Vlada Tomova's Balkan Tales

Artist Information

Biography

Honoring tradition while embracing the present, Vlada Tomova’s Balkan Tales aims for the heart with earthy sophistication. Called a “Bulgarian vocal sorceress” and "one of the most exciting voices in the New York global music scene", Brooklyn's exquisite Bulgarian songstress carries haunting, otherworldly energy in her voice. Featuring some of New York’s finest instrumentalists, Balkan Tales brings modern soul to the Gypsy Balkan diaspora. Reaching far and wide for its tales, the group’s repertoire stretches from Tomova’s native Bulgaria to the rest of the Balkans to the Middle East, with flavors of India and Sephardic Spain, recalling Bulgaria’s cultural origins shaped by ancient migrations. Music critics have likened Tomova’s delicate moans and descant runs to those of Flora Purim. Her 21st century take on the music of her homeland channels the joy that helps keep all great folk traditions alive.

The international ensemble brings an array of textures and moods, blending fiery vocals, mournful taqasims, driving percussion, and colorful harmonic treatments, mixing old world flavor with the zest of a modern metropolis. Balkan Tales, the ensemble's full-length album, was released in October 2009 on Bulgarian label Kuker Music.

In addition to Balkan Tales, the Bulgarian-born, New York-based Tomova founded and led Yasna Voices, New York’s Bulgarian Women’s Choir. Tomova collaborates on interdisciplinary projects, and is a guest vocalist in demand in the world music, fim, and theatre communities. Her work with the Balkan Beat Box continues to receive international acclaim. Her voice is featured on National Geographic's touring exhibit King Tut, and was heard in the sound installation Echoes from the Mountains at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Italy.

Most recently, Vlada collaborated with Bulgarian kaval virtuoso Theodosii Spassov and innovative American sitarist Chris Rael for a series of concerts in the USA; she also joined forces with Italian producers Analog People in a Digital World for a new dance track. Vlada is currently working with Chris Rael on an album recording of old Sephardic songs, The Lazarus Rose, arranged by Rael for a world music orchestra, to be released in 2012.

Vlada's appearances include Lincoln Center Out of Doors Festival (New York), Carnegie’s Zankel Hall and Weill Recital Hall (New York), Symphony Space (New York), David Rubenstein Atrium at Lincoln Center (New York), the Montreal International Jazz Festival, Chicago World Music Festival, Toronto's Small World Festival, New York Summer Stage, New York’s European Union sponsored European Dream Festival, and the 2nd Annual NY Gypsy Festival.

Situated in the heart of the Balkans, Bulgaria’s distinct cultural and folkloric heritage has evolved at the crossroads between East and West for more than 13 centuries. Having joined the European Union in 2007, Bulgaria has entered a new and exciting era, with music serving as one of its most captivating ambassadors.

Instrumentation

Vlada Tomova (voice)
Kyle Sanna (acoustic guitar)
Harvey Valdes (oud) - optional
Uri Sharlin (accordion)
Mike Savino (bass)
Mathias Kunzli (percussion)
..
Special guests include: Theodosii Spassov (kaval), Chris Rael (sitar), Matt Darriau (kaval, gaida), Rima Fand (violin, voice), Emilia Simeonov (violin), Yair Evnin (cello), Sira (Middle-Eastern dance), Roxane Butterfly (worldbeat tap dance).

Discography

Balkan Tales - Full-length album recording - October 2009/2011 (Kuker Music)

Balkan Tales - 5 song EPK - October 2005

Links

• Facebook
• rock paper scissors inc. - PR agent
• Balkan Tales @ Chicago World Music Festival (2009)
• Balkan Tales @ Lincoln Center Out of Doors (2010)
• Vlada Tomova website

Audio

• Momche - Vlada Tomova "Balkan Tales"
  Listen  
• Kalimanku - Vlada Tomova "Balkan Tales" (full version)
  Listen  
• Kara Deniz - Vlada Tomova "Balkan Tales"
  Listen  
• Women's Dance - Vlada Tomova "Balkan Tales"
  Listen  
• Augustos - Vlada Tomova "Balkan Tales"
  Listen  
• Leili - Vlada Tomova "Balkan Tales"
  Listen  
• Nevechernyaya
  Listen  

