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Village Harmony is a Vermont-based singing camp in existence since 1991 when Larry Gordon founded the camp and hired Mary Cay to teach music from the Balkans to teens. The camp was such a success that it has grown into multiple sessions of teen camps per summer, camps for adults and camps in many foreign countries such as England, South Africa, Ghana, Corsica, Bulgaria and the Republic of Georgia. Mary Cay organized and led the first Village Harmony Bosnia camps in 2006 and 2008. 25 singers from the US, Canada, the UK and Switzerland gathered together to learn music from Bosnia's rich village traditions, sacred repertoire from all of Bosnia's spiritual traditions and urban muslim love songs. Village Harmony camps are powerful, sometimes, life-changing experiences that draw hundreds of singers every summer together in song.

As one Bosnia camper put it:

"Village Harmony camp in Bosnia was an experience that opened up my heart and mind in so many ways. Inspiring, dynamic leaders not only taught us a variety of Bosnian music, but about that music, and we had the opportunity to meet Bosnians who sang and loved the music we were learning. Bosnia is a beautiful, ancient country whose citizens continue to work on healing and reconciliation, and music is part of that healing. My Bosnian experience and learning was joyful, rich, unexpected and inspiring!"

Village Harmony in Macedonia

The first Village Harmony camp in the Republic of Macedonia was an enormous success. Twenty two singers traveled to the mountain town of Berovo near the Bulgarian border where we stayed in a beautiful hotel “Hotel Manastir” next to the ancient monastery of St. Michael the Archangel.

As our bus arrived carrying weary travelers we were greeted by a wonderful Roma brass band and warm bread. We descended from the bus to be pulled into the dance by several locals who were already dancing when we got there. It was a wonderful welcome and a portent of what was to come over the next two weeks.

My co-leader in Macedonia was Goran Alachki, a virtuoso accordion player - a “national treasure”, along with his wife Adrijana, a wonderful singer and dynamic performer of Macedonian traditional music with many CD’s to her name.

Goran had organized a series of teachers to teach us various aspects of traditional Macedonian singing. The first two days he and Adrijana taught us half a dozen songs - all well known throughout Macedonia - which we found out when we performed them and the entire audience sang along at the top of their lungs!

Next we spent two days with the young and very talented Roma musician, Bajsa Arifovska who plays just about everything: fiddle, clarinet, kaval, tupan, saxaphone, tambura, piano - and probably more. Bajsa taught us several songs from the Maleshevo region where we were located for the camp as well as a dynamic, traditional Roma song. She also gave lessons on the side to those interested in any of the many instruments that she plays.

Our next teacher was Velika (Stojkova Serafimovska Velika) an ethnomusicologist with a specialty in village ritual songs. From her we learned a wealth of information on regional styles from Aegean Macedonia (in Greece), Pirin Macedonia (in Bulgaria) and the various regions of the Republic of Macedonia. Her songs were all two part, melody with drone and either sung a cappella or accompanied by tambura.

Finally, our last teacher was Igor Krsteski, a wonderful singer, who taught us a few more songs from Macedonian urban traditions.

Adrijana Alacki, in addition to being a wonderful singer, is a gourmet cook who has just come out with a Macedonian cookbook destined to become a classic. The cookbook contains over 200 recipes with beautiful photographs of each dish and directions in both English and Macedonian. Adrijana offered a cooking class each day in which participants helped prepare 5 dishes which we then ate for lunch each day.

Goran and Adrijana’s daughter, Graciela, a recent college graduate taught folk dance every morning. Graciela is a lovely dancer, speaks great English and always has a smile on her face. She took thousands of pictures and videos - many of which she put up each day on Facebook so family and friends could keep up with our journey.

Our location for the camp was the small town of Berovo in the Maleshevo Mountains of eastern Macedonia. The climate there is perfect in the summer - warm days and cool nights. The wooded mountains are beautiful for hiking and exploring - wild flowers and fruit trees abound and you never know when you will come upon a beautiful monastery in the woods or be invited in for coffee and sweets by a local family.

For the final four days of our camp we went on tour and had homestays with local families. Our first concert was in Berovo and after having been there for 10 days, walking, exploring, visiting the market, being spontaneously invited for coffee - we felt like we knew the whole town and they all knew us. Our concert was in the town center, outside, with the audience pressing in all around us. All the kids in town were in the front singing at the top of their lungs with every song. We taught every audience the American spiritual “Oh What a Beautiful City” and had everyone singing along with us. I tried, in vain, to get them all to clap on the off beat. They can clap in 9/16 or 11/16 or 7/8 rhythm but it’s hard to feel that African American off beat! A local choir of retired people sang a few songs in the concert and we all ended with a couple of songs together. Members of this choir took us home with them for our homestays. Our homestays were amazing. Our families seemed to instantly adopt us, cooking amazing food, feeding us way too much and constantly, giving us gifts, showing us their beautiful, organic gardens, introducing us to all their relatives and friends.

We came away from this camp with a deep love for Macedonia, its people, countryside, music and traditions and especially with the entire Alacki family who generously and ethusiastically made it all happen!