Special days at the Academy

I was surprised and happy to discover on Tuesday that this is a special week at the Academy of Music here in Chisinau. It is the Concours - Tamara Ciobanu editia a XI-a, a week long folklore event focused on singing. When I went to attend a class I discovered our normal room full of students from one of the other ethnomusicology teachers watching a video of a staged wedding with an emphasis on the various aspects of songs and dances for each part of the wedding. When the video failed we were pleased to have the instructor bring in a young girl in costume with an accompanist to sing for us. She was great! When we finally gave up on the video we went to the sala mare (large hall) to witness the children's competiton that is part of the week of events. The children were great and each had prepared and performed a series of songs with accompaniment in full costume. Wednesday and Thursday I have spent several hours in the hall to hear the "mature" performances. This means that there are three different age categories considered as mature, but the performers varied in age from 17 to 80. Grandparents performed for the young people they have taught all their lives. Of course my attention is often on the accompanying bands. The nai players are wonderful, often switching between nai and fluier (end blown flute). The other instruments are usually accordion, bass, violin, and cobza. Cobza is like a lute with an attitude. At first glance is looks like a baroque lute with a large rounded body and short neck, but it is strung with between eight and twelve strings and is made to play loud so it can be heard in bands with nai, violin, accordion, and even brass instruments. It ranges from an elegant melodic instrument to a driving chordal accompaniment to drive acsac dance rhythms (7/8). What a treat!  And today someone said to me, "Treb mergem!" which I think might mean something like, "We must be making some progress!" Yes, we are on the road. A meaningful feature of many Moldovan songs is that they begin in a major key but always end in the relative minor with a descending flatted second. This is a beautiful but mournful sound.