Aaron Alpert

ISRAELI DANCES

Aaron Alpert started dancing before he was born! His parents met at Israeli folk dancing in Los Angeles, and his childhood is filled with dance memories — participating in his first dance camp at the age of two months, acting as his father’s “remote control” when he taught, performing in Saturday night talent shows at Alonim, a Jewish summer camp in Brandeis, California.

Aaron entered the world of teaching during his first year at UC Berkeley, as an instructor and curriculum developer for Jewish Studies 98: The Israeli Dance DeCal. Soon, he began teaching at other classes around the Bay Area, and in October 2012, Aaron started his own monthly session, Nirkoda (Let’s dance) in Palo Alto. Aaron has been a staff member at numerous folk dance camps and workshops, both Israeli (Rikud, MachoLA, SheLAnu, Belev Echad, Tirkedu Huston) and international (Stockton, Laguna, Mendocino Folklore, FACONE). Adapting to the pandemic, Aaron has recently started Zoom-Cali, a virtual session on Wednesdays with Orly Star, and Nirkoda Ba’Gan, an outdoors session on Sundays in Palo Alto with Latishya Steele.

Aaron founded and directs Nirkoda Ba’Kerem, an Israeli dance camp and wine tasting adventure near Fresno, California. The next one has been rescheduled for December 16-19, 2021, and will feature guest teachers Michael Barzelai and Yaron Elfasy from Israel. Find out more at nirkoda.com.

Aaron attended Stockton Folk Dance Camp as a participant in 2017 and a faculty member in 2018. This is his second time on the teaching staff.

Aaron will be again joined by Steve, his cat. Steve premiered at our July 2020 online camp and assisted during Aaron classes as a distraction, obstacle, and partner.

Roberto Bagnoli

INTERNATIONAL DANCES

Roberto Bagnoli grew up in Rome, where he was first introduced to folk music and dance, eventually taking part in several performances and teaching dance classes. He subsequently studied various forms of folk dance in workshops throughout Europe, Israel and North America.

From 1995 to 2003, he performed as a dancer and choreographer with the Terra di Danza Dance Company and was involved in the production of Raggi di Luna Italiana (Italian dances), GiroGiroMondo (dances from around the world), Keltic Emotion (Celtic dances), Mazal Tov (Israeli dances), and Ethnos (international folk dances). He currently organizes two dance camps in Europe: Balkanot (Balkan and Israeli dance) and Camp Yofi (Israeli dance). Roberto has lectured and conducted workshops throughout Europe as well as on numerous occasions in North America, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore and Japan.

Roberto lives in Reggio Emilia in Northern Italy. He first attended Stockton Folk Dance Camp in 2007 as a camper and has been on the faculty seven times since then.

Bianca de Jong

BALKAN DANCES

Bianca de Jong has been teaching folk dance since 1977. In 1981 she qualified as a folk dance teacher, officially recognized by the Ministry of Culture in the Netherlands

In 1987 the Ministry graduated her on the level of the Dance Academy in the Netherlands with the so-called “Benoembaarheidsverklaring.” The same year, Bianca passed the examination for the degree of Doctorandus in the Sciences of Education, mastering in Orthopedagogy at the University of Amsterdam. After that she qualified post-doctorate as a health care psychologist and specialized child psychologist. At present she works as a youth care psychologist in Amsterdam.

From 1978 on Bianca studies Bulgarian folklore and travels to Bulgaria. She visits amateur and professional ensembles, researchers, and (village) dancers. From 1983-1990, she visited Turkey regularly to study folklore. From 1981-1995, Bianca has organized folklore tours to Bulgaria and once to Turkey.

Bianca is active in several aspects of teaching folk dance. Besides Bulgarian folk dance, she teaches folk dances from different countries on all levels and various occasions in Japan, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Canada, England as well as she did in Australia, Belgium, Finland, Hongkong, Israel, Sweden, Taiwan, and the United States. She has taught at the dance academy in Tilburg (Holland) and Koupio (Finland) and was a guest teacher for folklore dance techniques at the professional “Het Internationaal Danstheater” in Amsterdam.

Bianca is actively involved in training folk dance teachers. Teaching folk dance is a great passion of hers and she considers the teaching as an art and craft in itself that brings a lot of fun! Her basic philosophy in teaching is that it should be done in such a way that you can describe it as “learning by dancing.”

