Lily Storm

Balkan Song Survey: Ballads & Epic Songs

Lily Storm has been researching and performing Eastern European folk songs for almost three decades. A long-time member of Kitka Women’s Vocal Ensemble, she has studied and collaborated with many master singers in styles ranging from Ukrainian (Mariana Sadovska), Greek (Christos Govetas), Albanian (Merita Halili), Bulgarian (Kremena Stancheva, Tsvetanka Varimezova, and Donka Koleva), and Georgian (Carl Linich), among others. She has been invited to perform at festivals in Bulgaria and Greece, and has traveled extensively throughout the region, with extended stays in Budapest and Thessaloniki. She has taught music and singing to both adults and children for many years, and holds a Masters in Music, with an emphasis on Kodály Pedagogy. She has always been drawn to music as a source of beauty and connection: a way to access our own emotions and spirit, a bridge between people and cultures, and even a powerful hint as to the deeper nature of our reality.

This year Lily has been interested in investigating ballads and epic songs: Who are the heroes and villains of these stories; what values and archetypes are embedded in the intricacies of their plots? With that in mind, she has gathered a handful of songs that are both beautiful melodically and rich with layered meanings in the structure of their stories.

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