Biography
The Nightingale Trio is an all-woman vocal group devoted to studying and celebrating the rich women’s vocal traditions of Eastern Europe and the Balkans. With sounds that could fill a hall and the tight harmonies of a family band, the Nightingale Trio captures this amazing tradition’s incomparable richness, dizzying rhythms, and raw, earthy power. An emerging force on the global folk music scene, the Nightingale Trio serves as emissaries of the deep women’s folk tradition from Eastern Europe.
“Love Songs,” The Nightingale Trio’s newest release, showcases the trio’s musical breadth alongside the nuanced interpretation that the three women have become known for. From the heartbreaking story song “Devoiko,” sung almost like a lullaby between lovers, to the upbeat “Zamruknala e Xubava Jana”, the trio doesn’t miss a beat. The EP features compositions by two of the Trio’s favorite women composers: “Yo Hanino Tu Hanina,” arranged by Ayanna Woods (Yadda-Yadda/Chicago IL, featured in “Place” by Ted Hearne/Saul Williams at BAM/New York), and “In Droysn Iz Finster” by Olga Amelkina-Vera (winner of the 2017-18 American Prize in Composition, Dallas TX). Love Songs is songs of love in many forms: songs of courting, of longing, of the devotion of an artist or a learner; of the love in tending a hearth.
Nila Bala, Sarah Larsson, and Rachel LaViola met as students at Yale, and have performed as The Nightingale Trio since 2013. The Nightingale Trio has performed on “A Prairie Home Companion,” and collaborated with Prairie Fire Lady Choir, Ethnic Dance Theater, Sara Pajunen, Aida Shahghasemi, Siama Matuzungidi, Hummingbirds, and vocal ensemble ARTEMIS. In 2019, the Trio was awarded 3rd Place in the Irish International A Cappella Competition in Dublin. Other performance highlights include Zlatne Uste Golden Festival (NYC), Cedar Cultural Center (Minneapolis), ArtScape (Baltimore), Capital Fringe Festival (DC), Basilica Cathedral of St. Joseph (San Jose), and St. Mark’s Episcopal Cathedral (Minneapolis). The Trio has studied vocal technique and music of the Balkans and Eastern Europe with master-singers Tsvetanka Varimezova (Bulgaria), Petrana Koutcheva (Bulgaria), Drazen Kurilovcan (Croatia), Bojana Djordjevic (Serbia), and Mary Sherhart (Bosnia). The Nightingale Trio has commissioned and arranged new music with funding from the Howard B. and Ruth F. Brin Jewish Arts Endowment, Minnesota State Arts Board, and commissions from choirs around the U.S. and Europe. Since 2016, the Nightingale Trio has been engaged in collaboration with emerging women composers from across the U.S. The Trio tours together while maintaining day jobs and study in the fields of law, cultural anthropology, and software engineering.
Recommended if you like: Kitka, The Wailin’ Jennys, Mountain Man, I’m With Her, Beirut, Balkan Beat Box, Les Mysteres Des Voix Bulgares
Nina Bala
Sunnyvale, California
Nila Bala was brought up singing South Indian carnatic music. She graduated from Stanford with a degree in Human Biology, then worked as a preschool teacher. Later, Nila decided to go to law school at Yale, where she was lucky enough to meet and sing with the lovely women of the Yale Women’s Slavic Chorus. In 2014-2016 Nila served as an Assistant Public Defender in Baltimore City. Today, Nila is Associate Director of criminal justice policy and a senior fellow at R Street Institute. In her spare time, she enjoys working out, arts & crafts, attending festivals and fairs, reading, and most of all, singing with the Nightingale Trio!
Rachel LaViola
Dallas, Texas
Rachel LaViola is a Dallas native who grew up studying musical theatre, but discovered a deep love of world-folk music in college, where she sang with the Yale Women’s Slavic Chorus. She has since performed in a variety of ensembles with repertoires ranging from folk to funk. In 2013, she co-founded The Obscure Dignitaries, a five-human collective that showcases traditional world-folk music infused with global pop and modern, jazz-tinged harmonies and rhythms. Rachel recently completed a degree in Computer Science at the University of Texas in Dallas, specializing in Computer Imaging and Artificial Intelligence, and currently works as a software engineer.
Sarah Larsson
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Sarah Larsson, anthropologist by training, likes to say that her day job is listening to people’s stories. Sarah’s outreach work with the Somali Museum of Minnesota means that she gets to talk with fascinating community members every day, while helping to start a new cultural resource in Minnesota. Sarah studied in Bosnia, Serbia, and Croatia, where she learned folk music from grandmothers and virtuosos. Sarah’s musical background is a combination of classical Western choral and orchestral music, Broadway show tunes, and American folk music around campfires. She first heard Eastern European music as sung by the Yale Women’s Slavic Chorus, who melted her heart with the first minor second. She also performs with world-fusion band FireFlyForest, and duo The Lacewings.