Introduction
Balkanika.nl is a restricted private archive of music from the Balkans and Anatolia, in particular Albanian, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Greek, North Macedonian, Romanian, Serbian and Turkish folk music. It was set up to organise and safeguard our degrading collections of ancient photocopies, stencils, Eastern-bloc quality printings and handwritten manuscripts.
Because of copyright restrictions applying to some of Balkanika’s content, access is for members only. Membership is awarded by invitation, to those who can make a significant contribution to the collection.
Building the archive
Contributing to the collection
- We welcome any material that fits within the folk and art music traditions represented on Balkanika; individual scores or score books; digital scores or scanned material.
- When making a contribution, please provide as much metadata as possible: the original title, region of origin, and source of the material.
- If you would like to contribute with scanned material: it doesn’t have to look pretty – if the score is legible we’re happy. A 200 dpi grayscale scan provides an adequate result in most cases; >300 dpi would be overkill. If necessary use contrast to improve legibility. When in doubt, provide an unprocessed scan.
Number of scores on Balkanika
Open online resources
- Neyzen.com – Turkish art and folk music
- Nota Arşivleri – Turkish art and folk music
- Ross Daly – Contemporary modal music
- Michiel van der Meulen – Contemporary modal music
- Folkloretanznoten – Balkan music and more
- Hopp-Zwei-Drei – Balkan music and more
- Stari Makedonski Pesni – Macedonian folk music
- Pesna.org – Macedonian folk music
- Kithara.to – Greek lyrics
About TouMilou Music
TouMilou is a micro record label that Michiel van der Meulen established to release his contemporary modal compositions. His original scores can be retrieved from Toumilou’s website. TouMilou also released three albums by the Dutch ensemble Čalgija, which existed between 1962 and 1995 and played music from the Balkans and Anatolia: Vintage Recordings (1964 – 1966), Unforgotten and Üçayak. Many of the scores on Balkanika have been contributed by former members of that group.