Wednesday 14 July 2010

YURI GURZHY - THE VOCAL SOUL OF MAMA DIASPORA



Yuriy Gurzhy is undoubtedly one of the most well-known musicians of Ukrainian origin. At international level he is known as a prodigy musician whose talents excite wonder and admiration.
He came to Berlin’s musical scene in 1995 from Kharkiv, coming from independent non-commercial music environment. Since his arrival to Germany he participated in a variety of artistic musical projects in Germany and Europe. These projects included DJ-ing, playing and composing music. His creations were Russendisko, with a well-known writer and a close friend Vladimir Kaminer, in Berlin's Kaffee Burger. Russendisko parties started in 1999, steadily establishing itself from a local Berlin entertainment and becoming a successful and exotic, more to say – legendary, international event, known well behind Berlin and Germany, opening an avenue for Ukrainian and Russian music bands abroad. Gurzhy and Kaminer issued several compilations of Russendisko, which included rock bands known only locally, such as Lyapis Trubetskoy, Spitfire, Vasya Club, Mandry, VV, etc.
Recently Yuriy became more known as the leader for energetic ROTFRONT Emigrantski Raggamuffin Kollektiv, uniting musicians of five different nationalities. The group was started in 2003 by Yuriy and Simon Wahorn, initiator of the HungaroGroover Soundsystem. Their first album came out on Essay Records in 2009. The group was also declared to be the best world music act in Germany in 2009. The style of the group comprises of incredibly solid musical mix of ska-punk, reggae, hip-hop, klezmer, gypsy, ethnic Hungarian, Ukrainian, German and Russian grooves.
As a DJ and producer, he did remixes for such a well-known international acts as Amsterdam Klezmer Band. He also wrote songs for Shantel, that were recently released at Essay Recordings in 2009 and included at the Shantel’s albums "Disko Partizani" and “Planet Paprika”.
He worked on creating several musical compilations for such well-known labels as Trikont Records and Russendisko Records, being a director of the last one. For Trikont he did a compilation of "Funky Jewish Sounds from Around the World", named Shtetl Superstars. This CD is a soundtrack to musical life of modern klezmer bands in funky style of 70s. It has been created by Yuriy and a talented songwriter and the former trumpet player from Oi Va Voi music band Lemez Lovas. Currently, Yuriy and Lemez are working on an album of their own musical project "The Fabulous [Shtetl Superstars Orchestra]", which should be released fairly soon.
Yuriy does not want to define himself with any specific musical style as his background is a mixture of a variety of cultures of various countries and in variety of beautiful music selected with taste.
You can also hear and find out more about musical masterpieces created by Yuriy that are available from his myspace site - http://www.myspace.com/yuriygurzhy
*Photo kindly provided by Balint Meggyesi.

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