Sezoni

Sezoni is rich and multifaceted musical pageantry, exploring human experience through the voice of Bulgarian folk music and the prism of the changing seasons. The record is a collaboration between Mara Kiek's Mara! Ensemble, a Bulgarian folk band consisting of bouzouki, clarinet, saxophone, double bass, and recorder, and the Martenitsa Choir, an extraordinary group of female vocalists that came to the attention of American audiences through the acclaimed Le Mystere des Voix Bulgares series. Bulgarian poet Stefan Kozuharov wrote the lyrics in the traditional folk style, centering them around a seasonal motif. The piece is given an additional visual dimension by painter Richard Birmingham, who created several expressive works for the CD insert. All of these elements contribute to a sense of aesthetic wholeness that is uncommon in pop and folk music. Each segment of Sezoni flows easily into the next, more like movements of a symphony than a collection of individual songs. The music alternates between vocal pieces, which feature Martinitsa's strikingly beautiful use of dissonance and harmony, and instrumental pieces including solos for clarinet, bouzouki, and recorder. These pieces lend brilliant color to Kozuharov's images of women harvesting corn and picking grapes, of migrating birds, and people living in exile from their homes, "in a strange land, in separation long and lonely." ~ Evan Cater., Rovi