Biography

Produced by Paolo Giulini and Boyko Petkov for their label Notti Ludi and featuring
Marin Marinov (clarinet ,sax ), Ventsislav Radev (drums,percussion),Boyko Petkov (bass,guitar), Ventsislav Grozdanov (accordion ), Petar Yankov (vocals), Greta Yanakieva (Vocals).
A clear and tight acoustic sound, hot Gypsy rhythms, beautiful melodies, virtuoso solos. That’s all we need to recharge emotionally after a hard busy day. Music from the Balkans and from other countries as well – Argentina, Italy, Persia all arranged in the style of the modern Gypsy Balkan music called “chalga”. This genre gave the inspirations and foundations to the repertoire of well known Artists as Goran Bregovich , Gogol Bordello and Emir Kusturica.

The music of Chalga Band has been broadcasted by Radio Popolare, Milano, BBC3 , BNR,Sofia and others in the last eight years. The BBC radio presenter and musicologist Charlie Gillett has presented two songs performed by Sissi Atanassova and Chalga Band in
his radio show Sound of the World. He has included the songs Chaje Shukarije and Binnaz in the compilations with the same name, vol. 2006(Wrasse Records) and vol. 2007(Warner Music UK).

Chalga Band was formed by Boyko Petkov, a music producer, composer and a musician, in 2004 under the influence of Paolo Giulini, an Italian who was in love with the Balkan music. Their idea was to perform chalga music outside of the Balkans. The band consists of excellent musicians - mostly gypsys and talented roma singers. Two perfect kiuchek dancers / belly dancers / provide additional orient flavor to the band’s show as the belly dances are typical for the chalga culture .

The first CD of the band named Ratka Piratka was released in 2005 by Edizioni Isthar, Milano.
Movilo ( My Soul ) is the second album by Chalga Band released in 2012 by Notti Ludi. The title song Movilo was composed originally by Miguel Di Genova ,an Argentinеan, as Los Vino, known from the repertoire of his electro tango band Otros Aires.Under the arrangement by Petkov the song became a successful Balkan Gypsy Tango experiment.
Special guests of the project are Tonino Carotone /Spain/ who sings the Celentano song Storia d’Amore, Yalda, a girl from Iran who takes the vocal parts in Yambo Sana and Bir Sana Bir De Bana, and the amazing worldwide known Bulgarian kawal player Nedyalko Nedyalkov.
Other musicians : Emil Petkov - saz, Nikolay Antov -guitar, Emil Ribarov - darbuka .



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