In the world of music, you will never be alone

The big night for music this week is Thursday when Limassol and Nicosia will have you fighting with yourself over which concert to go to.

After a number of performances by international and local bands, the eleventh Cyrus Rialto World Music Festival will come to an end with the Bulgarian band Bulgara at Heroes Square at 8.30pm.

Bulgara – Kiril Dobrev on drums, Kostadin Genchev on the kaval, Dimitar Hristov on the tambura, Petyo Kostadinov on the gayda, Hristina Beleva on the gadulka, Eva Perchemlieva on percussions and vocals, Stoyan Pavlov also on the percussions and daul, Chavdar Asenov on bass, and Dimitar Todorov Hristov on the guitar – will bring to the stage Bulgarian traditional sounds.

Formed in 2002 and having received recognition and international acknowledgement for their performances and their unique compositions for film and theatre, Bulgara is all about fusion. By bringing together folk instruments with more modern ones, the band is able to create a rock and jazz feel to the already beautifully harmonic Bulgarian folk music.

Nicosia meanwhile will host the coming together of musicians from different areas of the world, but who share the same passion for the same kind of music – blues.

Downtown Live – where many an international singer has got the party into quite a swing – is where UK British blues award winner Bex Marshall will perform in Cyprus for the first time. But to help her rock the crowd and make her feel right at home, the local blues band The Zilla Project will also give one of their not to be missed performances.

Marshall is really riding high on the blues kite at the moment after having won an award at the UK’s Blues Awards in 2013 for Best British Vocalist and Album, and more recently being nominated to top three in Best Solo Acoustic Artist in Europe in the European Blues Awards 2015.

She started playing the guitar at 11 and began work on cruise liners at 18 – an experience that gave her inspiration for song writing. But in 2000 she made a stop in London where she started performing live.

Watch out for how she strums that guitar as she has developed her own unique guitar style, particularly her slide guitar technique. This is probably the reason why she is the only woman to be invited to play at the Cork International Guitar Festival.

Musically armed with two albums, Kitchen Table and The House of Mercy, Marshall is ready to do what she does best, perform live. Because in her own worlds “If you have a good record then you should make sure you give it a good walk.”

The Zilla Project – who need no introduction to the musical lovers on the island – will play their own songs from the debut album This One’s for the President, plus electrified version of blues and rock classics.

Bulgara
Live performance by the Bulgarian band. July 28. Heroes Square, Limassol. 8.30pm. Free. Tel: 77-777745

Bex Marshall and The Zilla Project
Live performance by the British singer and local band. July 28. Downtown Live, Emanuel Rodi 2, Strovolos, Nicosia. 9.30pm. €7. Tel: 99-8100011

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.