Singing Classes

Maria Bebelekova

Maria Bebelekova, from the Bulgarian Rhodope town of Shiroka Luka, learned singing from her mother and grandmother. She studied at the Shiroka Luka Folk Music School and the Plovdiv Conservatory, then returned to her hometown, where she taught at the music school for 15 years. She sang with the Bulgarian women’s choir Angelite for three seasons, and has performed and recorded regularly with other ensembles.

Maria teaches kindergarten and singing for adults and children at the Khan Asparuh Bulgarian School in Sunnyvale, California, and gives private singing lessons in the San Jose area.

Michele Simon

Michele has been involved with music all of her life, and with Balkan folk music for most of it, as a dancer, singer, drummer and teacher. She was raised surrounded by music of all kinds, including classical (especially Bach), standards (especially Margaret Whiting, Frank Sinatra, and Ella Fitzgerald), and American folk music.

She has been inspired by countless musicians, both in the U.S. and abroad, and has been lucky to study with, to name just a few, the late Nadezhda Hvoineva, from the Bulgarian Rhodope region; the late Esma Redžepova, Queen of Romany music; Serbian folk specialist Svetlana Spajić; Mary Sherhart of Seattle; Jane Sharp of Berkeley; and Bulgarian master singer Tatiana Sarbinska, with whom she also trained as a teacher. Over the last thirty years she has sung with Kitka Women’s Vocal Ensemble; and has been steeped in complex odd-metered Balkan dance rhythms through singing and playing percussion in the folk dance bands Anoush, Brass Menažeri, Helladelics and Zabava!. She has appeared on recordings and stages across America and in Bulgaria, as well as on Bulgarian and Serbian TV.

Michele lives in Oakland, CA.

John Morovich & Talia McGill

We are excited to feature this brand-new singing class at Balkanalia this year!

John and Tali have been singing together as Taman for many years. John Morovich grew up in Seattle’s sizable Croatian community, and he has studied, taught, and performed traditional music and dance of Croatia and other parts of Southeastern Europe since 1973.

In 2018 John was inducted into the Tamburitza Hall of Fame.

He is a featured soloist with the Sinovi Tamburitza Orchestra, artistic director of the Seattle Junior Tamburitzans and Tamburaški Orkestar Kišobran. He is past conductor of the Jele Croatian Women’s Choir and Klapa Ruzmarin, of Vancouver, B.C.

Talia McGill, a classically trained musician, was introduced to Balkan music 30 years ago and immediately knew this genre would become an important part of her life. She has wholeheartedly embraced its beauty and energy as a vocalist and a dancer.

John and Talia will be teaching songs with sweet duet harmonies of post-WWII golden age of radio.