>> From the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. [ Silence ] >> Hello everyone. My name is Betsy Peterson. I'm the Director of the American Folk Life Center here at the Library of Congress. And on behalf of the entire staff of the center I want to welcome you today to the latest concert in our Homegrown The Music of America Concert Series. So, please welcome and I hope you enjoy yourselves today. The Homegrown Series that we put on here at the Library is a series that we've been doing for quite a while and it is one that we do in collaboration with state folk arts coordinators around the United States and other cultural specialists who help us identify the very best traditional musicians, artists and dancers to bring here to share with you all here in Washington, D.C. We also in producing these concerts work with partners in the D.C. area to present other concerts in conjunction with this one. And for today we are working partnership with the Millennium Stage at the Kennedy Center. Today's performance as with all of the performances in this concert series are recorded for eventual webcast so you all can hear it again if you wish and so future generations can also hear it and learn from it. So, as a reminder if you haven't yet turned off your cell phone please do so now or you will forever be memorialized on our website. Today we have a very special concert featuring a group called Harmonia; a group that performs music from what they call the heart of Europe, the region between the Danube and the Carpathians. So, we're talking about Hungarian, Slovak, Romanian, Ukrainian, Croatian and Romani music plus a few other related traditions no doubt thrown in. Usually we feature groups that perform musical traditions from one ethnic group, but this group I think is very uniquely and very much American in the sense that they perform music from a range of different cultural groups that you probably wouldn't hear if you went to those countries in the old world, but is part of what makes America America. They are good at talking about what they do as well as performing good artists. And so I'm going to let them tell you a little bit more about what they do as they perform. So, please give a warm welcome to Harmonia. [ Applause ] [ Moving around ] [ Music ] [ Moving around ] [ Music ] [ Tapping sounds ] [ Music ] [ Tapping sounds ] [ Music ] [ Applause ] [ Music ] [ Playing flute ] >> Alright. [ Music ] [ Playing flute ] [ Music ] [ Applause ] >> Thank you. [ Applause ] >> Thanks very much ladies and gentlemen. It's a pleasure to be here at the Library of Congress. The music that you just heard was music from Western Ukraine from the Carpathian Mountains. We started with a piece called [inaudible] and followed with some other dance pieces from the repertoire of the kind of music called criesta muzica (phonetic) which really means trio music because typically the bands in that area would have a small cimbalom, which is kind of the smaller version of the cymbal on which you see here. Various sorts of folk flutes. The particular flute you heard is called Talinka [assumed spelling] that has no finger holes and they have a violin and they have a drummer. So, you can decide which of the three you have counting in the criesta muzica, but it is that good old mountain music and it is the music of really the home region of two of our members Mr. Anthony Kakifka [assumed spelling] and Alexander Fedoriouk who are both from Western Ukraine. As was mentioned earlier we're an ethically mixed band. You know, we're from Ohio now. So, they're American born as am I, so that's why there's no accent unless you consider a Cleveland accent an accent. You know Stephen is from Pittsburgh and he's almost one of us now in Cleveland. But, our other members are from Slovakia and from two different ethnic groups called Carpatho-Rusyn and Slovak. We have Ukrainians. I'm mixed; I'm Hungarian and Croatian in terms of background which back home, back home meaning kind of in towns like Cleveland and Youngstown in Pittsburgh and Chicago. That's not an unusual thing although we intermarry we stick to people who are kind of like us very frequently. We might have thought it back in Europe, but we found it out within a generation here. Who knows what happens in another couple generations. Anyway I'd like to share some more music with you and ask our singer Ms. Beata Begeniova to come to the stage. She is actually from Eastern Slovakia. She's a Carpathian-Rusyn and we're going to do a couple of songs and a dance that we typically do at weddings, but she'll tell you about it. >> Good afternoon everyone. So, thank you for coming and the next song is going to be from Eastern Slovakia as Walter mentioned where I'm originally from. And it's a special song. It's a wedding song. It's particularly sang at the wedding when bride and groom are asking permission to get married. They kneel on embroidered towels at the bride's parents house and they ask for permission. And if they get it they can go ahead to church and get married. And I'm going to-- this song is in Carpatho-Rusyn language and I'm going to translate the word to you because I don't know how many of you speak Carpatho-Rusyn here. So, excuse me. So, my dear mother and father I'm