Balalaika Fantasie (l-r): Angelina Galashenkova-Reed, Natalia Rezvan Rust, Gregory Carageorge, Laura Jean Cooper, Kirill Chernoff, and David C. Cooper. (credit: Mark Gresham)

From banjo to balalaika, American and Slavic folk music share the stage in AAFFM coffeehouse concert

CONCERT REVIEW:
Fiddler’s Green (Atlanta Area Friends of Folk Music)
December 17, 2022
First Existentialist Church of Atlanta
Atlanta, Georgia – USA

Tom Eure & Amelia Osborne
Selection of original and traditional folk songs and fiddle tunes
Balalaika Fantasie
Selection of Russian, Ukranian, Gypsy, and Jewish folk and classical tunes

Mark Gresham | 23 DEC 2022

The Atlanta Area Friends of Folk Music (AAFFM) presented their December Fiddler’s Green coffeehouse concert this past Saturday at the First Existentialist Church of Atlanta in Candler Park. The program featured two groups: Charlotte, North Carolina folk duo Tom Eure & Amelia Osborne and the Atlanta-based Slavic music group Balalaika Fantasie.

Eure and Osborne played the opening set, mainly performing original songs by Eure, influenced by the fusion of Celtic, Appalachian, and American spiritual styles. The two multi-instrumentalists play fiddles, banjos, mandolins, guitars, and bodhráns. And, of course, they sing.

They opened their set with a medley of three traditional Christmas carols (“Carol of the Bells,” “We Three Kings,” “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen”) followed by three of Eure’s original songs, “Love Came to Us,” “The Wind Will Take You Home,” and “Cold Christmas Night.” Then came “Trawling Trade” by British folk musician and songwriter John Conolly (best known for the song “Fiddler’s Green,” with which the AAFFM coffeehouse is eponymous).

l-r: Amelia Osborne and Tom Eure. (credit: Mark Gresham)

l-r: Amelia Osborne and Tom Eure. (credit: Mark Gresham)

Eure has a reedy voice that’s suitably in line with the style of his original songs. Osborne’s is of a much more liquid character, yet, their two voices combined in two-part vocal harmony rather well. Her mellifluous voice was most notably featured in a familiar English carol, “In the bleak midwinter,” a 1906 setting of Rossetti’s poem by composer Gustav Holst for The English Hymnal. Also worth mentioning is the range of colors Osborne draws from her bodhrán (a kind of handheld frame drum), which gives the part vitality.

They finished the set with four more Eure originals, starting with a fiddle tune called “Galway pony,” then “The Cruel Sea,” “Sailors we’ll be,” and “Check it out, Troy.” “Sailors we’ll be” has been recorded several times, including by Gael Warning when Eure played bass with them for a few years.

“As you may be able to tell,” says Eure, “songwriting is my first love. Everything else is just a way to make them sound the way I hear them.”


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After an intermission, Balalaika Fantasie took the stage for the final set.

The group’s musicians draw inspiration from their life-long passion for Russian folk music and diverse cultural backgrounds. Their repertoire includes Russian, Ukrainian, Gypsy, and Jewish folk music performed on authentic Russian folk instruments. They were Angelina Galashenkova-Reed (small domra), Natalia Rezvan Rust (tenor domra), Gregory Carageorge (contrabass balalaika), Kirill Chernoff (alto balalaika), and David C. Cooper (prima balalaika). Cooper also played a diverse handful of other folk instruments). The instrumental quintet was joined in several numbers by vocalist Laura Jean Cooper, dressed in Slavic folk costume with a sunflower headdress.

Balalaika Fantasie opened with a lively Gypsy folk dance, “Selski Kadril” (“Village Quadrille” – Bulgarian: Селски кадрил).

Balalaika Fantasire. (credit: Mark Gresham)

Balalaika Fantasire. (credit: Mark Gresham)

Next came “Shedrik” (or “Shchedryk” – Ukrainian: Щедрик) is a Ukrainian shchedrivka, or New Year’s song, known in English as “The Little Swallow,” which tells the story of a swallow flying into a home to sing of wealth that will come with the spring. “Shchedryk” was originally sung on the night of New Year’s Eve, which is known as Shchedry Vechir (“Generous Evening” – Ukrainian: Щедрі Вечір). But most westerners don’t know the original, only the adaptation as an English Christmas carol, “Carol of the Bells”, with lyrics by Peter J. Wilhousky (1936), which popularized it in the United States and Canada, and strongly associated the tune with Christmas.

They played more Ukrainian and Russian songs, among them “Nese Galya Vodu” (Ukrainian: Несе Галя воду), “Kamarynskaya” (Russian: Камаринская), and “Solnishka” (“Little Sun” – Russian: Солнышка), as well as some Chastushki (Russian: Частушки), which are short, humorous Russian or Ukrainian folk songs.


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From the Jewish diaspora came “Di grine kuzine” (“The Greenhorn Cousin”), a “disillusionment” song of contested authorship, and the Sephardic “Ocho Kandelikas” (“Eight Little Candles”), which celebrates Hanukkah.

They also had a few classical transcriptions in store as well, including “Sabre Dance” from the ballet Gayane by Armenian composer Aram Khachaturian and the “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy” and “Trepak” from Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker.

Balalaika Fantasie presented an engaging show with variety, vitality, and virtuosity. They are all members of the Atlanta Balalaika Society, and we look forward to hearing both that larger balalaika orchestra and this smaller professional ensemble again soon. 

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About the author:
Mark Gresham is publisher and principal writer of EarRelevant. He began writing as a music journalist over 30 years ago, but has been a composer of music much longer than that. He was the winner of an ASCAP/Deems Taylor Award for music journalism in 2003.

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