Lyrics

• Kalimanku
• Momche

Video

Vlada Tomova's Balkan Tales - live at Chicago World Music Festival (Sep 2009)

Photo Gallery

Press

• Vlada Tomova - press quotes [+ Show ]
  

  Phenomenal acrobatic vocalizations of every last voice, song, snort, and alarm bell. The Boston Glo...Phenomenal acrobatic vocalizations of every last voice, song, snort, and alarm bell.
  The Boston Globe
  
  One of the most exciting voices in the New York global music scene is Vlada Tomova.
  World Music Central
  
  .. Bulgarian vocal sorceress ..
  www.nymosaico.com
  
  .. haunting, otherworldly energy ..
  The Boston Globe
  
  ..sensual swing and emotional intensity..
  her delicate moans and descant runs will remind many of Flora Purim..
  ..Tomova's 21st-century take on her ancestors' form of expression to life.
  The Village Voice
  
  .. her entrancing voice is front and center .. even as dizzy beats dance around it.
  Time Out NY
  
  Local folkstress Vlada Tomova .. speaks directly to the pleasure principle.
  Time Out NY
  
  Brooklyn's exquisite Bulgarian songstress
  Not Only Brooklyn
  Bulgarian jazz sensation Vlada Tomova
  Chicago Business
  
  Balkan Tales .. updates traditional Bulgarian folk with a jazzy kind of elasticity, featuring flourishes from flamenco, Indian classical music, and even Brazilian pop.
  Chicago Reader
  
  Tomova is at her best .. allowing her voice to soar unhindered to craggy sonic peaks.
  Express Milwaukee
  
  Of all the varieties of World Music to hit American shores, none may have as much strange, otherworldly beauty as the women’s vocal music of Bulgaria. .. Vlada Tomova brings this sound to .. Balkan Tales.
  WNYC-93.9FM, Soundcheck

• To her ears, Balkan Tales sounds like home [+ Show ]
  

  October 21, 2011 By Siddhartha Mitter, Globe Correspondent Balkan Tales, Theodosii Spassov At:...October 21, 2011
  By Siddhartha Mitter, Globe Correspondent
  
  Balkan Tales, Theodosii Spassov
  At: Johnny D’s, 7 Holland St., Somerville, today .
  Tickets: $20., 617-776-2004, http://www.johnnyds.com
  
  NEW YORK - Here’s a concept: an American-based band that plays music inspired by the folk traditions of the Balkans in southeastern Europe, and that is actually led by someone from that region.
  
  This takes nothing away from Balkan Beat Box, Zlatne Uste, A Hawk and a Hacksaw, Slavic Soul Party! or the many other neo-Balkan bands that have sprung up this side of the Atlantic in the last decade. The founder of Gogol Bordello, a pioneer in this trend, comes from Ukraine. And many players in this wave of Balkan music appreciation have done deep, immersive research, traveling to villages and seeking out musicians in places like rural Macedonia.
  
  
  That said, singer Vlada Tomova’s Balkan Tales, which visits Johnny D’s tonight, enjoys a little bit of an edge. It dwells in Tomova, who came to the United States 15 years ago to study jazz, but found herself reverting to - and innovating from - the folk music of her native Bulgaria and its neighbors, the sounds she had grown up hearing, almost unconsciously, in the background soundtrack of her youth.
  
  “I didn’t know that I had paid attention to these songs,’’ Tomova says over a glass of wine in Brooklyn, where she has made her home for almost a decade. “Growing up, folk music was something that was supported by the state. We were expected to like it, and anything that is forced on you, you reject.’’
  
  Instead, after growing up playing piano and later studying mathematics at the national university (to honor her parents’ wishes), Tomova launched her music career in Bulgaria with a band that combined English-language lyrics with Brazilian-influenced melodies. Then she decided on jazz, and got accepted to Berklee College of Music.
  
