Mountain Tale

After the first CD - Fly, Fly My Sadness - with THE BULGARIAN VOICESANGELITE, HUUN-HUUR-TU, SERGEJ STAROSTIN was released in 1996, the complete MOSCOW ART TRIO directed by Mikhail Alperin joined the project. The main plot of this unique project with 28 artists is to cross the borders of traditional and contemparary music.
´It is the strangeness that puts you in the ban, it is the strangeness of the voices, the sounds, the message. You don´t know the meaning of the words, but you listened and will be fascinated. ´ (Die Zeit 16.8.1996)
MISHA ALPERIN "There is something mystical about the number "3". That is probably why there are so many trios in the world of music. When I first produced the MOSCOW ART TRIO in 1990 I was thinking about 3 different roles in the ensemble as in theatre. Each member has his own world of expression but in the end everything comes together like a musical organism with spirit, body and mind. To make it even stronger I chose a concept with 3 musicians of 3 different backgrounds: classical, folk and jazz.
Almost the same idea of the magical number "3" applies with the Tuvan-Bulgarian-Russian project. Each culture has its own rich musical tradition: strong emotions and the spiritual beauty of the songs made me dream of combining them without any modernizations. Later in the development of the project I allowed myself to make more risky experiments by adding contemporary elements. I wrote some compositions, where you will not find traditional folk elements - they are written in the style of folk music of my subjective opinion - new Skomorohi.
Together with Sergey Starostin I wrote some scat - words without meaning - for this music, not in the jazz but in folk style. Then this became a Norwegian-Russian folk rap, an extra tune which we perform with a folk text and Nordic intonations sung by Bulgarians and Russians together. (Norwegian folk music was an additional strong inspiration for me when I wrote arrangements of compositions by the Norwegian Tetlef Kviftes.)
You will never find a border between day and night but we know the difference between both. In my experience this is the same with folk music: There are no borders between the different traditions and cultures but they exist in themselves and have their individual tones and colours."
In November of 1997 the project toured in America with at least 14 concerts. Nearly every concert was sold out. Even other artits felt appreciated to the project. In the concerts you found Ry Cooder, Micky Hartt, the whole Zappa family and Stevie Wonder.
The crossing of musical borders - both traditional and contemporary - is an essential aspect of this unique 28-musician experiment. Mikhail Alperin leads listeners on a journey of discovery through the similarities and differences of Russian, Bulgarian and Tuvan folklore, culminating in the fusion presented on this CD.