ESMA & ANSAMBL TEODOSIEVSKI

Esma Redzpova (ESS-mah Reh-JEP-oh-vah) is internationally acclaimed as "the Queen of Romani Song." Known to her devoted audiences simply as "Esma," she was born in Skopje, Republic of Macedonia, in Shutka, the largest Romani neighborhood in Europe, in which song, music and folklore are part of everyday life and family tradition. Esma began her long professional career in Macedonia at the age of 13. She was the first Balkan performer to make Romani music popular with non-Rom audiences and was one of the first female performers to sing on the radio and TV in the former Yugoslavia. As Jordan Levin wrote in the Miami Herald, "...Redzepova's rich, magnificent voice, sobbing in a song of mourning or swelling to a dramatic crescendo, was genuine and infectious." (11/1/01)

In addition to her stellar performances in over 30 countries, Esma is a world-renowned humanitarian. Over the past thirty years, she and her late husband Stevo Teodosievski fostered forty-nine children, training them as musicians and educating them about Romani and Macedonian cultural traditions. Esma has performed more than 2,000 benefit concerts and has been an "Ambassador" of the Roma in all of Eastern Europe; she is also known for her humanitarian work with Romani Refugees from Kosovo.

Esma Redzepova, "Woman of the Year" in Macedonia for 2003 and two-time Nobel Peace Prize candidate, will begin the "Voice of Hope" US Tour in New York, in September 2004, with her 5-piece band (trumpet, clarinet, dumbek-drums, keyboard and accordion) the Ansambl Teodosievski. Four of these talented Romani musicians began to play as young children at the famous Teodosievski School of Music in Belgrade, and are now well known all over the world.