Black Sea Songs is the trio of imaginative, travelling storytellers – Turkish, Amsterdam-based vocalist and cellist (and tattoo artist) Sanem Kalfa (of Televizyon Quartet), Romanian, Amsterdam-based guitarist-violist George Dumitriu (who also works with Kalfa in a duo for the last fifteen years), and Belgian, Antwerp-based clarinettist Joachim Badenhorst (of Carate Urio Orchestra). This chamber trio offered its interpretations of traditional and old Ottoman songs from the interconnected cultural legacies around the black sea with fresh nuances of electronics and open improvisations in its debut album (el Negocito, 2021).
Black Sea Songs II turned inward, drawing on the trio’s original songs and musical impressions, composed by Kalfa, Dumitriu, and Badenhorst, using texts by Turkish poet Orhan Veli Kanik and Romanian poetess Livia Bălan (Dumitriu’s aunt) on three pieces, and interpreting only one traditional song. The album was recorded at BMC Studio in Budapest, in May 2025.
The Black Sea Songs trio keeps the timeless folk spirit without surrendering to a specific folk tradition, but now colours it with an intimate, lyrical, often melancholic atmosphere and delicate chamber jazz, spiced with subtle layers of electronics that find mysterious, inspiring common ground between East and West. The trio enjoys its many years of familiarity and collaborations. Kalfa’s dreamy, sensual vocal delivery and melodic cello themes lead the songs and set their immediate emotional tone, while Dumitriu and Badenhorst thoughtfully embrace and ornament her singing with playful dance-like themes that express vulnerable feelings of yearning, melancholy, and freedom.
The Black Sea Songs trio suggests that geographical borders or roots do not matter, as Guy Peters observed in its liner notes. The trio’s poetic, beautiful imagery is charged with universal meaning and an abundance of musical resources.
Eyal Hareuveni
Sanem Kalfa (voice, cello, electronics), Joachim Badenhorst (clarinet, bass clarinet), George Dumitriu (guitar, viola, electronics)