She has been head of the teaching staff of a two year part-time education in Holland. Bianca taught several times folk dance teaching techniques to Japanese folk dance teachers during their study trips in the Netherlands as well as in Japan. She developed and executed one-year trainings for recreational folk dance teachers in Switzerland.

From 2000-2008 she was a member of the teaching staff of the three year teacher training for meditative dance teachers in Germany on the subjects of folk dance and its teaching techniques.

2009-2012 Bianca developed and executed a teaching technique course in Italy. In 1979-1985, she performed with the Dutch group Praznik, specializing in Bulgarian dance, and in 1987-1991, she performed in the Turkish group Tozak. She was the co-founder of both groups.

Bianca has published articles on Bulgarian folklore and teaching techniques in The Netherlands and abroad. She has choreographed for amateur performing groups in Australia, Holland, and Hongkong as well as for “Het Internationaal Danstheater”. She has been member of several juries at folk dance festivals and still is jury member of the Dutch national championship of Turkish folk dance.

Some of the dances she created based upon her knowledge of folklore are Tu Romnie, Valse d’Adieu, Ya ein Moulayeten, Nie bouditie, Ashun daje Mori, Ušti Baba.

Juliana Graffagna

SINGING

Juliana Graffagna has been singing her entire life, growing up in a musical family. She began her musical career performing in church choir and studying classical piano. She then ventured on to musical theater and choral singing in high school and at the University of Illinois where she earned a BA in Russian Studies and was first introduced to Slavic and Balkan folk music.

The discovery of her passion for traditional music led her to the internationally-acclaimed Kitka Women’s Vocal Ensemble with which she sang for more than two decades, serving as Music Director for 10 years. As a Kitka vocalist, Juliana traveled and performed extensively throughout the U.S. and Europe. She has studied Eastern European and Balkan vocal technique with master singers Tzvetanka Varimezova, Mariana Sadovska, Tatiana Sarbinska, Merita Halili, Carl Linich, Christos Govetas, Svetlana Spajic and Katerina Papadopoulou.

Juliana’s music teaching education includes the San Francisco Conservatory of Music Adult Extension Program and the San Francisco Orff Course Level III Teaching Certification. She has taught numerous Balkan singing workshops and lessons delving into the wondrous details of open voice singing and facilitating voice-heart connection as a means for self-expression, healing and fun.

Juliana currently sings and plays accordion with True Life Trio and the eclectic world music ensemble Janam which she founded in 2008. She teaches voice and piano lessons, composes and lends her voice to independent film soundtracks and other projects. She lives in Oakland, CA.

Ahmet Luleci

TURKISH DANCES

Ahmet Lüleci is an accomplished choreographer, dance teacher and performer as well as a researcher of Anatolian culture. Collage allows him to further his goal of making folk dance and music accessible to a wider audience. Ahmet was presented with the 2002 Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Arts & Humanities by the Assembly of Turkish American Associations. His choreography was awarded the gold medal at the Hong Kong Open dance competition in 2004 (performed by Budlet Dance Company) as well as the first prize at the ethnic dance competition in Germany in 2005 & 2006. He is the winner of Crash Art’s “Dance Straight Up! 2004 and 2006“, “Ten’s the limit 2005” and Boston Dance Umbrella’s “Boston Moves 2001” awards for choreography. His company Collage has won the fifth place at the world dance competition in year 2003.

Since arriving in North America in 1985, he has taught many workshops and camps throughout the United States as well as Canada, Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Holland, England, Switzerland, Brazil, Argentina, Germany, Norway, Italy and Australia. He has set innumerable suites of dances for the stage working with dance organizations around the world.

Prior to his departure for the US, Ahmet also served as Director of Dances for Hoytur, long considered Turkey’s leading dance association. Since the age of eight he has danced with numerous school ensembles and private associations, many of which won outstanding awards in city-wide and National-International competitions. Between 1973 and 2003 he participated in International dance festivals & competitions throughout Europe and North America. 
His college major was music, Luleci’s fascination with dance led him to conduct scholarly research into the historical, social and cultural background of the costumes and spoon dances from Turkey’s Mediterranean coast. His efforts resulted in an exhaustive, 400 page study for which he was awarded First Place in the 1985 national competition in research on the folkdances of Turkey by the Turkish ministry of Youth, Sports and Education. In 1997 Ahmet completed a second degree in Fine Arts.

