Part of what makes Birmingham Suzuki Violinists different is our study of the folk music of other cultures. Beyond the well-graded studies of the Suzuki Method, its classical repertoire, along with a healthy diet of ever popular American and Irish fiddle music, BSV students are also distinguished for performing a wide variety of world folk musics! Two years ago, our students learned a generous selection of folk songs from their own family heritages. This included music from China, Mexico, Japan , East Africa, and folk ragas from South India. You can see from these photos examples of the cultural music we have explored. We performed our multi-cultural program as part of the Birmingham International Festival, at Deer Valley School, at our Spring Concert at ASFA,and finally at the GBMEA (Greater Birmingham Music Educators Association) Spring String Festival.

In 2015 we were invited to perform at Birmingham’s Day of the Dead, one of the top 10 festivals in the U.S.A. We repeated our all Mexican show again in the Spring of 2016 at Magic City Art Festival.

This year our focus is the catchy dances polkas of Poland, the romance of gypsy music of Ukraine and Russia, Yiddish, Klezmer, and the music Eastern Europe! We are having fun with the distinctive scales, the sound, and the fresh to our ears quality of the repertoire.
Of course, we have a healthy dose of Irish and American fiddle music always ready!