The Barcelona Gipsy BalKan Orchestra -BGKO band, with its magnificent vocalist Margherita Abita enthralled the world with their adaptation of the song “More sokol pie”.
She, after joining the band in November 2019, introduced new aromas, fresh energy and a new essence to the international music group. Now the group is striding with enthusiasm towards its 10th anniversary, with their six successful studio albums. Year 2021 brought them back on the stages of Spain, Poland, France, Italy, Serbia, Albania, Croatia, Switzerland, and Turkey, and their list of scheduled concerts for 2022 is growing on.
Last month they published the first of the series of new singles and videos. The Macedonian song, “More sokol pie” in the first week had more than 70,000 views on the band’s YouTube channel, where it reached 140,000 followers and over 75 million views.
This international band with musicians from Spain, Italy, France, Serbia, Greece, and Ukraine produces the finest arrangements, where every instrument has its own place and space. The textures and the timbres are finely mixed in the service of each song, from evoking emotions to frenetic trance rhythm.
BGKO is made by Margherita Abita (vocal, Italy); Fernando Salinas (accordion, Spain); Julien Chanal (guitar); Ivan Kovačević (double bass, Serbia); Stelios Togias (percussion, Greece); Daniel Carbonell (clarinet, Catalonia – Spain) and Olesandr Sora (violin, Ukraine)/Pere Nolasc Turu (violin, Catalonia – Spain).
Meta.mk had the privilege to talk with Ivan Kovačević.
He said that they always choose songs which in some way touch their souls:
“Macedonian music has always been something special, something eternal, and ‘More sokol pie’ is one of those songs. It reaches straight to the heart!“
Inspired by the nature and the power of the unique melody, BGKO united three countries for the production of the video with the powerful interpretation. They say that the music video represents both sides of Skadarsko Jezero (Shkodra) through the eyes of the Macedonian falcon. Even though they were planning to film in North Macedonia during their stay in Ohrid, where they were scheduled to perform before their concert in Shkodër, unfortunately, the concert was cancelled, so they were forced to change the script.
“As strange as it may sound, we never had an official concert in Macedonia. We supposed that we will have 2 concerts in the Macedonian Philharmonics Hall in April 2020, but as you can imagine, they had to be cancelled,“ Ivan told us.
However, they have had a chance to play with one of the Macedonian folk music virtuosos.
“We performed with our great friend and one of our mentors Ferus Mustafov in his motel in Skopje, back in 2015. That “concert” was extraordinary, but nevertheless, we had a great time there!“, Ivan explains.
“The music of Macedonia is Balkan heritage and it is our hope that our way of its understanding can bring a different perspective to this centuries old way of musical expression,” he says for Meta.mk.
