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Balkan-Express plays groovy, danceable melodies from southeastern Europe with an oriental touch.

Music for dancing from Southeast Europe

Take the most beautiful traditional melodies from Southeastern Europe and make your own danceable arrangements - that is the recipe of Balkan-Express. Equipped with electric guitar, electric bass, the Andalusian cajón as drums and various wind instruments, the group plays folk, rock, jazz, soul or Latin. The group writes the lyrics themselves.

Versatile repertoire

Originally the band consisted of Western European, Turkish and African musicians who were dedicated to pure folk music. With every change Balkan-Express has developed and finally found its own style. The themes of the pieces, the singing, the partly odd rhythms and the melody leading by wind instruments, mainly saxophone and clarinets, remain from the south-eastern European folk music.

The repertoire of Balkan-Express includes pieces from many countries: Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia, Albania, Moldova, Macedonia, Greece, Turkey, Ukraine, Poland and Georgia. In addition, there are pieces from the Eastern European Yiddish Klezmer tradition. The musicians of Balkan-Express offer a musical journey through areas that are known to most people mainly as hot spots from the news.

The musical structure of the pieces is characterized by the traditional basic structure of the themes. The band skilfully breaks up this structure and allows various other styles to flow in: Rock, Swing, Jazz, but also Reggae or Tango.

The group performs at weddings and birthdays, at street festivals and political events, in museums and churches. Balkan-Express plays as dance music, as table music for dinner or concertante in the traditional sense.

The musicians

Reto Küng: Soprano saxophone, clarinet and bass clarinet, recorder, back vocals, percussion. He also feels comfortable in classical, jazz and Indian music. His ear is trained for beautiful melodies that appeal to the heart. He arranges most of the Balkan-Express songs and writes lyrics in English.

Raymond Bohler: Drums, Cajón, loves music that is played groovy and cool. Especially playing drums with a band is the salt in the soup of life for him.

Andreas Lienhard: Electric bass, bassoon, back vocals, is a multi-instrumentalist with a classical background. As a primary school teacher and family man he is committed to children and makes sure that the pieces of Balkan-Express are groovy and danceable.

Michael Thamm: Electric guitar, vocals, inspires young people as a music teacher for the guitar. He has his roots in pop and rock music. He also writes lyrics for Balkan-Express.

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