Event

Elitsa Stoyneva and the Maine Women's Balkan Choir

Elitsa Stoyneva is a seven-time gold medalist in folk singing from Bulgaria. She has been studying Bulgarian folk singing since the age of 5, and has performed at national and international competitions and concerts throughout Bulgaria as well as in Egypt, Switzerland, Greece, Canada and the USA. She has spent several summers in Bar Harbor, Maine, and is currently pursuing a second Master's degree in Business at UMaine.

The Maine Women's Balkan Choir specializes in traditional Balkan singing. A rich inheritance that has been handed down from mothers to daughters for centuries, these songs hauntingly express the seasons of a woman's life in the village. The traditional open-throated singing style, the unusually close quarter tone harmonies, modal melodies, and complex mixed meter rhythms sometimes bewilder Western ears. But the songs are full of heart and directness and the messages that they express are universal.