Join us for a fun night of Balkan brass and folkdance music. Bill Cope’s Orkestrar Unbound will open the show and we will proceed to round out the evening with Tano Brock’s Sarma Brass Band as we celebrate Benji Rifati’s birthday!
Saturday, September 16
The Berkeley Balkan Bacchanal Presents
Sarma Brass Band
Orkestar Unbound
The Starry Plough Pub
3101 Shattuck Ave, Berkeley, CA
Show starts at 8 pm, doors open at 7 pm. Tickets: $20 at the door.
Cash or Venmo accepted. All ages before 10 pm. 21+ after 10 pm when kitchen closes.
Sarma Brass Band is a balkan brass band that evokes the energetic grooves and soaring melodies of the Balkan Roma. The band draws upon founder/leader Tano Brock’s upbringing in the Balkan music scene in Northern California, as well as his travels and studies throughout the Balkans. They play original material as well as a variety of traditional music from Macedonia, Serbia, Greece, and Albania. Featuring musicians from the US, Serbia, Turkey, and Palestine, Sarma Brass Band represents an international love of Balkan Brass. Their full and epic sound, consisting of groovy melodies and chest-thumping rhythms will entice even the most shy listener to dance.
Tano Brock, saxophone; Benji Rifati, trumpet; Sean Tergis, percussion; Marco Peris, percussion; Peter Bonos, euphonium; Evan Stuart, sousaphone; Aya Safiya, voice.
Opening the show at 8 pm, Orkestar Unbound features multi-instrumentalist bandleader Bill Cope, Asaf Ophir on woodwinds, vocalist Emily Saletan and Dan Auvil on drums.
Bill Cope is a multi-instrumentalist who does not focus on just one instrument but performs on over 60 in many diverse concert settings. Bill began playing Balkan music in the mid-1970s after falling in love with the music while part of a dance group based in San Jose, California. He began his teaching career giving lessons on tambura at the Mendocino Balkan Music & Dance workshops in 1982, and to date he has taught at many workshops around the country.
Bill has been the music director of San Francisco-based WestWind International Folk Ensemble, AMAN International Dance Ensemble, Mendocino Folklore Camp, and the San Francisco Kolo Festival. He was the Administrative Director of the East European Folklife Center in the early 90s. He is currently the director of the San Francisco Kolo Festival and manages his own house concert venue Cope-a-Cabana.
Emily Saletan was raised by folk dancing parents in the Boston area and the Pacific Northwest and is thrilled to be joining the dance community in California. They are now an undergraduate at Stanford University, where they also teach an introductory folk dance course and partner with Richard to teach social dance. Favorite credits in the Bay Area include performing with contemporary circus company Circa and recording vocals for the premiere of “with” at ODC Dance.
It was love at first sight 30 years ago when Dan Auvil saw the large, two-headed drum called the tupan. He is a masterful percussionist on a variety of Balkan and Middle Eastern hand drums. Dan was a founding member of Édessa and Ziyiá (www.ziyia.com) and has toured and taught nationally and internationally.
Berkeley Balkan Bacchanal 