  And so it was late one night in Boston, in the waning hours of a party, that Tomova, almost out of nowhere, found herself channeling Bulgarian folk music.
  
  “There were five or six people out smoking on the fire escape,’’ she says. “And this drummer, who was also Bulgarian, started beating a little pattern in an odd meter and I suddenly started singing a song that keeps that meter.’’
  
  That song, “Dimianinka,’’ appears on Tomova’s album, also titled “Balkan Tales,’’ which came out last year. It’s part of a program of mostly traditional Bulgarian songs, plus a few outliers from Greece, Russia, and even a Kurdish folk song, “Leili.’’
  
  
  Rediscovering and rearranging Bulgarian songs became a major project for Tomova after her revelation on the fire escape. “I think being so far from home made me reach for songs that I didn’t realize I had soaked up,’’ she says. “I started arranging songs, more in a jazz idiom at first, but this interest in folk music took me away from jazz.’’
  
  When Tomova arrived in New York, she joined the city’s community of musicians who move between jazz, rock, avant-garde, or world-music projects as opportunity and interest arise. Over a dozen of these appear as guests on her album.
  
  
  Holding it all together is Tomova’s singing, which weaves in the influences she’s picked up over the years, but also carries the haunting, otherworldly energy that Western ears have associated with Bulgaria ever since the Bulgarian Women’s Choir became a world sensation two decades ago.
  
  In her research, Tomova says she has spent time studying with soloists from the choir, as well as village women singers. And for her Boston concert, she will be joined by Theodosii Spassov, a renowned player of the wooden flute called the kaval, who like her has made a career of working both in and out of Bulgarian folk music.
  
  Percussionist Mathias Kunzli, a core member of Balkan Tales who has known Tomova since their Berklee days, says his friend has come into her own with this project. “She’s confident and comfortable with her ideas and her story,’’ Kunzli says.
  
  Kunzli, who is Swiss, says he too only discovered Balkan music once he came to the United States. He says the technical aspects like the odd meters appeal to him, but it goes much deeper than that.
  
  “It doesn’t matter where it comes from - folklore is powerful,’’ he says. “It’s beautiful to be around music that you feel is taught by ancestors from generation to generation.’’
  
  It’s that appeal, Tomova says, that seems to have drawn so many people to the music and culture of her region - like the American women in the Bulgarian choir she led for a number of years in New York. “They were so passionate and driven,’’ she says. “And I think it comes from looking into a tradition that is so old.’’
  
  She says she sometimes finds it odd to witness, for example, Balkan folk festivals full of non-Balkan players and participants performing traditional music and dance. And she cautions that the search for authenticity can become rigid, when in fact the music and culture are always evolving.
  
  But overall, she says, the trend is empowering - especially when it filters back to Bulgaria and its neighbors that their ancestral music is mesmerizing foreigners.
  
  “People are very surprised,’’ Tomova says. “And people in the Balkans don’t have high self-esteem. So it’s a great booster. I couldn’t be happier that it’s happening.’’
  
  Siddhartha Mitter can be reached at siddharthamitter@gmail.com.

• Critic's Picks [+ Show ]
  

  by Siddhartha Mitter September 11, 2011 BALKAN TALES Accomplished New York-based Bulgarian singe...by Siddhartha Mitter
  September 11, 2011
  
  BALKAN TALES Accomplished New York-based Bulgarian singer Vlada Tomova leads this ensemble of Balkan-inspired music, from those haunting women’s choir vocals to a smooth, melodic pop. Oct. 21, 8 p.m. Tickets: $22. Johnny D’s. 617-776-2004. www.johnnyds.com

• A Look At Pop Around The Globe [+ Show ]
  

  A Look At Pop Around The Globe, From Operatic Creole Harmonies To Riot-Grrl-Inspired French Rappers ...A Look At Pop Around The Globe, From Operatic Creole Harmonies To Riot-Grrl-Inspired French Rappers
  
  by Carol Cooper
  Wed. Oct. 5, 2011
  
  The end of the year brings a flurry of world music albums with commercial intentions ranging from the archival to the optimistically opportunistic. Some, like the Creole Choir of Cuba's Tande-La or Vlada Tomova's Balkan Tales, accompany tours by the outfits that made them; others are heavily branded theme compilations—brain candy for collegiate introverts, mood music for bars and boutiques.
  
