Radost CD

Heirloom. The music comes to us in hazy memories of childhood, awakened by fleeting scents in unfamiliar streets; we hear it in the voices of long-departed and dearly-loved ancestors, resonating through overheard snatches of conversations in immigrant neighborhoods. The music calls to us from our dreams. For 25 years, Radost's mission has been the loving preservation and presentation of a great treasury of music and dance. We, the living, are the repository of these cherished heirlooms.

Here are the songs of our blood and bones. Through the centuries of turmoil which have sometimes taken a richly diverse Balkan and Eastern European culture to the very brink of extinction, somehow these music, song, and dance traditions have survived. From a Croatian Klapa song to the dramatic rhythm of a Bulgarian peasant dance to the haunting strain of a Russian romance, the music has survived through the generations to rest for a time in our keeping. The artists of the Radost Folk Ensemble honor that enduring Spirit every time we come together as a Village-in our recognition of these dances and this music as living history, and in our joyous appreciation of our younger members, who are the guardians of this wealth for the future.