oliverbaldwin

I was born, somewhat previously, into what is probably the longest running Balkan music group made up of non Eastern Europeans in the UK. The Dunav Balkan Group was founded roughly 43 years ago and my Father was one of the founder members. I spent a fair bit of my childhood going to Dunav gigs and rehearsals as well as British Bulgarian Friendship Society functions. I do remember my Father teaching me to tap out a Ruchinitsa rhythm. (7/8 counted 1,2-1,2-1,2,3 with the strong beats on the 1’s ) I first started on guitar at about 13 and took that up to grade8 classical although I really had no particular interest in classical music then or now.In 1986 I applied for and was awarded a Scholarship in Ethnomusicology by the Centre for Bulgarian studies in Sofia. I had just started to play the Tambura (Bulgarian derivative of the Greek Bouzouki) and also Tambouritsa (Yugoslavian flatback mandolin) and so I spent 1 month in a town called Blagoevgrad learning to play the Pirin style of Tambura. I was slightly affronted to be put in a class of 12-year-old kids but I soon got over this when I realised how good they were.I started playing Double Bass in Dunav about 15 years ago when a vacancy occurred. From this I met a Dutch aspiring Cimbalom player called Chris van Damm and through him Joe Townsend ( fiddle player) who was co organising fiddle workshops at the Wigmore Hall. I played as a tutor on these workshops for two summers and on the last night of the second one I met up with most of the members of Mukka.I have been playing Double Bass and Electric Bass with Mukka for almost 7 years. Through Mukka I met Simon Palmer form the Cosmic Sausages who was looking to form a boogie woogie/jazz trio which evolved into Professor Nohair and the Wiglifters. I used to do 8 hour rehearsals with Simon at the beginning having played no Jazz before. The main reasons I got the job were enthusiasm, time and a van. I played with the wigs for almost 6 years doing 4 annual 3-week trips to Chamonix to play in bars. In that time I learnt to ski pretty well. I gave up the wigs when my commitment to She Koyokh Klezma ensemble whom I met jamming at a festival in central France became too time consuming.I now Play with She Koyokh, Mukka and most recently the Zig Duo ( trio with me in it) which consists of Gundula Gruen and Zivorad Nikolic. (3rd year accordion student at The Royal Academy) I'm now dividing my time (romantic inerest) between London and the Scottish Borders. I've been performing in Scotland with the Beggar Girls and soon with WaterheadsMost recently I have been learning the accordion and was lucky enough to get a gig playing in a shopping centre in Dubai for 10 days. I have included a few video clips of this. Unfortunately the cameraperson was Mukka’s singer, Dana, who thought that dancing and singing whilst filming might be an interesting effect