Balkan Music Night Performers

We have a great line-up of musicians, singers and dancers who will perform at this year's event! Click on the performers name to view more information.

Sophia Bilides

Sophia Bilides performs the Greek Anatolian songs of her Asia Minor heritage: the melodically intricate, rhythmically sensual, and refugee-based musical traditions of the 1930s and 40s, known as Mikrasiatika, Smyrneika, and Rebetika.

Her venues have included the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress (recorded for the National Archives), the Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, the National Council for the Traditional Arts, and concert halls and folk festivals nationwide.

Singing in the Kafana, Sophia will be accompanied by Mal Barsamian on oud and Fabio Pirozzolo on doumbek.

For more information and audio clips, please visit SophiaBilides.com.

Beth Bahia Cohen & Friends

Beth Bahia Cohen is a violinist of Syrian Jewish and Russian Jewish heritage. Inspired at a young age by the sounds she heard at family gatherings, she went on to study with master musicians from Hungary, Greece, Turkey, and the Middle East. She plays the violin, viola, Greek lyras, Turkish bowed tanbur and kabak kemane, Norwegian hardingfele, and Egyptian rababa.

Beth Bahia Cohen and Friends will perform an acoustic set of traditional Turkish folk music in the Kafana.

Band Members:
Beth Bahia Cohen - kabak kemane, violin
Fatih Acun - bağlama, vocals
Ezgi Kurt - vocals
Stefanos Athinaios - percussion

Boston Lykeion Ellinidon Dance Troupe

The BLE Dance Troupe entertains audiences across New England with performances that embrace the diverse regional dance traditions and musical styles of the Hellenic world. The troupe performs year-round at cultural festivals, fundraisers, commemorations, and numerous other events.

For Balkan Music Night, the troupe will perform a set of Greek dances, featuring authentic costumes, in the main Dance Hall.

Conical Cacophony

Conical Cacophony is a Boston-based brass band delivering Balkan-inspired dance jams. Dazzling horns! Blazing beats! With heavy influence from the music of Macedonia, Serbia, and Bulgaria, and a penchant to party, these rabble rousers will light up any stage or street.

Conical Cacophony are: Tyler Hauer, Ryan Vasios, Dean Laabs, Andrew McPherson, Jason Rosenman, Erik James, Owen James, Morgan Liu-Packard, Ariane Morin, Ezra Rudel, and Kathy Olson.

The Dark-Eyed Devojki

The Dark-Eyed Devojki is a new international dance band, led by Niki Yeracaris. Comprised of young up-and-coming international dance musicians, the Devojki play tunes from all over Europe, with a focus on Balkan music. The Devojki are bringing fresh energy, enthusiasm, and their own unique sound to international dance music.
The band will play tonight in the Dance Hall, providing musical accompaniment for the teaching session at the start of the program.

Grachanitsa Serbian Folk Dance and Song Ensemble

Grachanitsa, or Gračanica, is a dance ensemble based in Boston, Massachusetts, dedicated to the performance of traditional folk dance and song from the Balkans. The group is named after the famed Serbian Orthodox monastery in Kosovo, built on the remains of a 13th century church, classified as a UNESCO World Heritage cultural site in 1993.

Grachanitsa celebrated its 25th anniversary last year, and has performed over one hundred and forty times across the North America and Europe since its inception.

Kavala Brass Band

Kavala Brass Band plays traditional music of Northern Greece, with an exceedingly danceable repertoire that reflects the rich brass band practices of the region.
Band Members:
Catherine Foster – clarinet and trumpet
Michael Ginsburg – trumpet
Morgan Clark – accordion
Belle Birchfield – baritone horn
Paul Brown – electric bass
Jerry Kisslinger – daouli
Lefteris Bournias – clarinet

Niva

Niva is an all-woman band that plays and sings Macedonian roots music— alternately lyrical, mournful, ecstatic, and spooky music that used to be the soundtrack of everyday life back in the day.
Band Members:
Bridget Robbins – kaval
Helen Marx - tupan and darabuka
Abi Tenenbaum - tambura and vocals
Kristina Vaskys – tambura and vocals

Pixton Iverson Wilson

Pixton Iverson Wilson has been playing international folk dance music for over thirty years as members of The Pinewoods Band and other groups in the Boston area. As a trio, they have been the annual house band for June Camp (Illinois) and Stockton Folkdance Camp (California).

At BMN 2025 they will present a set of Romanian songs Tom collected during his travels to that country in the 1990s, comprising songs from urban, rural, and modern traditions.
Band Members:
Tom Pixton – accordion, vocal
Ralph Iverson - violin
Brian wilson - clarinet, violin

Pontic Firebird

Pontic Firebird plays traditional Greek dance music from the Black Sea area of Turkey (Pontos). Pontic Firebird came to life in 2011 at the EEFC Balkan Music & Dance Workshops and has been performing for dancers throughout the U.S. ever since.
Band Members:
Beth Bahia Cohen – violin
Jerry Kisslinger – daouli
Adam Good - oud
Paul Brown - upright bass

REVMA

REVMA plays the living art of traditional Greek music (“Dimotika”), for listening and dancing audiences. Mesmerizing pentatonic and polyphonic Epirot mountain laments and celebrations, lyrical melodies and the “springing” sousta and ballos dances of the Aegean, Dodekanese, and Ionian islands, powerful odd-metered Macedonian and Thracian rhythms, and the delicate modal tones of urban Smyrnaika, are all shaped by a history drenched in struggle, war, migration, resilience, and philotimia, and charged with hellenic life-embracing passion and wit.

REVMA has played for numerous international folk festivals, like the Flurry in Saratoga Springs, and has performed frequently at Balkan Music Night. The band appears regularly at Greek cultural events, concerts, and dances throughout the New England region, and beyond!
Band Members:
Sandy Theodorou – accordion, laouto, vocals
Rohan Gregory – violin
Fabio Pirozzolo – percussion, vocals
with:
Mal Barsamian - clarinet

Lubomir Smilenov

Lubo Smilenov will play traditional dance music on the Bulgarian bagpipes (kaba gaida, djura gaida) and gadulka.

Band Members:
Lubomir Smilenov - kaba gaida, djura gaida, gadulka
Matt Moran - percussion

Elitsa Stoyneva-Krastev

Elitsa Stoyneva-Krastev is a Bulgarian award-winning singer. Born in Targovishte, Bulgaria, she grew up immersed in the beauty of Bulgarian traditional music and learned her first songs from her mother, following the centuries-old tradition of passing songs from generation to generation. Elitsa graduated from a professional music school and, since the age of five, has performed at numerous concerts and competitions in Bulgaria and around the world.
After moving to the United States, Elitsa continued to sing, proudly representing Bulgaria with passion and heart. She has appeared in performance venues internationally as a guest artist, and lectures frequently at universities and conferences on Bulgarian folklore and traditional music. She believes in the power of music as a unique way of connecting people.
At Balkan Night, Elitsa will be joined by Anne Stancioff Tatgenhorst, Helena Tatgenhorst, Erica Weiss, and Sarah Hipkens in the Kafana to bring us the magic of Bulgarian traditional a cappella music.

members of the Yale Slavic Chorus

Founded in 1969, the Yale Slavic Chorus was the first women’s organization at Yale College. Now they are an all-gender group singing SSA arrangements of traditional music from Eastern Europe, Georgia, and the Balkans.

At this year’s Balkan Music Night, members of the Yale Slavic Chorus perform a special set of their favorite small group songs, including classics like Shto Mi E Milo as well as newer additions to the repertoire.

Chorus members for this concert include Jordan Davidson, Lee Johns, and Abi Tenenbaum.