Tag Archives | Serbia

Until the Winter Melts Away

Let’s go sledding in the Serbian winter wonderland with our new best friend, Zvonko Bogdan.
Winters are harsh and so very long in Eastern Europe. Over the course of our season of music from Eastern Europe we sang songs aplenty about the harshness of winter and the jubilant spring. The song in this video, “Kada Padne Prvi Sneg,” twists this tale by welcoming the winter, conjuring the playful image of our first snowy ride on a sleigh. This version, performed by beloved Serbian vocalist Zvonko Bogdan, is actually a Serbian take on Romanian classic, “Sanie cu zurgălăi” — “Sleigh With Bells.” Jazz-heads may even recognize this melody as Les Paul’s cover, “Johnny is the Boy for Me.”

Happy Old New Year!

We end this week’s adventure on the Balkan Peninsula with a celebration of Vasilica, an “old new year” holiday, a tradition continued primarily by Orthodox Christians in Serbia and Macedonia, as well as by Muslim Roma. The holiday falls on the 14th of January, which is the date to which the new year on the old Julian calendar corresponds on the now globally accepted Gregorian calendar. The three day holiday actually kicks off the evening of January 13 with a Phari Rat, a “heavy night” feast, and consists of days full of family visits, and, most prominently in the Macedonian village of Vevchani, a raucous masquerade parade.

The Sound of 600,000 Trumpets

If your idea of heaven is spending several days in a small town in Serbia in with 600,000 trumpeters — and how could it not be! — get yourself to Guča. This Serbian town of 2.000 hosts the brassiest of all international annual festivals, attracting every trumpeter in the known universe, and no doubt a few from other dimensions. Brass bands from all over come to Guča to connect with their people. This Portuguese brass band, Kumpania Algazzara, holds it own.