Center for Traditional Music and Dance to Present Roma Music Symposium

The Center for Traditional Music and Dance (CTMD) in New York will present Opre Khetanes! (Upward Together!): A symposium at New York University and concert/dance party celebrating the musical contributions of the Roma (Gypsies).

CTMD has worked with leading Romani performers for its entire history. The center will showcase the world-renowned Balkan brass ensemble Kocani Orkestar from Macedonia for a concert/dance party at Le Poisson Rouge (158 Bleeker St. in Manhattan) on Saturday April 27, 2013, 6PM-10PM (Tickets $20/$18 for members of CTMD and World Music Institute).

One of the funkiest Balkan brass bands around, Macedonia’s famed multigenerational 12-member Kocani Orkestar has a thunderous trademark style. With a powerful rhythm section (four tubas and a drummer), and passionate solos on sax, trumpet, clarinet, and accordion, they perform music descended from Ottoman Empire army bands.

The dance party opens with the intoxicating sounds of New York’s hot Sazet Band headed by the dynamite combination of clarinetist Sal Mamudoski and saxophonist Romeo Kurtali.The Kocani performance will happen in conjunction with a symposium at NYU entitled (Self) Representations: Romani Music and Culture in Diaspora that will convene scholars, Romani musicians and activists from all over North America from Thursday, April 25-Saturday, April 27 (symposium sessions are free to the public, NYU Silver Center for the Arts, Room 220, 32 Waverly Place in Manhattan).

For more information about the event with the Kocani Orkestar, click here

For more information about the symposium click here