Trio Balkan Strings is the guitar formation of Yugoslavian guitar legend and composer/producer Zoran Starcevic and sons Nikola - composer and classical guitar teacher -- and junior Zeljko who also studies classical guitar. With 400-some songs under his belt, 10 solo guitar albums on which he explored numerous playing styles and of which he has sold hundreds of thousands in his native Serbia alone, Zoran's present release features all-original tunes and was self-produced and recorded in his digital studio in Belgrade. There's never been anything quite like Guitares des Balkans before. Borrowing trills, mordents and appoggiaturas from Transylvanian violin and saxophone styles, interjecting those with odd-metered tunes from Serbia, Montenegro, Greece, Romania, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Turkey and Gypsies culture and occasionally augmenting them with very subtle background hand percussion, your internal aural compass needle goes haywire trying to lock to true North. That's how uniquely evasive the origin of this music turns out to be. The 7/8 and 11/8 rhythms suggest Macedonian rutchenitsa-derivatives but the guitar-only instrumentation plays mean tricks on you. Certain high-speed fret work suggests French Manouche music but the overall setting doesn't match. You hear Greek bouzouq elements but things don't exactly sound Greek either. "Rumunsko nebo" could be a musette waltz if it wasn't on four - but it swings and whirls as though it were on three. And so it goes until you give up any pathetic efforts of pigeon-holing and just board this magic carpet ride for the sheer hell of it. Which, naturally, is the point of all music making unless you're an ethnomusicologist. Once you've hitched this ride and left your mind and shoes on the floor where they belong, you enter a lyrical, playful yet very smart world of advanced instrumentalists. If Ivo Papasov or Yuri Yunakov became guitarists and abandoned their popular focus on high-speed power riffing, this would be the general turf of their music. If Romane went East and got marked by a sexy vampire, that's what he might do on his Selmer. But until those impossible days, the Starcevic Trio holds the keys. How they manage bass accompaniment on regular acoustic guitars -- none of which in the cover image really look much larger than standard -- is beyond me. Naturally, that doesn't prevent them at all. It's this disregard for convention or easy explanations that's the biggest attraction here. This is a truly unique slice of guitar craft that any lovers of the instrument would do well to acquire. Call it Strunz & Farah do Eastern Europe. Very highly recommended.

Srajan Ebaen

6 moons World Music

June 2004  

Label:

Playasound;

PS 65277; 2004;

Spielzeit: 45.52 min

   Gitarowa family from Belgrade (Serbia), performs its original instrumental music, which is a mixture of many elements of the Balkans: Serbian Macedonian, Romanian, Bulgarian, Greek, combining improvisation with elements of jazz and classical. The result of a combination of mergers of many cultures is rich and unconventional at the same time, fresh a and spontaneous, bringing with it a lot of energy music. Artists took part in numerous festivals and concerts both in Europe and the United States. They won the first World Music Awards 2004 and 2005 USA Song Writing Competition. Trio Balkan Strings is a family (father and sons) Guitar team composed of Zoran Starcevic, Nikola and Zeljko Starcevic Starcevic. This is in terms of stylistic one of the most original teams in the "guitar world." Repertoire group are only compositions of its own members, inspired by the rich in his variety of Balkan folklore. Commonly known that the Balkans are multi-region, where the mixing of different cultures, including cultures music lasts for centuries. The creation Trio Balkan Strings This is the multicolor clearly felt. Their compositions combine elements of folklore among others. Serbian, Gypsy, Bulgarian, Moldovan, Macedonian, this musical mosaic enrich the oriental influences. Sami artists assimilated, as e picture, which is for them the source of inspiration Balkan folk music, to manually tkanego carpet, wykwintnych full of ornaments and subtle shades, which as a whole zniewala its beauty and riches, but only become higher and considered view allows niejszy see extract and recognize the richness of its various themes. Trio Balkan Strings is unparalleled guide to the music world, guide, however, not passive, but active and full of invention, which own language not only describes but these. interprets, and even create your own, completely new story. Such a guide would lose job in a museum, but on the stage is a real treasure.

Cycle: Guitar 2008 -

Wroclaw Guitar Festival  Date: 19:00 Sunday 30 November 2008 

TRIO BALKAN STRINGS

& FRIENDS

   Vater Zoran Starcevic und seine beiden Söhne Nikola und Zeljko aus der Bundesrepublik Jugoslawien lassen ihre flotten Finger über die Griffbretter ihrer akustischen Gitarren flitzen. Alle Stücke sind Kompositionen Zorans, ein Mix aus serbischer, rumänischer und bulgarischer Folklore, Zigeunermusik und orientalischen Einwürfen. Ein Stück mit dem Titel "Seven Grains" ist natürlich im 7/8-Takt, "Eleven Pearls", wie sollte es auch anders sein, in 11/8. Einige Verzierungen und Techniken wurden dabei von Spieltechniken von Instrumenten so verschieden wie Geige und Saxophon geraubt und sind möglicherweise so noch nie vorher auf Gitarren erklungen.

Playasound; deutscher Vertrieb: Sunny Moon Walkin' T:-)M Ausgabe 28 04/2004 FolkWorld CD-Besprechungen

CD Guitare des Balkans -  PlayaSound-France

                                                                     TRIO BALKAN STRINGS
   This Belgrade-based family act operates under an ambitious code of simplicity: Zoran Starcevic and his two sons, Nikola and Zeljko, seem to have made it their project to condense the entire Balkan musical tradition into a repertoire that can be played by six hands on three guitars. All classically trained and all exuding an audible affection for rock, blues, pop, and jazz--particularly the hot jazz of Reinhardt and Grappelli--the Starcevic boys take a microcosmic approach to their original compositions as well. Each track on their two self-released albums (the latest is Water-Mill) is airtight, with a lush and dazzling orchestral quality that belies its instrumentation. If you think you hear a scrap of Greekish melody or a Transylvanianesque trill, you're probably right--countless such ideas get developed like patterns in a silk weave, followed to a satisfying resolution, and then left behind for the next odd rhythm or jaunty whirl.

By Monica Kendrick

CHICAGO READER 2007

review in Rumanian

Interview in Rumanian

Ethno Jazz Festival 2008 Chisinau-Moldova

Wroclaw Guitar Festival 2008