Guided Search: Arts and Culture, Moldovan

With a diverse line-up of professional Philadelphia musicians whose influences range from Sun Ra to Bulgarian brass bands, West Philadelphia Orchestra is a unique live ensemble in today’s auto-tuned musical world. They began playing Romanian ballads, Macedonian folk-dance songs, Bulgarian wedding music, and klezmer in late 2006, and have continued expanding their repertoire of Eastern European music.

Crossroads welcomes back three musical groups to explore the connections between musics of Eastern Europe from the Baltic to the Bosphorus and beyond. Turkish singer and oud player İsmail Hakkı Fencioğlu and innovative klezmer band Shtreiml will perform a mostly Turkish set, highlighting some of the musical and historical relationships between Turkish and Eastern European music, while the West Philadelphia Orchestra, their neighborhood’s own village band, will contribute brass band music from the Balkans.