A Balkan Celebration--Slaveya & Lyuti Chushki (Monthly Program)

An evening of Balkan music and dance with Lytui Chushki and Slaveya.In the Bulgarian language Lyuti Chushki means ?Hot Peppers?, and that is the kind of spicy traditional Bulgarian music this band plays. The toe-tapping music, played on traditional instruments from Bulgaria, takes you back to the old country ? it is joyful, evocative, compelling and lyrical, in modes and rhythms generally not found in western music.Lyuti Chushki brings together professional musicians from Bulgaria and American musicians from the Baltimore/Washington area. They have been playing together for festivals, weddings, concerts, and other special events since 1997, all along the East Coast. They have also participated as key supporters in the summer music and dance program founded in in Plovdiv in 2005.Their instruments include kaval (end-blown flute), gaida (bagpipe), gudulka (bowed stringed instrument with resonating strings), tambura (fretted instrument similar to a guitar) and tupan (large drum). All of these serve to accompany the unique Bulgarian vocal style, which has a beauty all its own.Slaveya is a women's vocal ensemble, incorporated as a nonprofit arts organization dedicated to the traditional music of the Balkans and neighboring regions of Eastern Europe. Founded in 1984 by former members of the Yale Slavic Chorus, Slaveya has been an active member of the folk music and dance community in the greater Washington, D.C. metropolitan area for more than 20 years. Slaveya takes its name from the Bulgarian word for nightingale. "Slaveya" appears in the popular song Dragana i slaveya, which tells the story of a singing contest between a young woman and a nightingale. The members of Slaveya are women living in America who are united in their love of women's traditional song from the Balkan regions. Slaveya's repertoire of traditional unaccompanied vocal music is drawn primarily from the Slavic vocal heritage of Bulgaria, Macedonia, Bosnia, Croatia, Serbia, Russia, and Ukraine. Customarily sung by women, the lyrics reflect the constants of village life: the harvest, war and its heroes (folk and real), matchmaking, flirtation, loves lost and found, birth and death. Women sing while sowing and harvesting in the fields, at "working bees" in the home, and while participating in community life at village dances, weddings, and religious and seasonal celebrations.