking international fascination throughout the years shows their uniqueness and quality read more…
The Moscow Art Trio is one of the most exciting new jazz formations. The boundaries between jazz, folk and classical music have become irrelevant or as the critic, Mike Zwerin, wrote in the International Herald Tribune: “Rarely have the frontiers between epochs, Eastern and Western folk music, and jazz and classical music been so gracefully negotiated as by the Moscow Art Trio.’ ‘The personalities of the trio’s members are more important than the instruments they play.” read more…
The members of Huun-Huur-Tu have devoted themselves to learning old songs and tunes, but at the same time their performances reflect the values of globalization. The whistling of the high-mountain wind forms eerie overtones and postmodern statement. The repeated thrum of a string against wood and hide turns into a meditative, evocative figure straight from the avant-garde. The descendants of isolated Siberian herdsmen make serious, strangely universal music out of some of the planets quirkiest acoustics read more…
