The East European Folklife Center is thrilled to welcome accordionist Lauren Brody back for a second Bulgarian song series with all-new material! Join her for a fascinating vocal survey of many of her favorite solo, two-voiced songs, and ballads from across Bulgaria’s rich folklore regions. This class is open to all singers, but comfort with learning by ear is a plus. Texts, translations, musical transcriptions, and audio sources will be provided.The series consists of 4 once-weekly sessions of singing classes starting on Tuesday, May 10, 2022 at 8:PM EDT.

Class times: Tuesdays, 5/10, 5/17, 5/24, and 5/31/22 — 5:PM Pacific, 6:PM. Mountain, 7:PM Central, 8:PM EDT
All classes will be conducted via Zoom. The classes are 1 hr 15 min.
Please note that you only need to register once, no matter how many classes in this series you attend. New Zoom codes for each class will be issued to maintain security.

Your instructor, Lauren Brody, is an accordionist, singer, researcher, professional piano tuner/technician, and Fulbright scholar from New York City. She is a pioneer of the klezmer music revival in the United States and a founding member of the groundbreaking band Kapelye, formed in 1979, and has toured, performed, and played with many klezmer luminaries.

Lauren was a trailblazer in the domestic Balkan music scene and was the first female gadulka player in the United States. She was an original member of the first Bulgarian traditional folk orchestra Pitu Guli, formed in Los Angeles in 1970, and has taught and performed at many of EEFC’s Balkan Music & Dance Workshops. She also toured and recorded with the Yuri Yunakov Ensemble and the Ivan Milev Balkan Folk Band.

Lauren was the recipient of a Bulgarian Government stipend to study Bulgarian folk music during the Communist period, from 1971-73, at the Bulgarian Conservatory of Music in Sofia. As a Fulbright scholar to Bulgaria in 1990 she conducted research on the commercial recording industry and folk music, and released two acclaimed reissues of rare Bulgarian 78 rpm recordings: Song of the Crooked Dance (1998, Yazoo Records), and Outsinging the Nightingale (2010, JSP Records).

Lauren continues to perform, with a particular accent on composing new music for her own Balkan/Klezmer-inspired solo project “Lauren Brody’s Accordion Bytes,” as “Tsoyber” with Yiddish singer Susan Leviton, and with the Bulgaria-based accordion duo Brody-Stoikov. 

Your host, the East European Folklife Center (EEFC), is a non-profit organization whose mission is to promote, celebrate, and educate the public about traditional and traditionally based music, dance, and cultures of the Balkans.

For more information: lbrody292@gmail.com.