The famous Serbian musician and composer Goran Bregovic will begin his tour of Europe with the Karandila Roma Orchestra on September 4. The Roma orchestra from Sliven (eastern Bulgaria) will tour Prague, Berlin, Vienna, Hale and Innsbruck at the beginning of the month. Last year their first tour with Bregovic was a great success. The 10-man band will perform at the Festival of Nations on September 8 in Vienna and at the Innsbruck Dream Festival on the following day.

"What is unique about Karandila is the music they create, which is predominantly traditional Roma music that was played at weddings half a century ago," said Viktor Lilov, the orchestra's artistic co-ordinator and tour manager.

The roots of Karandila's music have influenced other styles and developments in music, Lilov said. He used contemporary musician Yildaz Ibrahimova and Teodossi Spassov (Bulgarian kaval player) as examples. "The Roma orchestras perform traditional folklore that unifies old motifs of Arabic music and customs, passes through the Turks and finishes here in the Balkans," said Lilov.

The Karandila orchestra was founded in 1994 by Michail Ticheliev and was invited to participate in the Jazz Across the Border festival (June 1999) by Gunther Huesmann, the fesival's curator. He commented that the musicians play inspirational, topical music that deserves to be discovered.

"The Karandila orchestra plays a type of experimental music, which audiences have found striking at jam sessions that mostly took place in Germany. That proves that music does not possess any national colour," said Lilov. He added that there are no musicians who create ethnically restricted music.

"Last year it was not really awkward that a Roma orchestra playing music for belly dancing could join in a Jazz session and fit in extremely well," said Lilov.

He shares Michail Ticheliev's opinion that each orchestra should have its own identity and should not be influenced by fashionable foreign influences.

Historically Roma musicians have been a part of the sultan's army orchestra and that is how they became experts in marching melodies, according to Lilov. Karandila is an exceptional collection of a bugle, trumpets, drums, clarinet and saxophones. Some members of the orchestra even play circus-like music. Karandila are used to performing at wedding parties that last for three days and find it difficult to compress their variety of styles into a three hour festival performance.

The Creative Music of Eastern Europe organization is for musicians from Eastern Europe who are working in the field of jazz and improvisation, folklore and New Music. Lilov, a member of the organization, said that artists from different generations are connected by their search for creative music and this is the link with Karandila orchestra.