Black Sea Surf Repertoire
Bill Cope
Bill Cope is teaching a new ensemble class this year: Black Sea Surf! This repertoire includes music from North Macedonia, Greece, and Turkey, arranged for both traditional and modern instruments. All instruments and singers welcome!
Bill is a multi-instrumentalist who is drawn to play music without borders, that will get people on their feet, dancing! He has been performing and teaching Balkan music at the Mendocino Balkan Music & Dance Workshops since 1982, and to date he has taught at many workshops & zoomshops around the world. Bill has been the music director of San Francisco based WestWind International Folk Ensemble, Aman International Dance Ensemble, Mendocino Folklore Camp, and the San Francisco Kolo Festival. He is currently the director of the San Francisco Kolo Festival, and the band leader for Zabava, Black Sea Surf, and Orkestar Unbound (at Balkanalia this year).
More info and resources:
https://cope-a-cabana.com/
https://www.worldcamp.us/
https://kolofestival.org/
Greek Ensemble
Christos Govetas
Greek ensemble is back with Christos Govetas! This class will coordinate with songs taught in Ruth Hunter’s Greek Singing class.
Christos Govetas was born in the village of Proti, in the province of Serres in Greek Macedonia. After emigrating to Boston in 1978 he joined the Rebetiko band Taxími as a bouzouki and baglama player and their main vocalist. Since then he has played classical Turkish music on the oud and bendir with The Eurasia Ensemble; Greek, Turkish and Arabic music with Karavani; and regional Balkan music with Tito’s Revenge and Akshambelah in the Boston area.
He has performed extensively in the U.S., Canada and Europe, and for over two decades has taught and performed Greek regional music at EEFC Workshops on both coasts. Currently he is a member of the nationally-known band Ziyiá. He performs regularly with his family band, Drómeno (at Balkanalia this year). Christos has recorded extensively, including with Ziyiá, Pasatempo and Drómeno, as well as with Stanley Greenthal and Heiner Goebbels. He is featured on Bill Frisell’s Grammy-nominated recording, Intercontinentals. In 1999, Christos was awarded a Folk Arts Fellowship in recognition of his outstanding contributions to the preservation of Greek cultural traditions in music. He and his wife Ruth Hunter are also the recipients of the Ethnic Heritage Council’s Gordon Ekvall Tracie award of 2017.
Romanian Lăutărească Repertoire
Marchette DuBois
Making her teaching debut at Balkanalia this year is Coach herself, Marchette DuBois!
Marchette has been an active performing artist in Seattle since 1996, mastering a broad and versatile repertoire across the Balkan genres with a special affinity for Romanian music. She was a founder and artistic director of the Bucharest Drinking Team for its seven years, from 2010-2017. This string and brass ensemble played music informed by folk, pop, and rock music from the Balkans and Eastern Europe. Other musical ensembles that she either founded or co-directed are Ensemble Sub Masa, the Vishudolska Collective, and most recently Omerica.
Marchette is also active as a theater musician and has worked with Seattle’s Book-It Repertory Theater, Cornish College of the Arts, Letters Aloud, Theater Simple, Monkey Wrench Puppet Labs, and the physical theater troupe of the UMO ensemble.
In the non-profit sector, Marchette has worked with HONK! Fest West, HONK!TX, American Romanian Cultural Society, and as a community coordinator for Northwest Folklife Festival, and is serving as a board member of the East European Folklife Center.