He is the founder/artistic director of Boston based group The Collage Dance Ensemble, which allows him to further his goal of making folk dance and music accessible to a wider audience. He is also the founder and co-director of a well known Balkan dance camp called “World Camp” based in New York, USA. Ahmet has been serving as a jury member at the famous European Music and Dance competition “international-eisteddfod” held in Llangollen, Wales, United Kingdom.

Kay Munn

SCOTTISH DANCES

It all began with a Burns Night!

One year, in preparation for a Burns Night celebration, I told some friends that if they could find the music to Scotland the Brave, I would teach them a Scottish dance. The music was provided, and well-lubricated with fine malt whisky, we danced the Gay Gordons! This led to my re-entry into the world of dance, (not done since school or the occasional Scottish wedding) and I enjoyed classes with renowned deviser, Terry Glasspool.

I grew up in Glasgow, but have lived in North America since 1986. In 2001, I joined the Kingston ON Branch of the Royal Scottish Country Dance Society (RSCDS) and was encouraged to pursue a Teaching Certificate. With Branch support and an RSCDS scholarship, I obtained my certificate in St Andrews, Scotland. Since then I have taught classes and workshops at all levels, locally & internationally, including Pinewoods Scottish sessions, Mainewoods Dance Camp and Stockton Folk Dance Camp. I am especially proud of the Stockton 2018 Scottish class participants who worked so hard to perfect Broadway, and the other challenging, but fun dances that season. And that’s the key; are we having fun? It can be tricky and really take perseverance, but it doesn’t have to be too serious!

I’m a proud Scot, happy to promote my culture and perhaps dispel some myths along the way. You can take me out of Scotland, but you can’t take Scotland out of me!

Gergana Panova

BULGARIAN DANCES

“Folk dance is wisdom, joie de vivre and a wonderful way to meet many great people, to learn more about the world, and to develop yourself.”

Gergana was born in Sofia, Bulgaria, and graduated with honors from the National High School for Dance, the Academy for Music and Dance in Plovdiv, the Folkwang University of Arts in Essen and the Technical University of Dortmund. She received her D.Sc. in cultural philosophy and communicative sciences in Germany and a Habilitation in ethnomusicology from the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (BAS).

Gergana was a soloist and ballet master with Philip Koutev Ensemble, while also working with children and youth doing stage performances and establishing dance therapy in Sofia. She also co-founded the Theater Department of the New Bulgarian University and still works with the Theatre Total in Bochum, Germany.

Gergana devoted herself to the research of folk dance traditions, and for 23 years, she directed the Dance Archive and the Ethnochoreology Department at the Institute for Art Studies (BAS) in Sofia. Currently she is an Associated Member of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences and professor at the Folkwang University of Arts in Essen, Germany.

Gergana is trained as a stage performer, dance teacher, choreographer, ethnologist, stage director, Laban notator, cultural anthropologist and philosopher. She is the author of two books and more than 70 articles on Bulgarian dance and intercultural nonverbal communication.

She teaches dances from all ethnographic regions of Bulgaria with a special emphasis on their traditional, ritual, and contemporary aspects. She has organized several summer culture seminars in Bulgaria and has taught over 300 dance workshops in Europe, Asia, and North and South America.

Gergana visited Stockton Folk Dance Camp briefly in 2016 during her Fulbright project on the UCLA and was a faculty member in 2019.

Tony Parkes

AMERICAN SQUARES AND CONTRAS

Tony Parkes has been calling square and contra dances for more than 50 years. Starting in the 1960s, he learned from many of the leading callers and teachers of the day, such as Don Armstrong, Don Durlacher, Michael and Mary Ann Herman, Dick Kraus, Dick Leger and Ralph Page. He has taught at Mainewoods, Mendocino, Ontario, and Texas folk dance camps, as well as at Augusta, Brasstown, Buffalo Gap and Pinewoods square/contra camps, and innumerable state and regional weekend festivals. His calling has taken him to 36 states, Canada, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, England and Germany.

Tony specializes in the contra dances and quadrille-type squares of New England and the “transitional” squares of the 1950s, when traditional Western square dancing was developing into the modern variety. Like his illustrious mentors, he believes in keeping these dance forms accessible to as many people as possible. He has beginners doing real dances within seconds, and can keep experienced dancers entertained with a bit of challenge or elegance.

