Ivo Papasov (clarinet) is a living legend in his own country, Bulgaria, and a phenomenon in the West. Born in 1952 in Kurdzhali, of Turkish Romani ancestry, he founded the band Trakiya in 1975 and became the leading model of wedding music.

Although his music is based on tradition, it is squarely set in the present, with eclectic melodies and dazzling technique. Admired both for his technical and his creative talents, Ivo is known for his masterful, wide-ranging improvisations, his stamina, his daringly fast tempi, his forays into jazz, and his charisma.

In 1987 a Bulgarian journalist commented that "the concert hall literally exploded when Ivo Papasov, the uncontested king, got on stage. It was the apotheosis." When jazz pianist Milcho Leviev played a tape of Ivo to his musician friends, they said it must be a synthesizer.

Leviev says he never heard such integration of musical styles in his whole life; "my temperature rose when I heard him."

Papazov is the subject of a number of documentary films, and has recently collaborated

with other Romani musicians on joint projects in Budapest. In 2001 he was featured in the Bang On a Can Festival at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and recently he won the BBC Audience Award for best European artist of the year.