Phurikane giľa

Curatorial Note

Phurikane giľa: Starodávne rómske piesne documents an extensive ethnomusicological field project led by Jana Belišová among Roma communities in eastern Slovakia. Based on recordings made in thirty-seven Roma settlements between 2001 and 2002, the publication preserves phurikane giľa, an older repertory of slow, emotionally expressive Romani songs associated with grief, hardship, love, family life, memory, and personal experience. The project combines musical transcription, Romani-language song texts, translations, field documentation, photography, illustration, and sound recordings, situating the songs within the communities and individual lives from which they were collected. The accompanying CD contains twenty-eight field recordings from Roma settlements in Slovakia. As both a song collection and a record of community-based ethnomusicological documentation, the volume constitutes an important source for the study of Romani musical traditions, oral transmission, language, and cultural memory in Slovakia.