Boston-based American ensemble which has been performing village music from Bulgaria since 1989. ZDRAVETS brings you a variety of music for dancing and for listening – instrumental music, unaccompanied singing, and the full ensemble combining instruments with voices.

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This village music is the wild ancestor of the music that modern composers have tamed and adapted for large choral ensembles. Bulgarian music is characterized by highly resonant, close harmonies and energetic asymmetric rhythms. The vocal styles are free, full, and thrilling, while the instrumental music makes your feet itch to dance. ZDRAVETS brings you the whole gamut – instrumental music, unaccompanied voices, and the full ensemble combining instruments with voices. ZDRAVETS’s instrumentalists usually play the old-style Bulgarian village instruments – kaval (end-blown flute), gadulka (bowed lute), tambura (mandolin-like instrument), tapan (large double-headed drum), tarabuka (hourglass shaped drum), and gaida (goatskin bagpipe); occasionally they play newer folk instruments (clarinet, violin, saxophone) as well. ZDRAVETS’s unaccompanied songs are primarily from field recordings, many of which were made by group member Martha Forsyth, who has done extensive folklore research in Bulgaria since 1978. (Some of her original recordings can be heard on Rounder Records #1055, “Two Girls Started to Sing: Bulgarian Village Singing”.) ZDRAVETS has performed regularly at the New England Folk Festival (NEFFA) in Natick, Mass., the Folk Arts Center of New England’s annual Balkan Music Night, the Zlatne Uste Golden Festival in New York, the MIT Folk Dance Club’s Tuesday Night dances, and the Boston International Festival. Since the fall of 1997, ZDRAVETS has been holding a regular monthly dance party and concert in Arlington, Mass. The group has also performed at the National Folklore Festival in Koprivshtitsa, Bulgaria (1991 and 2000) and at the Petrova Niva Festival in Strandzha, Bulgaria (2000), and has been featured on Bulgarian television and radio. For more information, or to book ZDRAVETS, contact Pat Iverson at 617 666-1010.

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