Stian Carstensen Filip Simeonov

Stian Carstensen from Farmers Market meets Filip Simeonov from Taraf de Haidouks!

In 1996, Stian bought a cassette with Filip Simeonov at a crossroads in Bulgaria and immediately drove off the road when he heard the music!

After the slightly crazed Balkan music enthusiast on a pilgrimage was pulled out of the ditch by a rusty tractor from an agricultural collective, he set course for Filip’s village, Trastenik, following a tip from the attendant at the nearest gas station, to whom he had shown the cassette cover – everyone knows who Filip is in Bulgaria!

Stian found Filip, promptly invited him to Norway for a tour, and this year they celebrate 30 years of playing together with a concert at Cosmopolite on April 10 at 7:00 PM.

Filip comes from a musician family with 300 years of tradition as musicians with Turkish and Romani ancestry, though he is not entirely sure about his own inherited genetics. As he says himself: “I’m probably somewhere between a horse and a donkey, but above all I play the clarinet like hell!”

Filip is a central figure in Bulgarian music history and has toured the world for years with the band Taraf de Haidouks.

His feeling for all kinds of music east of Sinsenkrysset is truly special – from delicate lyrical minaret improvisations to solid Bulgarian peasant wedding music with machine-gun temperament.

Stian is known as a multi-instrumentalist and composer in the band Farmers Market and has been active in Norwegian and international musical life since 1981.

He is known for embracing a wide musical range from jazz to classical, folk music, bluegrass, Balkan, country, etc.

It can also be mentioned that for his latest album “Musical Sanatorium,” he was nominated for the Nordic Council Music Prize.

Improvisation is Stian’s modus operandi, and one of his absolute favorite pursuits is to bring the reptile brain to a boil together with Filip Simeonov.

Their musical collaboration is always spontaneous and fresh, with both Bulgarian ins and outs, and the audience can expect a session where the artists quite literally balance on each other’s shoulders – with musical magic for the eye/ear and a real taste for it.