With the release of his distinctive new Naxos album Balkanisms, the classical guitarist Mak Grgić celebrates the richly contrasting, passionately held cultures that define the people of the beautiful and dramatic peninsula in southeastern Europe named for the Balkan Mountains that dominate it. The New York Times praises Mak – as a “gifted young guitarist,” and the Washington Post hails him as “a guitarist to keep an eye on.” The music of Balkanisms comes together in the virtuoso spirit of Mak, and both the music and the artist are reflected in a video inspired by the track “Macedonian Girl,” from Tadić’s Laments, Dances and Lullabies. “‘Macedonian Girl’ takes us on a journey through a mythical landscape of the Balkan soul, and submerges us into the ethereal – a world where the only real hero is the art of music with its power to bring together all walks of life, to heal the hurt and the sick, and to bring back memories of moments once thought lost forever,” the video’s director Martin Horvat says.
“Macedonian Girl is a Divine Being that lives in the heart of the virtuoso musician as he awakens it in his listeners to let it guide us through life,” Horvat continues. “She is the Music itself, giving us hope and nurturingou strength to forge everlasting bonds with people across the globe. She is, in fact, that which gives us life. As she does to this wonderfully colorful album – Balkanisms.”
