Bands

Orkestar Bez Ime [or-KESS-tar behz EE-meh], meaning “orchestra without a name” in Bulgarian, was formed in 2002 to recreate the sounds of the village with a presentation as festive as the music itself. Focusing on Eastern Europe and music of the Rom (“Gypsy”) people, OBI’s repertoire reaches from Albania to Ukraine, with plenty of stops in between. Orkestar Bez Ime is a winner of the 2011-2012 McKnight Artist Fellowships for Performing Musicians administered by MacPhail Center for Music and a recipient of a 2012 Minnesota Emerging Composers Award from the American Composers Forum.

Orkestar Bez Ime is Colleen Bertsch (violin, vocals), Scott Keever (guitar, tambura), Matt Miller (bass, vocals), Katrina Mundinger (clarinet, vocals), Natalie Nowytski (lead vocals, percussion), and Eric Ray (accordion, vocals).

Music in Yiddish, Romanian, Ukrainian, Spanish, Boyash, Sorbian, Hungarian, Russian, & English. Soul Trouvère is a Minneapolis duo performing original and folk music from the Straits of Magellan to the Caspian Sea. A founding member of the New Orleans band the Zydepunks, Juan Küffner rocks the accordion and sings in multiple languages. Colleen Bertsch is a violinist who studied and performed music in the Transylvanian countryside, and is a co-founder of the Minneapolis Balkan party band Orkestar Bez Ime.

Soul Trouvère is husband and wife team Colleen Bertsch (violin, vocals) and Juan Christian Küffner (accordion, vocals, kazoo), often joined by guests Mikkel Beckmen (washboard, percussion) and Liz Draper (bass).

Szászka was formed in 1996 to perform traditional Transylvanian (Hungarian-Romanian-Romani) village dance music for events and workshops in the United States. Szászka has been performing regularly at táncház events in Minneapolis and Chicago, and at festivals and concerts in the Midwest. The group has studied with Hungarian and Transylvanian musicians in Hungary, Romania, and the United States.

Szászka is Colleen Bertsch (violin), Sara Bruins (bass, violin), Doug Code (contra, cobza), and Anastasia Verdoljak (violin).