  The Afro-Semitic Experience seems determined to do to the synagogue what Jolson and Gershwin once did to Broadway. Bassist David Chevan and keyboardist Warren Byrd have been collaborating with traditional cantor Jack Mendelson and his White Plains congregation for years, and Further Definitions of the Days of Awe (Reckless DC Music) documents three concerts from 2010 that demonstrate their combined approach to the Jewish High Holy Days. The cantor's ability to improvise around a mode or a feeling allows the band to segue from Latin to gospel to klezmer rhythms. But despite earnest attempts to lay funky backbeats behind the first two cuts, this album doesn't really catch fire until the downtempo "Mitzratzeh B'rachamim"—which is incidentally also the first song featuring vocals by Jack's son, Daniel. And although Dad steals back lost thunder on bluesy Gershwin-esque numbers like "Shomer Yisrael" and "Tiviyenu," here the prayers of atonement and praise generally work better over cool jazz than hot.
  
  Similarly obsessed with blending the political, the personal and the spiritual is 27-year-old Keny Arkana, a French rapper whose underground fandom is so devoted that its members have been using You Tube to create and translate promotional clips of her songs faster than she can make her own. Arkana's seventh album is imminent, and her sixth, L'Esquisse, 2 (The Sketch, #2), came out in May. Imagine Chuck D, Bob Marley and Joan of Arc rolled into one and you come close to the sound and sensibility of this Marseilles resident, who formed her first rap crew at 14. On irresistibly kinetic singles like "Mother Earth Cannot Be Sold," "Wake Up!," and "Civil Disobedience," she rages against governmental fear-mongering, racism, globalization, and sexism. Her beats are sometimes as raucous as early Bomb Squad productions, sometimes as lyrical as Wyclef on acoustic guitar. But just when you've got Arkana pegged as a militant Marxist she'll shift to Rasta speak or riot-grrl rhetoric, urging the "children of earth" to "turn off their TVs and exit their front doors" to struggle for social freedom in the streets. Keny fights ignorance and injustice with the weapons of a Sufi, not a soldier. Whether cheerleading the revolution on "V pour Verites" or confiding more personal discontent in "Odyssée d'une Incomprise," Arkana leaps across the language divide with such undeniable power it should make even English speakers recognize her as The Most Important Emcee in the West.
  
  Putumayo's African Beat collects contemporary party riffs from African pop stars. Senegal's Lëk Sén eschews the more traditional mbalax sound to create "Rebel Blues", a catchy blues number anchored by fluid electric guitar and closing chords from a Hammond B3. Freddy Massamba attempts a Congolese version of P-Funk with "Zonza," while Nigerian rapper 9Ice reworks the hooky melody from TLC's "No Scrubs" for his "Alapomeji Anthem." Other artists from the Congo and the Ivory Coast update soukous-flavored club singles with quirky textures borrowed from European electronica. Playful combinations that erase regional and stylistic boundaries abound, as when Les Barons use rhythm lines from juju-music under Afrobeat horns during "Lagos Sound System."
  
  Similar mix-and-match production strategies run through the label's Latin Beat sampler, although the sly sophistication of these 11 tracks owes much to the global popularity of Manu Chao and his many tours. Cuba and Colombia rightfully dominate this showcase of evolving Afro-Hispanic creativity; Colombia is second only to Cuba in its support of Afro-Caribbean swing, while Cuba has only ever been eclipsed by Brazil in the size and diversity of its musical innovations. (Even the Yankee/Mexican combo Charanga Cakewalk gets onto this compilation performing a Colombian cumbia!) The doo-wop samba "Chocolate," sung by the Profetas, and a dubby bolero from a New Zealand outfit called Sola Rosa are the most unique songs here, but Calle 66 and Sarazino both get points for a delightfully psychedelic use of distortion.
  
