Press Kit

Colleen Bertsch is a violinist, music arranger, and ethnomusicologist specializing in east-central European folk music. Classically trained, her earthy, passionate style is a nod to the rural musicians who have long influenced her aesthetic. Her German-Russian grandfather, Walter Bertsch, played accordion for barn dances on the windswept North Dakota prairie while her uncle, Alwin Bertsch, fell hard for the jazz craze that rocked Bismarck in the 1940s. He later founded the popular Big Al’s Big Band that is still gigging and touring the Dakotas today. Her late English-Norwegian uncle, Cordell Bugbee of Minot, was a sought after trumpeter who toured many summers with Doc Severinsen, former band leader of the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.

Carrying her family’s musical torch into the next generation, Colleen studied violin performance at Concordia College in Moorhead, MN, and music education at the University of Minnesota. In those early years, she served as concert master at Concordia, performed with the Fargo-Moorhead Symphony, participated in a master class with renowned violinist Jorja Fleezanis, and studied violin technique and classical repertoire with Mark Bjork and Lucia May. While in graduate school at the University of Minnesota for ethnomusicology, Colleen lived in Transylvania to focus on her Ph.D. research, interviewing and playing violin side-by-side with string musicians in multiple villages in the central subregion called câmpia. Her most influential câmpia violin teacher, Florin Codoba of Pălatca, is the subject of her current book project. She also studied the history, theory, and performance of Transylvanian folk violin traditions with renowned violinist and music director, Ovidiu Barteș, at the Gheorghe Dima Music Academy, and performed across Romania with the touring folk music and dance ensemble Martișorul from Cluj.

Colleen has received multiple Artist Initiative grants from the Minnesota State Arts Board, and as a member of Orkestar Bez Ime, was awarded the McKnight Fellowship for Performing Musicians and a Minnesota Emerging Composers Award from the American Composers Forum. Her academic work in ethnomusicology has been supported by multiple fellowships including a Fulbright Research Award to Romania, a Hella Mears Graduate Fellowship in European Studies, a Center for Austrian Studies Fellowship, a Graduate Research Partnership Program (GRPP) award for pre-dissertation fieldwork, and the Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship from the University of Minnesota. Her Romanian language studies have been supported by the U.S. State Department and Institutul Cultural Român’s Brașov Scholarship. Colleen has presented original research papers at international conferences including the Society for Ethnomusicology (Ottowa, Denver, New Orleans), the Meeting of Austrian Centers, and at the Romani Studies symposium jointly organized by the Initiative for Romani Music, Center for Traditional Music and Dance, and Voice of Roma at New York University.

In 2017, Colleen arranged Romanian colinde (carols) that were performed and recorded by the Ciprian Porumbescu Choir of Minnesota and Orkestar Bez Ime. The CD, Ca Noi Nu Colinda Nime’ : Romanian Christmas Carols, made its way to Romaia, including to the (former) U.S. Ambassador to Romania, Hans Klemm. In December 2018, OBI performed Colleen’s arrangement of “Steaua Sus Răsare” at O’Shaughnessy Auditorium as guest artists for Katie McMahon’s popular Celtic Christmas Concert in Minneapolis. The following year, OBI performed three of Colleen’s Romanian colinde arrangements at Kolyada, a sold-out holiday show based on Black Sea traditions, co-produced by OBI and Mila Vocal Ensemble at The Cedar Cultural Center.

Colleen weaves her Transylvanian folk fiddle stylings into her performances with Orkestar Bez Ime, a Minneapolis-based Balkan party band that she co-founded in 2002 with vocalist Natalie Nowytski and clarinetist Katrina Mundinger, Szászka (Transylvanian) String Band, and her newest project, Soul Trouvère, a violin and accordion duo with her husband Juan Christian Küffner, frontman of the renowned New Orleans band Zydepunks. She also proudly claims co-founder status of the Twin Cities’ Ukrainian Village Band with drummer Stefan Iwaskewycz. Colleen has had the pleasure of backing fantastic acts including Semisonic, The Moody Blues, Jeremy Messersmith, Davis Bain, and substituting for The Laurels String Quartet. Her other favorite collaborators include Joe Chvala and the Flying Foot Forum, Ethnic Dance Theatre, Minnesota History Theatre, Mila Vocal Ensemble, guitarist Maja Radovanlija, accordionist Eric Ray, bassist Liz Draper, and the Minnesota Orchestra for their Young People’s Concert Series.

“A fabulous violinst!”
Tanchaz Talk Podcast
Colleen Bertsch (by Kalman “Öcsi” Magyar)

“The way that Colleen was able to feel how these instruments would match with the spirit of the song was just amazing.”  – Cleo Cabuz
PRX Radio’s Twin Cities Weekend/KBEM Radio’s Minnesota Music Profiles
Romanian Carolers Meet American Ethnic Orchestra (by Phil Nusbaum)

“Full bodied, flavorfull music from the Black Sea region.”
Minnesota Public Radio’s Regional Spotlight
Regional Spotlight: Orkestar Bez Ime (by Steve Staruch)

“Orkestar Bez Ime’s (OBI) players perfected their folk music techniques the old fashioned way: traveling to Eastern Europe, going from village to village, and studying under the best folk musicians in the region . . . Thorough, authentic training pays off nicely for the group’s audience: attending an OBI concert is truly like entering a different world . . . It is not to be missed.”
–Lavender Magazine’s 2007 PRIDE issue