Band Bios

Oliver Sutton – alto sax, vocals, fearless leader
After many years travelling the world in a musical sense, one dark and stormy night Oliver happened to be tuned into a university radio station when a trubachi tune came on. Within weeks he had booked a flight to Serbia to attend the famous Guca festival. The rest is history. Actually that part is history too but suffice to say, he started Vancouver’s first Balkan Brass band and plays little else now!

Kristina Zalite – tapan/goc, vocals
Kristina woke up one summer morning to the sounds of pigs squealing and trumpets blaring. As she made her way outside, she was handed a turksa kafa and a glass of rakija. She could see a crockpot of cabbage on an open fire, and, in the distance, tomatoes growing on the vine. Her journey began in Guca but has also taken her to Berovo, Skopje, Galicnik, Belgrade, and Vranje. After band-hours, Kristina designs landscapes in a small landscape architecture office with Slivovica’s accordionist, Alyssa. Kristina travels extensively in search for new music festivals and delicious food.

Alyssa Semczyszyn – accordion, vocals
Alyssa Semczyszyn first picked up a wheezy old accordion after a winter Tom Waits bender. A spring of wandering around the backyard playing the saddest notes possible convinced her to take lessons from the little old German lady down the street. After several half-hearted years of playing polkas and corny Italian love songs, she realized that what she loved best were the weird sounding accidentals, and all the minor scales. Hence the love for Roma music. When Kristina asked if she was interested in playing in their newly formed gypsy style music band, it seemed like a perfect fit. Not only did it involve weird scales and accidentals, but the band was named after some kind of booze, and they wore costumes. When not squeezing, Alyssa’s favourite activities include lying and trying in small ways to make the world a better place.

Michael Louw – darabuka, snare, vocals
Michael also still needs to write a bio. If you write one for him, slip it in his tux pocket while he is out on the floor wandering around smashing that snare to pieces!

Deirdra Kiai – sousaphone, vocals, tech support
Deirdra was once a Suzuki piano virtuoso, but shortly before her twelfth birthday, the siren call of big, shiny brass convinced her to give it all up and spend the remainder of her musical career making fart noises instead. After a few stints playing the tuba in high school symphonic bands of varying degrees of repute, and some brief dabbling in rock music with friends before finally having to admit that guitars aren’t nearly as much fun to play, she happened across an ad on Craigslist seeking the services of a tubist for an up and coming Balkan brass band. The rest, as they say, is history. When not gallivanting around town with her trusty beat-up sousaphone and dangerously stylish mouthpiece moustache, Deirdra enjoys designing artsy video games and quietly plotting to take over the world.

Maren Lisac – trumpet, vocals
Maren’s way too cool for bio-writing.

Susan Gerofsky – baritone, accordion, vocals
The effect of Susan Gerofsky’s early musical experiences is that she hears music with solfeggio, piano fingering and chords already attached. She took up the piano accordion after hearing someone play corny Italian songs on it with great panache, and realized that was just what she wanted to do. The Morris dancing thing started on a ferry to France at age 13. It has brought her no end of joy, and the friendship of wonderful fellow Morris people like Oliver S. There is photographic evidence (on an album cover) of the thunderstormy afternoon in 1976 when she was locked in a trailer at Mariposa with a troupe of Macedonian singers – after that, there was nothing for it but Balkan music. Along with playing several instruments in several bands, Susan loves math, languages, poetry, bicycling and the movies, and of course her terrific family. She is a prof in mathematics education at UBC. Her hobby: laundry. (No, really!)

Mythical Man – baritone, vocals
Mythical Man, Mythical Man, does whatever a mythical can. Also, he still needs to write a bio..

Sky Lambourne – cornet, flugelhorn

The band’s latest and youngest addition. Already immersed in Balkan music, we never needed to explain the scales and rhythms to Sky. Actually, he corrected us on a few points!

Cory Sweet – baritone, clarinet
Cory hasn’t written a bio yet, probably because he’s really really tall.

Geoffrey Colpitts – trumpet, accordion
Geoffrey really hasn’t got anything interesting to say.  All of his past has been dull and uneventful.  He has never done anything of note and does not intend to.  He is content, or perhaps not content, with being a person who goes down in history.  His life so far is less interesting than an unwritten bio, which begs the question of why this is even here?  The answer is simple – because there was nothing better to do. On the other hand, when people see Geoff, they get this hazy image of a garden in black and white….

Kevin Rowe – accordion

Kevin wont write a bio until he has had a bottle of wine. Buy him a glass of wine, would you?