  
  Descendants of Haitians who survived a second enslavement in Cuba after 18th-century slave revolts in Haiti resulted in French plantation owners leaving home and encamping there make up the 17-year-old Creole Choir of Cuba. These ten university-trained musicians sing a capella about the historical hardships of Haitian life in Haitian creole, Spanish and French. But the operatic pacing, phrasing, and harmonies of this group will remind you more of Carmen or Porgy and Bess than the folk origins of either rhumba or compas. In fact, each of the 12 songs on Tande-La ("Listen") are conceptualized as mini-plays, brought to the stage as a kind of psychological catharsis or exorcism. The soaring female vocals of "Maroule" have a Gregorian texture, and the opening male solo on "La Mal De Travay" is heartbreakingly lovely.
  
  But the Creole Choir album is not the only new cross-cultural release that takes cues from the conservatory. Balkan Tales—a project conceived by Brooklyn-based vocalist Vlada Tomova—revolves primarily around Bulgarian folk music popularized by women, with minor detours into Kurdish, Greek and Russian material. After many research trips through the region, Tomova invited 16 acoustic instrumentalists (including specialists on oud, bansuri and accordion) to a New York studio to bring Tomova's 21st-century take on her ancestors' form of expression to life.
  
  You'll hear nothing raw or rustic in her vocals, not even during "Women's Dance" when she adds handclaps and exuberant yelps that imply vigorous movement. Her delicate moans and descant runs will remind many of Flora Purim, especially during slower numbers like "Kara Deniz" and "Nevechernyaya." In each seamless, confident arrangement you can hear Tomova's Berklee School of Music training as well as the disciplined intimacy you'd expect from a chamber ensemble.
  
  On record, each instrument is perfectly miked and balanced, and every improvisation rehearsed and anticipated. Such control and elegance may be hard to replicate live, so don't hold it against them when they play Symphony Space on October 23. But what makes this album a pop performance rather than a formal exercise in transposing folk melodies into orchestral settings is the sensual swing and emotional intensity. This group accompanies Tomova with effortless sensuality and the knowledge that you need not sacrifice precision to express passion.
  
  The Creole Choir of Cuba perform at Enlow Hall in Union, N.J. on October 9; Vlada Tomova's band brings Balkan Tales to Symphony Space on October 23.

• Bulgarian Intersections [+ Show ]
  

  Vlada Tomova - Balkan Tales (Kuker Music, 2009) by Angel Romero October 28, 2011 One of the...Vlada Tomova - Balkan Tales
  (Kuker Music, 2009)
  
  by Angel Romero
  October 28, 2011
  
  One of the most exciting voices in the New York global music scene is Vlada Tomova. She was born in Bulgaria and is now based in Brooklyn. Her album Balkan Talestakes the listener to the wondrous musical crossroads of her native country. She achieves this with an exciting mix of traditional Bulgarian music spiced with flamenco, Eastern European Gypsy music and even Indian influences.
  
  On Balkan Tales, Vlada Tomova is joined by Uri Sharlin on accordion; Kyle Sanna on acoustic guitar; Brandon Terzic on acoustic guitar and oud; Sage Reynolds and Danny Zanker on double bass; Paul Ruest, Rosa Ena Campos on palmas (Flamenco handclap percussion); Mathias Kunzli, Rich Stein, and Matt Kilmer on percussion. Special guest appearances include Avishai Cohen on trumpet, Mavrothi Kontanis on oud, Alicia Svigals on violin, Brahim Fribgane on oud, Sarah Bowman on cello, and Josh Geisler on bansuri (Indian flute).
  
