Singing |
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Radka Varimezova was born in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, into the family of the singer and choral director Tzvetanka Varimezova and the bagpiper Ivan Varimezov. Since childhood, Radka has been genuinely interested in Bulgarian folk music. She began to sing when she was four years old and began to play the Bulgarian gajda (bagpipe) when she was thirteen.
If you've seen the movie, Avatar, you have heard Radka sing. She has also performed with the UCLA Balkan Ensemble and the choirs “Superdevoiche” and “Nevenka.” She was also part of the Middle Eastern Ensemble at UCSB, where she sang in the choir and played the doumbek and frame drum in the orchestra. Radka performs with her family, where she sings with her mother and younger sister Tanya in a trio, and plays the bagpipe and doumbek. Currently, Radka is pursuing a degree in dentistry at UCSF. |
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Tanya Varimezova was born into a family of musicians, Tzvetanka and Ivan Varimezovi, in Pazardzhik, Bulgaria. From an early age, she expressed interest in Bulgarian folk music. She took piano lessons starting at age seven, as well as was accepted into the National Radio Children’s Choir directed by Hristo Nedyalkov at age nine. Tanya currently performs with The Varimezov Family Band, singing in a trio with her mother and older sister, Radka, and playing the tapan and doumbek. Since 2005, Tanya has been a part of The UCLA Balkan Ensemble. She has taken part in three summer tours of the ensemble to Bulgaria in 2005, 2008, and 2010. She currently attends UC Berkeley with an intended Molecular and Cell Biology major and Music minor. |
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Instrument Classes - Brass Ensemble |
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Greg Jenkins is a musician and music teacher who lives in Berkeley, CA. He began playing Balkan music on the clarinet at the age of 13 when he attended the Mendocino Balkan Music and Dance Camp for the first time in 1995. He went on to lead the first ever Kids' Band at Mendocino in 2001 and became a regular fixture on the staff there, leading a class with kids from the 1-21 that has played for dancers every year since.
Greg can be seen regularly in the San Francisco Bay Area with Agapi Mou, a primarily Greek folk dance band, and MWE, a reed and percussion ensemble that plays unamplified. He is a veteran of Bay Area bands like The Brash Punks, Deli Kanlı, Kaladrio, and he was a founding member of Brass Menažeri. He is also the Balkan Brass Band instructor at Zambaleta, a world music school in the Mission District of San Francisco. This class has performed gigs as Fanfare Zambaleta throughout the Bay Area. |
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| Instrument Classes - Balkan Ensemble |
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Bill Cope has taught at the Balkan Music and Dance workshops since the early 80s, and is a multi-instrumentalist who has performed in concerts and bands on more than 50 instruments (it's not as hard as it sounds, honestly, but it's still pretty cool). His goal is to grow that number by one instrument for each year he is alive. He began playing Balkan music in 1975 and has always found a magical presence in the co-evolutionary nature of village dance and music in their traditional (and not-so-traditional) settings.
Bill will be co-teaching with Amberly Rosen -- she will work with the melody players and he with the accompaniment players, to be combined at the end. |
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