Ivo Papazov

Known across Bulgaria as Ibryam, the clarinettist Ivo Papazov and his band — first called Trakiya, and known abroad as the Wedding Orchestra, which is what it literally was — became the standard-bearers of what came to be called the Balkan revolution in music from 1974 onwards, long before the work of Goran Bregović and Emir Kusturica reached a wide audience. His compositions fold the traditional material of Balkan peoples, Turkish and Bulgarian above all, into jazz and rock. Pink Floyd's producer Joe Boyd brought the ensemble to international attention, and in 2005 Papazov received a BBC Radio 3 Award for World Music. He was born Ibryam Mitkov Hapazov on 16 February 1952 in Kardzhali, into a Turkish Muslim family of hereditary zurna players and clarinettists, and as a boy played the weddings of Thrace beside his father; he left the building technical school in the town to work as a musician. During the assimilation campaign known as the Revival Process he was tried and sent to a labour camp on account of his origin. With Trakiya he recorded for Balkanton at the 1986 contest of wedding bands at Stambolovo, then issued Orpheus Ascending in 1989 and Balkanology in 1991 on Hannibal Records. Stara Zagora made him an honorary citizen in 2005, the year he was also named doctor honoris causa of SVUBIT, and in 2022 he took the grand prize of the WOMEX festival.