I was born in England in the middle of last century, but had a musical education in Lviv in Ukraine, where we lived for a couple of years, as my mother is Ukranian. We moved to London in the early 60’s and continued to be involved in Ukranian folk culture. In the 70’s I started to play accordion for The Balalaika Dance Group and also for the Society for International Folk Dance. In the 80’s I formed a professional group - Troika - which performed the folk music of East Europe. I became interested in many types of East European folk music especially Romanian, and was awarded a British Council grant to visit Romania in 1988. In the 90’s I teamed up with John Holden, one of the few virtuoso Balalaika players in the west and we played a variety of venues including a residency at the Royal Savoy in Lausanne. I became involved more and more with jewish ’klezmer’ music principally through Merlin Shepherd who was playing with Troika around 1990 and I was awarded a grant by The Jewish Music Institute to form a community band in Exeter called CITY STREETS to perform the music of East European Jews in Devon. in 2001 I formed Piaffinitee which performed the chansons of Edith Piaf venues all over UK. Now under the name of Affinitee we present the best of French chansons and accordion musette music.
Made Easy
for: Accordion
Music score, online audio
Item no.: 675976