Folk Songs features an improvised solo performance by violinist and vocalist Tijana Stanković. Oscillating between energetic rawness and sincere frailty, this music is bound to spark every attentive listeners interest. Tijana Stanković has been heard in collaboration with many eminent artists of improvised music. Among them are composer and viola player Mezei Szilárd, composer and cellist Márkos Albert, Joel Grip, Nenad Marković, Sőrés Zsolt and Ivan Čkonjević. Moreover, she has also played in Argo (HU), a rebetiko-free improv project; Rođenice (SRB), a folk music a cappella trio; and Hyperion Ensemble (RO). As its title may suggest, this solo album draws from Stanković’s background as an ethnomusicologist, as well as her nearly life long experience with playing and singing folk music.

Her solo debut, Freezer (LOM, 2020) was more distinctly in the vein of contemporary improvisation. On this album Stanković uses more fragments, motifs and pieces from traditional Balkan folk music, while simultaniously remaining in the idiom of free improvisation. For Stanković, this is not stemming from a reckless attitude towards either tradition — on the contrary, it is a way of synthezising the humbling and transcendent qualities of both idioms. As she says herself: “With my mixing of these two I don't want to imply that they are ‘improved’ by breaking their respective borders. It's my way to do music in the scope of my own (musical) capabilities, and as a kind of respect towards playing and singing. And last, but not least, respect for those musical giants who came before.” Performed at the legendary venue Fylkingen in Stockholm, this CD captures the intense presence of an improvised live performance. Brilliant in its simplicity, the recording made by John Chantler and mastering by Guiseppe Ielasi amplifies the raw and stripped down character of Stanković artistic vision.