Eastern European Folk Music

Eastern European folk music covers the traditional repertoires of Poland, Czechia, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and the Balkan states: village dance music, wedding bands, laments and ballads carried by fiddle, cimbalom, accordion and, further south, massed brass. Asymmetric metres, modal melodies and open-throated communal singing distinguish the region's styles. Ensembles such as *Muzsikás*, *Warsaw Village Band* and *Taraf de Haïdouks* carried these traditions from village celebration to the world-music stage, treating archival village playing as a living practice rather than a museum piece.