Trendafilka – For The Olives (Trendafilka, 2024)
New Orleans-based vocal ensemble Trendafilka, named after the Balkan wild rose, specializes in traditional polyphonic folk music from Eastern Europe, including the Balkans, Baltics, Caucasus, and Eurasian Steppe. Formed in 2016, the eleven-member group shares a passion for cultural exploration and collective singing. Their upcoming album, For the Olives, set for release on November 22, 2024, is their second studio effort, following a successful Kickstarter campaign.
Produced by two-time Grammy winner Misha Kachkachishvili, For the Olives features twelve tracks representing the seasonal and ritualistic traditions of Bulgaria, North Macedonia, Greece, Ukraine, Latvia, and Lithuania. The album is designed as a concept piece, with each song corresponding to a different month, evoking the passage of time through music. The repertoire includes springtime songs, summer solstice rituals, harvest chants, and winter celebrations, weaving together the cycles of nature and human experience.
Says Director Lou Carrig, “As New Orleanians, we are no strangers to seasonal rituals, which are celebrated here publicly with parades and live music throughout the year. It feels natural and important to sing different songs for each season.” Carrig spent the period of album production on a year-long Fulbright scholarship in Bulgaria studying the role of ritual songs in the traditional Slavic calendar, the breadth of which knowledge is represented in the album’s thorough liner notes.
Trendafilka’s arrangements feature three to five vocal lines, combining harmonies and dissonances to evoke themes of love, loss, humor, and magic. The ensemble’s distinct voices combine seamlessly, creating a rich and textured sound that captures the essence of polyphonic singing.
“We sing exclusively in polyphony, which is a style of singing that has occurred throughout the world since ancient times,” says Carrig. “The polyphonic styles we sing in range from archaic to modern, but the commonality is that they are musically non-hierarchical: multiple voices sing independent lines simultaneously, creating a textured, weaving sound. It requires the listener to tune into several melodies at once, but I think that’s what our audience enjoys the most: experiencing a lawful musical coexistence.”
The album’s first single, “Chichovite Konye,” was released on November 1, 2024. This Bulgarian song is traditionally performed on St. Lazarus’ Day, a rite of passage for young women who sing and bless homes in exchange for gifts.
Carrig shares: “When a member suggested that we add it to our repertoire, I dove into the song’s history and uncovered the oldest recording which was markedly different from the versions you’ll hear today! Our arrangement starts in the traditional village style, known as antiphony, where two smaller choirs overlap in a call-and-response format. This is how it would have traditionally been sung on St. Lazarus’ Day. After a few verses, we jump into a modern choral arrangement by composer Georgi Genov. The track is fun and upbeat, and contrasts traditional village singing style with the modern Bulgarian choral sound more familiar to the Western world.”
The title track, “Kaliora Na Houn I Elyes” (“Wishes to the Olives”), draws inspiration from Corfu, Greece, where ensemble member Phoebe Vlassis spent her childhood summers. The song, introduced to Vlassis by the Greek polyphonic group Pleiades, connects the album’s theme to her ancestral roots.
Carrig adds, “We immediately loved the song’s lyrics, which speak of coming together for a shared purpose and the bittersweet feeling of parting when the season ends. This resonates deeply with our group, which naturally swells and disperses with the seasons, especially as some members split their time between New Orleans and Southeastern Europe. We were already leaning into seasonal songs in our repertoire, and this harvest song is so uplifting and joyous. The scene depicted in this track – harvesting olives to produce lamp oil for embroidering at night – also led us to commission Belgrade-based hand embroidery artist Julia Omarova to complete the album artwork, which depicts a landscape including an olive tree, Mediterranean hills, and a woven basket filled with olives.”
For the Olives was recorded, mixed, and mastered by Misha Kachkachishvili at Esplanade Studios in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Contributing vocalists include Anais Adair, Renee Anderson, Lou Carrig, Ruby Corbyn-Ross, Annalisa Kelly, Grace Kennedy, Elisabeth Stancioff, Phoebe Vlassis, and Eleanor Warner.
