An unusual mix of saxophone and harmonica brought the Ohrid Summer Festival last night with the concert of the duo “Aliada”. The audience enjoyed the last composition and continued the pleasant evening at the church “St. Sophia”, returning the artists to bis-performance.
The two young musicians, saxophonist Mihail Knot and harmonica Bogdan Leketic in Ohrid brought the project “New colors of the past” with old compositions from the Baroque to the 20th century, but with their arrangements tailored precisely for these two instruments.
– “New colors of the past” is called because we play compositions from the baroque to the 20th century, of course it’s old compositions in a new way, primarily because of the connection of a saxophone and harmony that is relatively new.
Since our instruments are young and exist for a hundred years, the composers had no opportunity to compose for our instruments, so when we want to play we have to arrange songs for us. Certainly there are composers who write about our instruments and they are in our program. We are among the first, if not the first ones, who make a combination of these instruments that give some new sounds and new musical possibilities, said artist Leketic.
According to him, the audience that followed this event was wonderful, which was an additional stimulus for the excellent concert.
– I am from Serbia and from a small one I listened to the “Ohrid Summer”. I think that he is one of the biggest festivals in the Balkans and we were very happy when we received an invitation from the festival to perform, also supported by the Austrian Embassy, added Leketic.
Since their formation in 2013, the duo “Aliada” immediately becomes striking in the world of classical music, resulting in numerous concerts all over the world. In the last season they have performed more than 80 performances on five different continents in prestigious concert halls such as Carnegie Hall, Musikferain in Vienna, Tonhale in Zurich, Hermitage Theater in St. Petersburg, Theater Lago in Chile and many others . Their career begins with the victory of the Fidelio competition where they were unanimously awarded the Grand prix award. Their first album titled “New Colors of the Past” is gaining great criticism, and Duotto Aliada is included in the program “New Austrian Sound of Music 2016-17” financed by the Austrian government.