Using traditional basic movements, Tony has composed over 90 square and contra dance routines, some of which have become modern classics. He is the author of a standard text on calling contras and is writing a companion volume on calling squares. Several recordings feature Tony as caller, pianist, director and/or producer. He is a core consultant to the Square Dance History Project (www.squaredancehistory.org), a virtual online museum of over 1,500 videos, audios, photographs, and articles documenting both traditional and modern square dancing.

Tony and his wife Beth, also a caller, live in the Boston area. When not at a camp, they divide their calling time between appearing at weekly and monthly dance series throughout (and beyond) New England, most with live music, and presiding at corporate, civic and private parties for people who are dancing for the first time.

This will be Tony’s third consecutive year on the Stockton Folk Dance Camp teaching staff.

Vlasto Petkovski

MACEDONIAN DANCES

Vlasto was born in 1957 in Romanovce, Kumanovo, Macedonia. At the young age of 13, he became a member of the folk dance group Cvetan Dimov in Skopje, transferring in high school to the academic folk dance group Mirce Acev. In 1977, Vlasto auditioned for Tanec, the national ensemble of folk dances and songs, as a folk dancer and singer. Vlasto worked in Tanec until 1995, building a wealth of experience in presenting Macedonian folklore and culture. During the same time period, he was the choreographer of the folk dance group Grigor Prlicev in Skopje. Vlasto emigrated to Canada in 1995, and a year later restarted the Macedonian folk dance group Ilinden of St. Ilija Macedonian Orthodox Church in Mississauga, Ontario. His children, Emilija and Marjan, were top-performing dancers in Ilinden, and his wife is also an accomplished dancer.

This is Vlasto’s third appearance on Stockton Folk Dance Camp’s teaching faculty.

Richard Powers

AMERICAN & EUROPEAN PARTNER DANCES

Richard Powers is currently a dance historian and social dance instructor at Stanford University’s Dance Division. His focus since 1975 has been the research and reconstruction of American and European social dance forms, working from a personal collection of over 2,000 historic dance manuals. He is one of the world’s foremost experts in American social dance, noted for his workshops in Paris, Rome, Prague, London, Venice, Geneva, St. Petersburg, Moscow, Edinburgh and 24 times in Tokyo, as well as across the U.S. and Canada.

Richard has choreographed folk and vintage dance suites for many major companies, including AMAN Folk Ensemble, the Ethnic Dance Theatre of Minneapolis, the BYU Folk Ensemble, Ahmet Lüleci’s Collage Dance Ensemble in Boston, Westwind, and the Beseda Dance Theatre in Prague.

Besides Stockton Folk Dance Camp, Richard has taught at many of the major dance workshops and camps, including Mainewoods, Pinewoods, the National Folk Dance Federation of Japan, several of California’s Statewide Festivals, Idyllwild, and Buffalo Gap, as well as many regional folk dance groups.

Richard is returning to teach at Stockton for the thirteenth time since 1988.

Michele Simon

SINGING

Michele Simon has been involved with music all of her life, and with Balkan folk music for most of it, as a dancer, singer, drummer and teacher.  She was raised surrounded by music of all kinds, including classical (especially Bach), standards (especially Margaret Whiting, Frank Sinatra and Ella ), and American folk music. She sang before she talked, played cello and guitar, and most formatively, enjoyed trading harmonies with her mother’s rich alto.

She has been inspired by countless musicians, both in the US and abroad, and has been lucky to study with, to name just a few, the late Nadezhda Hvoinova, from the Bulgarian Rhodope region; the late Esma Redzhepova, Queen of Romany music; Serbian folk specialist Svetlana Spajic; Mary Sherhart of Seattle; Jane Sharp of Berkeley; and Bulgarian master singer Tatiana Sarbinska, with whom she also trained as a teacher. Over the last thirty years she has sung with Kitka Women’s Vocal Ensemble, as well as being steeped in the complex odd-metered Balkan dance rhythms, singing and playing percussion in folk dance bands Anoush, Brass Menažeri, Helladelics and Zabava!. She has appeared on recordings and stages across America and in Bulgaria, as well as on Bulgarian and Serbian TV.

Michele teaches private students, workshops, and camps, including the popular Balkan Vocal Technique class that has been a staple at Mendocino Balkan Camp for almost 20 years. As a singing teacher, Michele’s specialty is integrating Balkan vocal styles with American voices. With humor, warmth and patience, she focuses on placement and sound fundamentals, using innovative exercises and imagery, as well as her model skull, Bartholomew.

