Baltimore County, MD smARTS, 26 Mar 2018

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From YouTube: Kalin Kirilov on Balkan Music

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With Kalin Kirilov, Professor of Music at Towson University.

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( ♪♪♪ ).

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The music of the balkans has its own sound,, its own rhythm,,.

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And its own, unique traditions.

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with me, is kalin kirilov, associate professor of music at towson university, who's, not only an expert on balkan music,.

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He's a performer of balkan music as well.

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welcome to smarts!. Thank you so much for the invitation.

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Okay., I'm a musician,, but I'm not an expert.

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I don't know a lot about balkan music., I'm sure some of our viewers don't either. what is unique about balkan music?.

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Due to the geographical location of the balkan peninsula,, the.

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Music has some very unique characteristics.

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Let's think of the balkans, of where this is.

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it's north of turkey., it's greece,, bulgaria, romania,, former yugoslavia,.

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So this is a crossroads of people and musical traditions.

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So, as a result of historical kind of collision.

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Of western traditions and eastern traditions, one can find a huge variety of scales,, rhythms, and folks songs.

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Which vary greatly from town to town, village, to village.

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It's an enormous variety of music and styles.

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And what attracts you so much to this music?.

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I was born there and I grew up in the northwestern corner of the country of bulgaria.

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So I grew up listening to bulgarian, romanian, and serbian music.

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And speaking, the three languages and kind of growing up playing music from these three traditions,.

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Singing songs from three countries.

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so very early on, I became exposed to the huge variety of songs and rhythms.

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And the abundance of music in the balkans.

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Now, obviously, it's considered folk music,, yes? yes..

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So what kinds of instruments are used in balkan music?.

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Different instruments.

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For the most part of the history, for about 500 years,,.

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This area was occupied by the ottoman empire.

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And most of the musicians played folk, instruments, wooden folk instruments,.

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And flutes and bagpipes made by local luthiers or local craftsmen.

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And then in the 18th, 19th century, with the trade,.

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More western instruments came from the west.

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first, the brass bands,, then clarinets came,.

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The accordion came at some point: early 20th, century.

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So the instrumentation changed, but you can see all the traditional instruments.

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Playing parallel to the modern instruments.

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mixing with the modern, instruments, kind of get prevalence lately due to amplification and they're just louder.

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Yeah., in the few seconds we have left,.

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What kind of balkan music community exists here in our area?.

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There is a huge community to the washington area.

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And also we have a bulgarian school here at baltimore cultural center.

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I used to teach there. I played for the dance group.-.

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There is a huge community., there is kids learning the language...

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And I know you're doing a lot also at towson university..

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Well, thank you so much for being here and I look forward to hearing you in concert.

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My pleasure. thank you.. This is smarts, the baltimore county arts and culture show.