Dobranotch () is a folk music ensemble based in Germany, originally from

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

. Founded in

Nantes Nantes (, ; ; or ; ) is a city in the Loire-Atlantique department of France on the Loire, from the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic coast. The city is the List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, sixth largest in France, with a pop ...

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

in 1997, the group plays

Klezmer Klezmer ( or ) is an instrumental musical tradition of the Ashkenazi Jews of Central and Eastern Europe. The essential elements of the tradition include dance tunes, ritual melodies, and virtuosic improvisations played for listening; these wou ...

Russian folk music Russian folk music specifically deals with the folk music traditions of the ethnic Russian people. Russian folk music is used as the basic foundation for the creation of all Russian professional music. Ethnic styles in the modern era The perfo ...

Balkan music Balkan music is a type of music found in the Balkan region of southeastern Europe. In its broadest sense, it encompasses a variety of music styles across the countries of Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Hungary, Kosovo ...

, Moldovan music, and a mix of other genres.

History

Dobranotch was founded in Nantes, France in 1997 by three folk musicians from Saint Petersburg: Mitia Khramtsov, Oleg Drobinsky, and Stas Zubtsov. These musicians had been living in France at that time, busking and playing Jewish and

Celtic music Celtic music is a broad grouping of music genres that evolved out of the folk music traditions of the Celts (modern), Celtic people of Northwestern Europe (the modern Celtic nations). It refers to both orally-transmitted traditional music and ...

. The group's name, which means "good night" in Russian, is also a reference to a tune genre in Klezmer music which marked the end of the day's events in a traditional Eastern European Jewish wedding. Because of the eclectic personal and musical backgrounds of the group's members, their repertoire came to include a wide variety of genres including not only Klezmer and Balkan music, but Russian-language Jewish songs from

Odesa Odesa, also spelled Odessa, is the third most populous List of cities in Ukraine, city and List of hromadas of Ukraine, municipality in Ukraine and a major seaport and transport hub located in the south-west of the country, on the northwestern ...

, Middle Eastern music, and others. The group became an important part of the renewed popularity of Klezmer music in Russia in the 1990s, notable for their use of traditional acoustic instruments rather than electronic music. The group has performed at a number of festivals over the years, including the

Fusion Festival The Fusion Festival is a music festival, music and arts festival with a counterculture, countercultural character. It takes place at a former military airport called Müritz Airpark in Lärz, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, in northeastern Germany. The ...

and Jewish Culture Festival Krakow,

KlezKanada KlezKanada () is a Canadian organization for the promotion of klezmer music and Yiddish culture. Its principal program is a week-long Jewish music festival founded in 1996 that takes place annually in August at Camp B'nai B'rith in Lantier, Queb ...

, Ashkenaz, the

Rudolstadt-Festival The Rudolstadt-Festival (till 2015 TFF ("Tanz- und Folkfest") Rudolstadt) is a German folk, roots and world music festival. It takes place annually on the first full July weekend in Rudolstadt/Thuringia and lasts from Thursday evening to Sunday n ...

, the

Sziget Festival Sziget Festival (, ) is one of the largest music and cultural festivals in Europe. It is held every August in northern Budapest, Hungary, on Óbudai-sziget ("Old Buda Island"), a leafy 108-hectare (266-acre) island on the Danube. More than 1,0 ...

. The group has won various awards, including the Eiserner Eversteiner audience favorite award in 2017, the Russian World Music Award in 2018, and the German Record Critics Award for best third quarter release in 2019. Following the

2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine On 24 February 2022, , starting the largest and deadliest war in Europe since World War II, in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, conflict between the two countries which began in 2014. The fighting has caused hundreds of thou ...

members of the group left Russia and have been living abroad due to their opposition to the invasion.

Discography

* (OTZ, 1999) * (Let the Soul Unfold, Kailas Records, 2002) * ''Gagarin Chochek'' (Orange World Records, 2005) * ''In The East The Sun Decides All'' (Orange World Records, 2010) * ''Bazardüzü'' (no label, 2012) * (''Vinograd'', no label, 2014) * (''Makhorka'', CPL-Music, 2017) * ''20 Years'' (CPL-Music, 2018) * ''Merčedes Colo'' (CPL-Music, 2019) * (''Tsimes'', no label, 2019) * (CPL-Music, 2022) * ''Vander Ikh Mir Lustik'' (CPL-Music, 2024)

References

{{Reflist 1997 establishments in France Klezmer groups Musical groups from Saint Petersburg Russian folk music groups Balkan music