Bajsa Arifovska

Macedonian Tambura, Macedonian Village Ensemble

Bajsa Arifovska was born in Kočani, Republic of Macedonia. She studied at the State Music School in Štip, enrolling in the Music Theory department with a second major in violin; throughout her schooling there, she additionally studied more instruments outside the regular school program.

In 2000, she graduated from the Faculty of Musical Arts in Skopje, at the Faculty of Music Theory and Pedagogy in the Folk Instruments department under Professor and Doctor of Music Arts Dragan Dautovski. She began her professional musical career with Professor Dautovski, as a member of his quartet and playing at numerous domestic and international performances and projects. During the same period until 2013, Bajsa worked at the State Music School “Ilija Nikolovski-Luj” as a professor of folk instruments (bagpipes, kaval, tambura), a position that subsequently led her to the National Ensemble of Folk Dances and Songs “Tanec”-Skopje, where she serves as folk-instrument performer instruments, and first-chair instrumentalist.

Bajsa also composes and arranges music for the Tanec orchestra and choir. Her first musical arrangement for the ensemble was for the choreography “Ronenka,” played exclusively on folk instruments.

With the Dragan Dautovski Quartet, Bajsa, has performed at numerous concerts and participated in a number of theater plays and documentaries. Quartet projects include Roots and Flowers (Koreni I Cutovi), Path of the Sun (Patot na Sonceto), Flame (Plamen) and Loom (Razboj); for all of which Bajsa performs on kaval, bagpipe, tambura, and clarinet.

In 2001 Bajsa founded the mandolin orchestra in 2001 at the Roma Cultural and Educational Center “Darhia” in Skopje. Some of her personal projects include Bajsa and Macedonian Čalgija (Bajsa I Makedonska Čalgija), released in 2008; music composed for the dance drama Broken Dream (Skršen Son) in 2010 in collaboration with Professor Jagoda Slaneva, where Bajsa served in the roles of director, choreographer and librettist; and in 2018 To the East (Kon Istok) with Bajsa Arifovska and Duško Georgievski. Bajsa also participates in many international projects for chamber music, symphony and big band orchestras, as well as in traditional music seminars.