Yuri Yunakov Ensemble 2019
About the Residency
The Yuri Yunakov Ensemble and Carol Silverman joined the UWC-USA 2019 Annual Conference, “Change the Conversation,” as featured performers and workshop facilitators. Members of the ensemble participated in several panel discussions on Romani arts and culture in the diaspora, and coached students in the school’s Silk Road Ensemble on Romani music. The residency concluded with a public performance at The Bridge at Santa Fe Brewing Company.
Residency Workshops
Introduction to Roma: Migration, Music, and Dance with Carol Silverman (22 February)
Vocal and Instrumental Performance Workshop with the Ensemble (22 February)
Dance Party and Artist Performance (22 February)
Romani Music, Human Rights, and Appropriation (23 February)
About the Artists
Yuri Yunakov hails from Haskovo, a city in Bulgarian Thrace, a region on the borders of Turkey and Greece with large Roma and Turkish populations. Yunakov's Turkish Roma family reflected the area's strong musical heritage; his great-grandfather, grandfather and three uncles were violinists, and his father was a popular clarinet player. Yunakov displayed musical talent from an early age, learning the kaval (a shepherd's flute), then the davul (a double-headed drum), on which he accompanied his father and older brothers at weddings. In his teens, he accompanied his father on the clarinet. Though Bulgaria's Communist government sponsored folk-oriented music festivals, it was ambivalent about Roma music, and Yunakov was imprisoned for playing it. Despite the repression, Yunakov played for hundreds of celebrations in Bulgaria and toured extensively in Europe and North America. Yunakov has made his home in the U.S. since 1994 and has remained in demand at home and abroad. He has also played at hundreds of weddings and family gatherings in the Bulgarian, Turkish and Macedonian Roma communities in the tri-state area around New York City. He is joined by bandmates Selaedin Mamudoski, Erhan Umer, and Ali Ceyhum Kartalsuna.
Carol Silverman, Professor of Cultural Anthropology and Folklore at the University of Oregon, has engaged in research on Balkan music and folklore for over 30 years. With a focus on Roma in Bulgaria, Macedonia, Western Europe and the US, she has explored music, politics, human rights, gender, migration and state policy with a focus on representation. Her 2012 book Romani Routes: Cultural Politics and Balkan Music in Diaspora won the Merriam Prize from the Society for Ethnomusicology. Her recent research, supported by the Guggenheim foundation, examines issues of migration, labor, and appropriation in the globalization of Romani culture. She has written numerous articles, works with the organization Voice of Roma, and serves as co-curator of the music division of the new RomArchive. She is also a professional vocalist and teacher of Balkan music, and toured for a decade and recorded with the Yuri Yunakov Ensemble.
