Moscow (Russia) based Russian Gypsy ensemble The Kolpakov Trio is the
first group of the kind to tour North America in the post-socialist
period. The striking style of the The Kolpakov Trio reflects the
training of its members at world known Gypsy Theatre Romen from
Moscow, which arranges traditional music and dance for polished stage
performance.

Aleksander Kolpakov, the group's director, was born in 1943 in the
district of Orienburg in Eastern Russia. He was raised with music
among the Servo group of Roma and began playing the seven-string
guitar as a boy. In the 1960s he moved to Moscow and has since worked
with a number of groups, including the Romen Theatre. He is a
composer
as well as a singer and instrumentalist.

His nephew Vadim Kolpakov mastered the seven-string guitar, the vocal
style and dance tradition of Russian Roma Gypsy music at an early age
and is from the Saratov region of Russia. In 1992 he moved to Moscow
to train with his uncle. He has toured internationally and recorded
with the Kolpakov Trio, and in addition sings, dances and plays the
guitar in his own group Via Romen, which he founded in the United
States.

Tamara Cherepovskaia is a well-known Roma singer, and has toured in
France, Italy, Georgia, Latvia, and America. She is highly in demand
in the contemporary Moscow gypsy scene as a solo singer and dancer,
and has collaborated in several recordings.

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Mikhail Smirnov
Ensemble Barynya
New York
www.barynya.com