  “The Balkans have something very unique that mixes well with other musics because of its complex and long history,” explains Tomova. “And it’s very emotional for me; it’s about connecting to the places, the ancient villages I’ve loved since childhood. It’s about home.”
  
  On Balkan Tales, Bulgarian folk innovator Vlada Tomova reveals her fascinating musical intersections of Bulgarian music and global sounds.

• 10 Things to do this weekend [+ Show ]
  

  Margaret Littman October 27, 2011 LISTEN. Bulgarian jazz sensation Vlada Tomova sings and plays...Margaret Littman
  October 27, 2011
  
  LISTEN. Bulgarian jazz sensation Vlada Tomova sings and plays at the Old Town School of Folk Music this weekend. Catch her act along with THEODOSII SPASOV, a master of Bulgarian traditional flute. Oct. 30, 8 p.m. Tickets are $25. 4544 N. Lincoln Ave., (773) 728-6000, www.oldtownschool.org.

• Concert Preview [+ Show ]
  

  by Anne Mancuso October 20, 2011 ‘Heartbeat of Bulgaria’ (Sunday) The folk music of Bulgaria wil...by Anne Mancuso
  October 20, 2011
  
  ‘Heartbeat of Bulgaria’ (Sunday) The folk music of Bulgaria will be performed by a trio consisting of the singer and kaval (a type of flute) player Theodosii Spassov; the singer Vlada Tomova; and the sitarist, guitarist and singer Chris Rael. At 7 p.m., Symphony Space, 2537 Broadway, at 95th Street, (212) 864-5400, symphonyspace.org; $30, or $20 for students.

• October 2011 New Releases [+ Show ]
  

  It's that time of the month again for the new releases show on New Sounds, despite the fact that it'...It's that time of the month again for the new releases show on New Sounds, despite the fact that it's All Hallows' Eve. John Schaefer (in his boxing costume) carefully sorts through the stacks, bins, and boatloads of new CDs which have come across his desk over the past month to present some of the finest (and scariest) new releases. He'll pick the lentils from the ashes to present the cream of this crop.
  
  PROGRAM # 3264, October 2011 New Releases (First aired on 10/31/2011)

• The Balkan Mountain Went to America
  

  Feature in Music Section on Vlada Tomova and Balkan Tales.

Setlist

We prefer doing one long set, 1 hour or so, but have done many shows with two 40 min sets.

All songs are original arrangements of largely Balkan folk songs, with a rare special version of a song in English, if the occasion calls for it.

A typical set list follows.

1. Izgreyala Yasna Zvezda (Bulgarian trad. - a cappella)
2. Momche (Bulgarian trad./arr. V. Tomova & Balkan Tales)
3. Dimianinka (Bulgarian trad./arr. V. Tomova & Balkan Tales)
4. Kara Deniz (by Lubo Alexandrov)
5. Kalimanku (Bulgarian trad./arr. V. Tomova & Balkan Tales)
6. Mesechinko (Bulgarian trad./arr. V. Tomova & Balkan Tales)
7. Leili (Kurdish trad./arr. V. Tomova & Balkan Tales)
8. Toudoro (Bulgarian trad./arr. V. Tomova & Balkan Tales)
9. Augustos (by Nikos Papazoglou)
10. Dilmano (Bulgarian trad./arr. V. Tomova & Balkan Tales)
11. Women's Dance (by Milcho Leviev)
Encore - Nevecherniaya (Russian Gypsy song)


Bulgarian Traditional Singing Workshop with Vlada Tomova
Bulgarian traditional singing - village styles & arranged folk music

The workshop explores technique, sound and different styles of Bulgarian women’s traditional singing, and the difference between village styles and arranged folklore, a cappella and with instrumental accompaniment.

Two to three hours workshop covers:
- listening and brief overview (20 min),
- vocal warm up and specific vocal production exercises (20 min),
- learning two to three songs; one in diaphonic village style, and one or two arranged a cappella song, in the style of Le Mystere des Voix Bulgares choir.

Listening materials and copies of music provided.

Basic Requirements

Calendar