Esma Redzepova & Amazing Roma

World Music

This will be the first time that the gypsy queen of Macedonia will be seen at the OMNI Festival, and the last time, too. Her performance at the festival is part of her farewell tour. And we consider this to be an honor. Not only because of her regal appearance, which gives the impression she only recently arrived from what is thought to be the original home of the Romani people: Rajasthan. But most of all because of the diva's phenomenal voice. Musically speaking, Esma Redzepova knows no limitations. We gratful for it. Her musical career, that already over the course of fifty years, has embraced many folkloric traditions and thus keeps alive various genres. She makes no attempt to be purely Balkan - if at one point she sounds completely Greek, a moment later she could just as easily sound totally Turkish, Yiddish or Bulgarian. It's as if she is saying she belongs to no one; she belongs to all of us. It makes it all the more clear how significant the universal power of music is.

Organized by Centre Culturel de Rencontre Abbaye de Neumünster (CCRN).