Lisa has been playing Klezmer and Eastern European music for the past 20 years. Her interest in this rich folk tradition began when she lived in Greece, where she first encountered the intoxicating beauty of Balkan dance music and song. On returning to England, she pursued this further by participating in the annual Klezfests in London, and the workshops run by Basil and Merlin Shepherd in Exeter. More recently, she has immersed herself in Hungarian gypsy music, especially the music and songs originating from the villages of the Carpathian Basin of Central Europe. She has performed on violin, accordion and vocals in various bands, including Devon based 'Hazaar', as well as with Basil for the last decade.
Basil Bunelik started his musical training in 1960 in Lviv, Ukraine largely based on folk music of the Soviet Union. Later, in London, he joined the Balalaika Dance Group, playing accordion for them and also Mazeppa Cossacks. He then moved to Devon to work for Dartington Music College and formed Troika which performed East European music throughout the UK and abroad for about ten years. In 1988 he was awarded a British Council grant to study folk music in Romania and in 2001 he was awarded a grant from the Jewish Music Institute to run a series of klezmer workshops and concerts in Devon, and more recently, in 2015 he was invited to perform and give klezmer workshops in Malta.
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Rupert McDonald known as Rupes McD is a professional guitarist with many ongoing activities including teaching at Exeter Guitar School and performing in blues bands as well as Hazzar where he first encountered and became enraptured by klezmer and gypsy
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