ABOUT
Traditional Serbian Vocal Group ROSA is a New York based, all-female vocal ensemble that unites singers from 3 different continents with a mission to preserve and nurture the authentic form of traditional, non-tempered singing from Serbia, and to educate new singers regardless of their ethnic or cultural background.
The group was formed in New York, 2014 by Marija Stojnic, filmmaker and traditional Serbian music vocalist and Aleksandra Denda, vocalist, composer and recent Berklee College of Music graduate.
Besides its founders, the group includes Tiffany Wilson (USA), Shilpa Ananth (India), Astrid Kuljanic (Croatia), and Valentina Lombardi (Italy).
The concept of the ensemble was inspired by Marija's documentary film titled Girl Who Opposed the Sun.
Songs that ROSA performs date decades, often centuries back and have been surviving in rural areas of Serbia and the surrounding countries. Today we mostly learn from the recordings made by researchers and ethnomusiclogists that have been visiting these villages. Irreducible to the Western tonal system, these songs are impossible to write down with precision and are carried on as an oral tradition. Serbia has one of the most heterogeneous musical traditions in the Balkans with numerous variations on two main singing styles: "na glas"(older, dissonant technique) and "na bas"(newer, multipart singing). ROSA's current repertoire includes both types of singing and songs from Kosovo, Central, Western and Eastern Serbia, Hercegovina and Vojvodina, as well as songs of the Serbs from Croatia and Bosnia.