Music is the only entertainment of poor people

'Music is the only and cheapest entertainment of poor people. You can turn on the radio and forget hunger. I have travelled to the four corners of the world and could say it seems to me people forget we are only guests on this earth, that we come on to it naked and depart with empty hands. So why wars? Why evil? It is time to open up to each other, to mix cultures, and to begin to respect each other.'
Those wise words come from Macedonina singer Esma Teodosievska who has been twice nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize nominee and is known as the Queen of Romani Songs. Turn on the radio or web stream this Sunday at 3.00pm to experience more mixing of cultures in my Chance Music programme featuring Cage, Sciarrino, Scelsi and Bach. While you can read about BBC radio that informs, educates and entertains here.

* Decent sound but flaky images convey the essence of Esma Redzepova Teodosievska on this video.

** Header quote is from Garth Cartwright's portrait of the Gypsy musicians of the Balkans, Princes Among Men which also featured here.

*** Chance Music is being aired on FM locally in Norwich, England and worldwide via the internet at 3.00pm UK time this Sunday Oct 3, with a repeat for transatlantic listeners at 1.00am the following morning, i.e. the night of Oct 3-4. (Time zone convertor here.) A post-broadcast podcast will be available here along with more than ten hours of other music from different cultures.

Also on Facebook and Twitter. Source of the header montage which features Esma Teodosievska is the Japanese blog Mitosya. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Garth Cartwright's Princes Among Men was borrowed from Norwich Millenium Library. Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

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