The album was funded in part by the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Foundation, Threadhead Cultural Foundation, and Trendafilka’s generous Kickstarter backers.
Track List
- Chichovite Konye
Lazarka (girls’ spring initiation song) from Buhovo village, Shopluk region, Bulgaria; choral arrangement by Georgi Genov.
Uncle’s horses are hobbled in the pasture. Looking far away, they’re impatient to go to a betrothal. Be patient, be patient my love! Look, walk, my love, barefoot!
- Zamruknala E Moma Yana
Harvest song from Vratsa, Northern Bulgaria; choral arrangement by Filip Kutev.
Night overtook the girl Yana, in the middle of the forest of lilies, while she waited for her lover, her first love, a young haidouk, a young voivode.
- Oi Na Dubovi
Lyrical song from village of Harkushentsi, Poltava region, Ukraine.
Oh, on the oak tree, branches bend; on a Kozak, curls form. Wipe away those tears, girl, and let me go hide behind the birches, behind the garden, while I pick the berries.
- Mori Aida, Aida
Pirin region, Bulgaria; choral arrangement by Kiril Stefanov.
“Come, my dear, my dear black horse, come for I must sell you.
I need money, in order to get married.”
“How can you do this, my dear master? I am too young to be sold!
Come, kiss me, my dear master, between the eyes.”
- Joninių Sutartinė
Song for Joninių (Midsummer) from Aukštaitija, Northeast Lithuania.
Corn-cockle, rose, round, who is walking outside? A young lad is walking there. What is he looking for? He’s got eyes out for a young lassie. And there, he met a lassie, as she was raking the green hay!
- Oi Na Ivana Na Kupala
Song for Kupalo (Midsummer’s night), Kyiv region, Ukraine.
Oh girl, when should I come to you?”
“Come to me in the evening, so our enemies will not see.
Come to me through the orchard, through the valley.
There will be vodka with honey and kalyna.”
- Zaspalo E Chelebiche
Sedyanka (work party) song from Shiroka Luka, Rhodope region, Bulgaria; quartet arrangement by Anka Kushleva.
A Çelebi boy has fallen asleep on a young woman’s right arm.
It is lovely to gaze at him, but she bravens to wake him:
“Wake up, wake up, the roosters are singing, the dawn has come!”
- Nekuko Dzeguzite
Rotasana (spring calling song), from Latvia, from the repertoire of Saucejas.
Cuckoo, do not sing in the blossoming apple tree.
If there is no other tree, sing at the top of a reed.
A cuckoo was singing in a silver oak tree:
Why did you leave green copper at the edge of the Daugava River?
Oh sisters, you do not know what trees grow on the other side of the river:
Birches, black alder, and the nightingale singing!
- Mome Stoje Ju Livadi
From North Macedonia, as sung by Vaska Ilieva; choral arrangement by Willa Roberts and Lou Carrig.
A young woman stands in a meadow; as she stands, the sun shines.
In her hands she holds a mirror; into the mirror she looks, and says,
“God, give me the face of a bride this Sunday!”
- Po Moryu
Kolyada (winter ritual) song from Mlachanivka, Kyiv Region, Ukraine.
Along the blue sea, my viburnum, rose red berry.
Along that sea, the bright moon shines.
In that sea, God bathed himself, dressed himself, and rose, praying that the world be created!
- Kaliora Na’ Xoun I Elyes
Olive harvest song from Kato Garouna, Corfu Island, Greece.
Wishes to the olives that make the oil to light my love when they embroider at night. Now that we have harvested the olives, we are a group of friends, we stand on the same earth. What a shame for us to part!
- Zvezda Vechernitsa
Shopluk region, Bulgaria; choral arrangement by Stefan Dragostinov.
An evening star shone, lit up high, it shone far and wide across the land. An evening star shone above on high!
Buy For the Olives.
Author: JGurski
