Gypsy Night (Amala Band - 30 years)

For three decades Amala have been enriching the Slovene and wider European cultural space with a distinctive musical voice based on a blend of the Romani musical tradition, jazz, world music and symphonic sounds. The group’s artistic leader is the composer, bassist and multi-instrumentalist Imer Traja Brizani. A pioneer of contemporary Romani music with a master’s degree in musicology, Brizani creates works that combine traditional Romani motifs with aleatory, improvised and orchestral elements. His music, which has won multiple awards at international festivals and is characterised by its sincerity, creates a unique sound that preserves the identity of the individual layers and builds bridges between cultures. Brizani is also the author of the first Slovene Romani musical, The Glass Apple, and the recipient of a state medal (2017) for his contribution to the promotion of Romani culture.

For this 30^th anniversary celebration, the members of Amala are joined by guest jazz musicians from the Roma community and beyond, including Alenka Godec, Oto Pestner, Lana Trotovšek, Bernardo Brizani, Bajsa Arifovska, Ilija Ampevski, Čerim Haliti, and members of the RTV Slovenia Big Band and RTV Slovenia Symphony Orchestra. The programme consists of original music and orchestrations in a context of “Romani symphonic ethno jazz”, a genre that is based on folk tradition and enhances it with technical and formal complexity. The concert is led by conductor, arranger and composer Patrik Greblo, a graduate of the prestigious Berklee College of music in Boston, who trained as a conductor with George Monseur and George Pehlivanian and is active in the fields of popular music, stage music and instrumental ensembles.