Michele lives in Oakland, CA. This her second time teaching at Stockton Folkdance Camp.

Polly Tapia Ferber

RHYTHM & DRUMMING FOR FOLK DANCERS

If you’re curious about rhythm, especially the complex rhythms of international folk dance music, join renowned percussionist Polly Tapia Ferber to learn how to hear, count, and play a variety of dance patterns. Use any hand drum available: a doumbek, a djembe, an oatmeal box, a coffee can… Your feet know what to do, invite your hands and brain to come along!

Percussionist Polly Tapia Ferber is a music educator, performer, and recording artist who specializes in hand percussion from the Balkans, the Middle East, Turkey, North Africa, and Spanish Andalucia. She is noted for her melodic style of playing on several percussion instruments including the doumbek, frame drums, the Middle Eastern tambourine, and Spanish wooden box-drum (cajon). She is a member of several bands from New York to New Mexico, playing various musical styles.

Polly has traveled to Tunisia, Egypt, Greece, Spain, Morocco, and Israel studying with celebrated teachers and performing with some of the world’s most renowned musicians. She maintains an active performing and teaching schedule.

Maurits van Geel

BALKAN / ROMA DANCES

Maurits van Geel lives in The Netherlands and holds a degree in Arts and Crafts and Art History. He graduated as a folk dance teacher in 1977 and received his degree at Dance Academy level from the Ministry of Culture in 1986. He taught at folk dance clubs in Amsterdam and worked as a dance consultant for the City Council 1986-1988, initiating dance projects in schools in combination with setting up dance projects and festivals. Also in the 1980s, he specialized in the Appalachian clogging, worked as guest teacher in Belgium, The Netherlands, and Germany, and was invited to be a guest teacher at the Rotterdam Dance Academy.

He was employed by Het Internationaal Danstheater, a professional dance company in Amsterdam, first as choreographer and later as artistic director for 23 years (1988-2011). During his career, he produced over 47 theatre programs in the field of world dance for this company. Part of this job involved several months of dance research each year in order to prepare for these programs. His travels have included India, Pakistan, Turkey, Russia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Cherkassy, among many other countries. His archive consists of almost 900 DVDs, with research material from all over the world, most of it recorded by himself. He has also choreographed folk dances, among them Syrtós Kitrínou.

Since 2011, Maurits has been teaching, often with his wife Tineke. They have traveled to many European countries, New Zealand, Australia, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia, and were guest teachers at a number of folk dance camps and workshops in North America.

In November 2017, Willem-Alexander, King of the Netherlands, appointed Maurits Knight in the Order of Oranje-Nassau for his extensive contribution to dance.

Maurits first attended Stockton in 1986, as a camper, with his wife, Tineke.

Tineke Van Geel

ARMENIAN DANCES

Tineke van Geel received her degree as folk dance instructor in 1977. She specializes in Armenian dance and works as a teacher and choreographer. Since 1985 she has regularly visited Armenia to study folklore at the Pedagogic Institute and Choreographic School in Yerevan. Part of each research trip was devoted to working with several amateur groups in Armenia and doing research on costumes. Two of those research trips were supported by scholarships of the Dutch government. On several occasions Tineke visited the United States to observe the dances performed by the Armenian communities there.

Tineke conducts workshops for students at various levels, beginning to professional, and has taught classes in international folk dance, Dutch and Armenian dances in many countries of the world, a fact that didn’t remain unnoticed in Armenia. In 2006, she received an award from the Armenian government for her extraordinary devotion and energy in promoting Armenian dance, music and culture. All her research in Armenia has made her a world-renown specialist of Armenian dance.

In addition to a pleasant sense of humor, Tineke is an excellent teacher who can break down dance patterns step by step to enable every student to master the dances and to experience the joy of both learning and executing this exciting material. Combined with a vast knowledge of Armenian dance and culture, these qualities have contributed to her worldwide success and popularity. Besides giving workshops in 14 European countries she taught in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia and Japan.

The music for a lot of dances that were researched in Armenia had never been recorded. Therefore, Tineke invited bands from Armenia to make recordings in a Dutch studio and she produced a number of compact discs on her own Van Geel Records label, established in 1989. Recently these programs are also made available on DVD.

Tineke has also conducted over 40 successful dance and culture tours to Armenia which have been attended by hundreds of participants from all over the world. Recently Georgia was also included in some tour programs.

