Folk Songs

Description

Folk Songs features an improvised solo performance by violinist and vocalist Tijana Stankovic - Oscillating between energetic rawness and sincere frailty, this music is bound to spark every attentive listeners interest.
Tijana Stankovic has been heard in collaboration with many eminent artists of improvised music. Among them are composer and viola player Mezei Szilard, composer and cellist Markos Albert, Joel Grip, Nenad Markovic, Sores Zsolt and Ivan Ckonjevic. Moreover, she has also played in Argo (HU), a rebetiko-free improv project; Rodenice (SRB), a folk music a cappella trio; and Hyperion Ensemble (RO).
As its title may suggest, this solo album draws from Stankovic's background as an ethnomusicologist, as well as her nearly life long experience with playing and singing folk music. Her solo debut, Freezer (LOM, 2020) was more distinctly in the vein of contemporary improvisation. On this album Stankovic uses more fragments, motifs and pieces from traditional Balkan folk music, while simultaniously remaining in the idiom of free improvisation. For Stankovic, this is not stemming from a reckless attitude towards either tradition -- on the contrary, it is a way of synthezising the humbling and transcendent qualities of both idioms. As she says herself: "With my mixing of these two I don't want to imply that they are 'improved' by breaking their respective borders. It's my way to do music in the scope of my own (musical) capabilities, and as a kind of respect towards playing and singing. And last, but not least, respect for those musical giants who came before."
Performed at the legendary venue Fylkingen in Stockholm, this CD captures the intense presence of an improvised live performance. Brilliant in its simplicity, the recording made by John Chantler and mastering by Guiseppe Ielasi amplifies the raw and stripped down character of Stankovic artistic vision.