Sunday, December 13, 2020

Last Stop Southern Serbia: Vranja

 Good Morning to Vranja !

Vranja is a town in Southern Serbia with a high Romany population. In Yugoslav times, folk ensembles repertoire included dance suites, which they called ‘Vranjansky Čoček’. These were inspired by Romany music and dance and are fantastic to both listen, and of course, dance to. Enjoy!

Sadly I have to say, that this type of Romany music was and is neither created and often not performed by Romany musicians. Nevertheless, it is enjoyable. So I hope you will also enjoy my arrangement of another Vranjansky Čoček, which has even another non-Romany middle man, or rather middle woman meddling with it. This is Tatcho Drom performing:

Towards the end of our Serbian cyber travel, I would like to teach you another piece of music: Nišava Kori Pani, a Serbian Romani Gypsy song, here as instrumental version. I love the ‘internal’ combination of Serbian music style with Ottoman influences in certain part, see, or rather learn for yourself:


In my own cyber travels on YouTube, I came across this one. Join me in a little time travel in Serbia: watch the piece you learned last time on a music video from 1993. Make sure you stand up to do so, so you can’t fall off your chair laughing…

I feel, I would like to leave Serbia in a more serious mode, by sharing a song full of old history: Vidovdan, translated to 'St Vitus Day'. This song refers to the battle of Kosovo in 1389. Read more here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vidovdan_(song)

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