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Sihasin & Lindy Vision
May 4thAnn Napolitano - Sold Out!
May 6thThe Kipsies
May 9thJason Joshua
May 9thJake Shimabukuro
May 10thThe Kipsies
May 11thJake Shimabukuro
May 11thKiran Ahluwalia
May 12thMariee Siou
May 12thKiran Ahluwalia
May 13thMike Zito
May 14thEtana
May 15thEtana & Kabaka Pyramid
May 16thNew Mexico Heritage Celebration
May 18thThe Sadies
May 30thEliza Gilkyson
May 31stEliza Gilkyson
June 1stChristopher Paul Stelling
June 6thChristopher Paul Stelling
June 7thJesse Dayton
June 8thLara Manzanares
June 13thRev. Peyton's Big Damn Band
June 19thFelix Gato Peralta
June 20thFelix Y Los Gatos
July 17thCarolyn Wonderland
July 23rdLara Manzanares
July 24thCarolyn Wonderland
July 24thWailing Souls
August 15thAndrea Magee's She Rises
August 31stBlack Uhuru
September 12thAlejandro Brittes
September 20thThird World
October 3rdCeú
October 8thIndigenous Heritage Celebration featuring Innastate
October 19thTopHouse
November 21stYuri Yunakov
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Tickets are $20 in advance, $25 day of show (including all service charges). They are also available by phone through Hold My Ticket at 505-886-1251. Ages 21 and over.
Yuri Yunakov hails from Haskovo, a city in Bulgarian Thrace, a region on the borders of Turkey and Greece with large Roma (Gypsy) and Turkish populations. Yunakov's Turkish Roma family reflected the area's strong musical heritage; his great-grandfather, grandfather and three uncles were violinists, and his father was a popular clarinet player. Yunakov displayed musical talent from an early age, learning the kaval (a shepherd's flute), then the davul (a double-headed drum), on which he accompanied his father and older brothers at weddings. In his teens, he accompanied his father on the clarinet. Yunakov also trained as a boxer and won several national titles. In the mid-1970s, after serving in the army, he returned to music and took up the saxophone.
In 1983, Yunakov became a protégé of the famous bandleader Ivan Milev, who taught him the Bulgarian repertoire. The following year, Yunakov made his debut with Milev's group, Mladost, at Stambolovo, the national festival of "wedding music." After that, he spent almost ten years in Trakija, the band led by the popular Ivo Papasov, who comes from a long line of clarinet players and is also of Turkish Roma descent.
Wedding music is an ecstatic and eclectic mix whose components include jazz, rock, Turkish and Indian sounds and Balkan village folk music. The fast-paced popular music, also characterized by virtuosic technique and daring key changes, is played for dancing, not only at weddings but also at celebrations of other key events, such as circumcisions and baptisms. Though Bulgaria's Communist government sponsored the Stambolovo festival, it was ambivalent about Roma music, and both Yunakov and Papasov were imprisoned for playing it.
Despite the repression, Yunakov, as a member of Papasov's band, played for hundreds of celebrations in Bulgaria and toured extensively in Europe and North America. Yunakov has made his home in the U.S. since 1994 and has remained in demand at home and abroad. He has also played at hundreds of weddings and family gatherings in the Bulgarian, Turkish and Macedonian Roma communities in the tri-state area around New York City.