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Living in Harmonia
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By GUY D’ASTOLFO
YOUNGSTOWN
Cleveland-based ensemble Harmonia operates under the same principles as the Simply Slavic Festival.
It absorbs the traditions of the various countries of eastern Europe and melds them together.
“We are the American experience,” said Harmonia founder Walt Mahovlich about his band, which has members from several countries and backgrounds. “In Europe, we would not have played together. We’d consider ourselves really different, and we’d be in different countries. But when you find yourself in America, the differences don’t seem that big. We have more in common than different and we just see ourselves as eastern Europeans.”
The ensemble will be the featured act at this year’s Simply Slavic Festival, which will be Saturday on East Federal Street in downtown Youngstown.
Harmonia has been playing the traditional folk music of eastern Europe for years at a virtuoso level.
While the band was formed in Cleveland about 20 years ago, it reached a new level when the the hard-line regimes of eastern Europe collapsed in the late ’90s. The influx of world-class musicians from those countries who were suddenly free to come to America enriched Harmonia.
Mahovlich, violinist Steven Greenman and the late Jozsef Varga originally formed the band.
They later added Eastern Bloc immigrants Alexander Fedoriouk, Andrei Pidkivka, Jozef Janis and Brano Brinarsky.
Harmonia jelled completely with the addition of vocalist Beata Begeniova of Slovakia. Begeniova can belt out traditional tunes from her Rusyn heritage as easily as she purrs through a Romani ballad.
While he has great respect for polka music, Mahovlich noted that Harmonia goes well beyond it, displaying a depth of emotion that ranges from sadness to ecstasy.
The music of eastern Europe varies in tempo, from super slow, to songs that get into a groove, to super-fast and exhilarating. “It’s very different from what people think of this music,” said Mahovlich. “There is more variety.”
Mahovlich grew up in a Hungarian neighborhood of Cleveland with a Croatian father and a Hungarian mother. He still adheres to a saying that his father imparted in his native Croatian tongue that translates as “hold on to what’s your own but respect what is others’.”
While the dozen or so nations that make up the Slavic region have similar customs, food and music, they have just as many differences. The goal of the Simply Slavic festival is to unite Slavs and educate them about the region’s heritage.
Harmonia has a similar goal, and often gives programs at school and universities to that end. On May 29, Mahovlich and Fedoriouk demonstrated Slavic instruments for students at Canfield Middle School, Akiva Academy and Chaney Fine Arts Magnet High School.
Harmonia’s performance at Simply Slavic on Saturday will be its first in Youngstown.
The show will also be the local CD release party for the band’s new CD, “Hidden Legacy,” which was released in May.
The CD will be available to buy at the festival and at folksoundsrecords.com.
To learn more about Harmonia, go to harmoniaband.com.