In Mahala Drive, new Rogarians Scott Keever (guitar, mando) and Matt Miller (bass) take up the flag since the departure of Tim Wahl (kitchen sink).
Minnesota-based Orkestar Bez Ime [or-KESS-tar behz EE-meh], meaning "orchestra without a name" in Bulgarian, was formed in 2002 to bring Balkan dance music to the Upper Midwest. Since then OBI has performed throughout the US to much critical acclaim. Its members strive to bring you the sounds of the village with a presentation as festive as the music itself. Focusing on Eastern Europe and music of the Rom (Gypsy) people, OBI's repertoire reaches from Albania to Ukraine, with plenty of stops in between. Orkestar Bez Ime is a winner of the 2011-2012 McKnight Artist Fellowships for Performing Musicians administered by MacPhail Center for Music.
Colleen Bertsch is OBI's violinist extraordinaire of haunting eastern European melodies and swirling ornaments. Her mentors include Hungarian violinists Hrúz Dénes of the band Dűvő, Ökrös Csaba of Ökrös, and Vizeli Balázs formerly of Téka. Colleen has traveled many times to Hungary to study fiddling, but in the summer of 2008 she traveled throughout Romania for three months in search of musicians who are still playing their village-specific folk music. She not only found the musicians to record, but stayed with the Romanian, Hungarian, and Gypsy fiddlers, and drank all of their palinka. She is not allowed back into the country until after the next plum harvest.
Scott Keever, one of the newest members of OBI, is a multi-instrumentalist/composer who has been working within the Twin Cities area for over a decade. He has been a music director for Brave New Workshop and, for eight years, was composer/arranger and sound designer for local comedy sketch troupe Idiot Box. For four years, Scott performed with Celtic/folk band Lojo Russo & Funks Grove, with whom he co-produced three albums. He has also been involved with numerous live performances and studio sessions, with genres ranging from Top 40 to Jazz to Musical Theatre to Experimental Electronica. He has composed and produced the theme song for the KFAI news (Twin Cities - 90.3FM) as well as the soundtracks for a number of independent film makers.Ê Scott is also currently a student at the U of MN - School of Music, working on his B.A. in Music, with guitar as his primary instrument. Scott is happy that OBI was foolish enough to let him join and is very excited to learn more about Balkan music.
Dee Langley specializes in solo and ensemble work on the accordion. She has performed with the Minnesota Orchestra and St. Paul Chamber Orchestra in addition to being part of Orkestar Bez Ime (OBI), Wild Hollow, and the nationally based trio, Accordion Brats. Ms. Langley is the President of the Accordionists and Teachers Guild, International, founder of the NE Accordion Festival and teaches music privately in the Metro area of Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota. Dee has no sense of humor that she's aware of.
Matt Miller likes to think of himself as a wandering bassist, always searching for the right type of music, right sound, and on a bad day the right chords. He has played in a multitude of groups such as a chinese orchestra, the Ocean orchestra with Merce Cunningham and Andrew Culver, the occasional symphony orchestra and OBI. He has also played for the spark festival doing electro acoustic music, and worked with composers such as Andrew Imbrie. After all this he has found himself lost in Rogaria and will play 1 and 5 with OBI until someone comes and tells him where to go.
Sent from Matt's Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
Katrina Mundinger considers herself a "Clarinet Evangelist" who will go to great lengths to increase knowledge of and participation in great clarinet playing. She began classical training in 1979 and obtained a Bachelor of Music in Clarinet Performance from Oberlin Conservatory (1990) and a Master of Music in Clarinet performance from Northwestern University (1991). After a three year hiatus from the instrument she discovered Eastern European folk music and hasn't stopped playing since. Her primary classical teachers were Lawrence McDonald, Robert Marcellus, and Clark Brody and she has traveled far and wide to study with the likes Ivo Papasov, Ivan Milev, Gëzim Halili, and Jim Stoyanoff to develop her folk music skills. In addition to performing with OBI, Katrina plays with Wild Hollow and teaches clarinet locally.
Natalie Nowytski ("The Chameleon") was supposed to be an opera singer—or so her grandmother/mentor had thought—but her fascination first with her native Ukrainian folk music, then Bulgarian, then countless others convinced her at an early age that villagers really do have more fun. She has since learned to hold a note for 38 seconds and has added more than 50 languages and nearly 20 distinct vocal styles to her repertoire, thanks in part to study with vocal giants Svetla Karadjova Ivanova, Liljana Galevska, Donka Koleva, Carol Silverman, and others. In addition to whipping up vocal acrobatics, Natalie also holds down the percussion fort for OBI and lends a hand on various flutes. Though she has performed nationally and internationally with the likes of Peter Ostroushko, Ruth MacKenzie, Mila Vocal Ensemble (which she also directed for several years), and Garrison Keillor, she is still most often recognized by strangers on the street as being Oksana Bryn's granddaughter.
Read more...