leaving the keys from your house on a wooden chest because I'm marrying a guy and I'm leaving the house. And every night when you're going to have a dinner there's going to be an empty chair, an empty plate and I won't be here. But please do remember I will always, always love you. [ Music ] [ Singing ] [ Music ] [ Singing ] [ Music ] [ Music ] [ Singing ] [ Music ] [ Music ] >> This next song, some of you might know the melody already. This is the wedding song, the circle dance or the money dance which is performed at midnight of the wedding. Have you heard about something like that? You probably have. So, people are lining up, everyone who is in the hall is lining up to dance with the bride. So, they place the money. They have something to drink so that they can start their life together. And if you have 200 people in the hall, everyone is there, hear this, hop. [ Music ] [ Singing ] >> Alright, hop. [ Music ] [ Singing ] [ Music ] [ Singing ] [ Music ] [ Singing ] [ Music ] [ Applause ] >> Thank you. [ Applause ] >> Ms. Beata Begeniova. [ Applause ] >> We're going to this, switch gears a little bit and play you some tunes. Well, I would say some tunes from Romania but certainly some Romanian tunes. The first one is [inaudible] It's a tune shared by both Ukrainians and Romanians featuring Mr. Andrew [inaudible] playing the Nai, the pan-flute and the next two pieces which are of course featuring the cimbalom. That's this thing in the middle with the 125 strings and hammers and violin, are a couple of tunes from Southern Romanian, a couple of [inaudible] tunes. So, we'll see you in a few. [ Music ] [ Silence ] [ Music ] [ Applause ] >> Mr. Stephen Greenman, Mr. Alexander Fedoriouk on cimbalom. [ Applause ] >> [inaudible comments] [ Applause ] >> Well, those of us who were like me, a third generation American grew up hearing tales from our grandparents of what life was like in rural Eastern Europe. You know we heard about people taking the cows up to the pasture in the mountains in the late spring. And one of the things that we would hear about would be the songs. People would say, oh yea, oh you know they'd be working hay or harvesting and they would sing. The shepherds would play flutes and I mean it has sort of a very kind of Versailles or versigh rather sound from the 18th century. To us it sounded exotic and we wondered about it. But that stuff pretty much departed with our grandparents. The upheavals in Eastern Europe and the changes that took place meant that suddenly a lot of musicians and singers who not only knew how to play music professionally, but intimately knew about these rural traditions were suddenly able to come to the United States and perform them here. And that's what does happen. I mean in the United States the songs that you are about to hear in this little set, these are not the sorts of things that people are out in their yards in suburban Seven Hills Ohio raking the leaves and singing. But at least we remember them and at least we have people who can sing them and hopefully their children and our children will learn them and it will be able to be passed on now. So, we're going to present some songs from Central and Eastern Slovakia. First, from Central Slovakia a song called Horo Horo, which is a mother calling to the hills oh hills, oh hills where is my son Yanik. Yanik sort of means Johnny and he says-- and she says Johnny why won't you come home? And he says, I would come home if I could but my head hurts because they've beaten me with axes. Following that we'll bring back the [inaudible] who will sing one of those harvest songs. It is sung while the girls would rake hay in the Eastern Slovakia and it just talks about how beautifully covered are the hillsides and finally ends saying now it's time for us to finish our work and go and have a party and then a bit of party music. [ Playing flute ] [ Singing ] [ Playing flute ] [ Singing ] [ Music ] [ Playing flute ] [ Applause ] [ Singing ] [ Music ] [ Singing ] [ Music ] [ Singing ] [ Applause ] >> The next couple songs that we're going to do are some songs that are very dear to my heart. [ Inaudible comments ] And I will guarantee you if you were to go, let's see tomorrow is Friday. If you were to go to [inaudible] in Pittsburgh or certainly in [inaudible] Cleveland, Detroit and places like that these very songs have been sung, because-- [ Inaudible comments ] And I'll sing and dance with you until the dawn. [ Inaudible comments ] [ Music ] [ Singing ] [ Music ] [ Singing ] [ Music ] [ Singing ] [ Music ] [ Singing ] [ Music ] [ Singing ] [ Music ] [ Applause ] [ Singing ] Thank you so much. Thank you so much. [ Applause ] >> The next pieces we're going to play are pieces that are on the repertoire of the-- [ Inaudible comments ] [ Applause ] [ Music ] [ Applause ] [ Inaudible comments ] [ Applause ] [ Inaudible comments ] [ Applause ] [ Inaudible comments ] >> We would also like to thank the Kennedy Center who also cooperated in making this concert possible and taking care of our transportation. [ Inaudible comments ] [ Applause ] [ Music ] [ Singing ] [ Music ] [ Singing ] [ Music ] [ Singing ] [ Music ] [ Applause ] >> Once again-- [ Inaudible comments ] >> This has been a presentation of the Library of Congress.