Although Tineke is known as an Armenian dance specialist, she is sometimes asked to teach international folk dances because she has mastered a variety of styles and learned from many master teachers. This year Tineke will be presenting a package of dances from various countries, mainly non-partner dances, with a few exceptions.

Tineke first attended Stockton in 1986, as a camper, with her husband Maurits. Since then, she has been on the teaching staff five times.

Miamon Miller

BAND DIRECTOR, VIOLIN

Miamon began his musical career as a classical violinist but became entranced with the world of traditional music, joining the AMAN Folk Ensemble in the 1970s and later becoming its artistic director. Since that time, he has played in many groups, including the seminal Pitu Guli ensemble, the NAMA orchestra, Fuge Imaginea, Trei Arcuși and now his current quartet, the Garlic Band (www.GarlicBand.com).

He studied ethnomusicology at UCLA, earning an MA and ABD whilst playing mariachi music in his spare time. He was awarded a Fulbright scholarship and spent a year living in Romania studying Transylvanian folk music.

Miamon is widely experienced in mainstream music and has recorded with many well-known artists, including Neil Sedaka and Neil Diamond. He has also composed and arranged music for film and television productions ranging from Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman, Arabs in Detroit, And Starring Pancho Villa As Himself, Keeping Up with the Steins, and the PBS documentary Swimming in Auschwitz. He has also composed for theater, most recently the score for the Polish Białystocki Teatr Lalek (Białystok’s enormously popular puppet theater) production Czarne Ptacki Białegostoku (The Black Birds of Białystok).

Bill Cope

RHYTHM

Bill Cope is a multi-instrumentalist who does not focus on just one instrument but performs on over 60 in many diverse concert settings. He began playing Balkan music in the mid-1970s after falling in love with the music while part of a dance group based in San Jose, California.

He began his teaching career giving lessons on tambura at the Mendocino Balkan Music & Dance workshops in 1982, and to date he has taught at many workshops around the country. Bill has been the music director of San Francisco-based WestWind International Folk Ensemble, AMAN International Dance Ensemble, Mendocino Folklore Camp, and the San Francisco Kolo Festival. He was the Administrative Director of the East European Folklife Center in the early `990s. He is currently the director of the San Francisco Kolo Festival. Over the past year he has ceased to work for technology companies and begun to focus on music. He has been rebuilding his family home in San Jose into a venue for house concerts and an Airbnb for traveling musicians and more than an occasional party!

Janie Cowan

BASS

Janie Cowan grew up in Anchorage, Alaska. She graduated from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music. Aside from a strong technical foundation, flowing creativity, powerful presence and a deep feel of rhythm, Janie possesses the rare ability to adapt to any musical situation and bring an ensemble to a new cohesive level, on stage or in the studio.

Having lived and performed in Anchorage, Oberlin, Brooklyn, Austin, and throughout California, she is well-rooted in the diversity of music the United States has to offer and now spends time sharing and learning international folk traditions. She has immersed herself in and pursues the study of music from Ethiopia, Brazil, Cuba, Mexico, the Middle East, the Balkans and Sephardim.

Michael Lawson

ACCORDION

Michael Lawson grew up in a large extended family that featured song and dance at family gatherings. International folk dancing has been a large part of their family life. Michael began classical piano lessons at age 6 and trumpet at age 11. In high school, he played trumpet in a community jazz band. In college, he picked up his mother’s accordion and learned to play it for his folk dance club. He fell in love with the rhythms and harmonies of Balkan music, a genre he has played extensively over the last 40 years.

He directed the folk dance bands Nisava, Balkan Cabaret and Kafana Republik as an accordionist and vocalist, recording several CDs. He is always busy playing for folk dance parties, festivals, camps and weddings. Michael performed in the 2013 movie Tazi Baba (This Grandmother), which features Penka Encheva, a native Bulgarian singer. He arranged her songs for accordion and recorded them with her. In the summer of 2016, Michael accompanied the Bulgarian Voices of Seattle Women’s Choir on a Bulgarian tour which included a spot on Bulgarian national TV.

Recently, Michael launched a new jazz band, Dreams Come True, playing keyboard and performing repertoire from the swing era.

In addition to playing with My Men and Yours, Michael will be leading the singing classes at Stockton Camp.

He says, “I’ve always had the feeling that music is completely natural—that everybody can sing, that everyone can join in dancing—that these are natural, innate human abilities that help us to share the joy of life with each other.”