Description
Black Sea Hotel is a Brooklyn-based Balkan a cappella quartet that specializes in reimagining traditional Balkan folk music, with a focus on intricate harmonies and vocal arrangements. (2008)
Black Sea Hotel is:
Joy Radish
Willa Roberts
Sarah Small
Corinna Snyder
Black Sea Hotel emerged in Brooklyn in the spring of 2007, after having met a choir, Yasna Voices, in which they travelled to Bulgaria together on a cultural exchange grant. Inspired by each others’ distinct voices, they challenged themselves to form a quartet. In the process, they generated new shapes for many songs, aligning with tradition and taking new steps. They transformed songs typically sung by larger choirs and rearranged them for four voices. Solo or two-voiced “village style” songs were rethought to accommodate the new dimensions of a quartet. With this orientation, Black Sea Hotel began writing their own arrangements of traditional songs. With deep reverence to other styles in the canon, they’ve found new ways to use melody, harmony and rhythm to tell ancient stories. Black Sea Hotel shares their music all over New York City in venues ranging from the Bulgarian Embassy to rock clubs. This album contains repertoire members have sung for years, as well as arrangements that are merely days old.
tracklist
- Magdaleno Muri Malka Mome
- Dimjaninka
- Vecheraj Angjo
- Vurba Ima, Vurba Njama
- Dragana I Slavej
- Panju Pashata
- Spava Mi Se
- Makedonsko Devojche
- Mome Stoje
- Kavali Svirat
- Bre Dejane
- Momche Dava Zlato
- Vardar Muten
- Bezrodna Nevesta
- Ja Izlezni
- Vecherjaj Sino, Vecherjaj
