Kočani Orkestar

Kočani Orkestar is a Romani brass band from Kočani in North Macedonia, also credited as Kocani Orkestar or Kochani Orchestra. Their music grows out of the tradition of Turkish army bands and draws on Romani music from across the Balkans and on Turkish rhythms, with a touch of Latin flavour.

The orchestra began as a family band. It was founded and led by Ahmed Veliov, whose family settled in Kočani around 1913; his son Hikmet, a first trumpet, took over, and later Hikmet's son, the trumpeter Naat Veliov, born in Kočani on 25 May 1957. Under Naat the band became known internationally, helped by the success of Emir Kusturica's film Time of the Gypsies in 1988 and by Europe's new interest in Balkan sounds.

Their first album for foreign markets, A Gypsy Brass Band, came out in 1995. L'Orient est rouge, recorded in 1997 in the studio of Macedonian Radio-Television in Skopje and released by the Belgian label Crammed Discs, took them on an international tour, and Rolling Stone later gave it four stars. Gypsy Mambo followed in 1999.

That autumn the band split over music, production and money: Naat Veliov went on as King Naat Veliov Original Kočani Orkestar, while Ismail Saliev kept the name with other players. After Saliev's death in January 2008 most of the musicians returned and the orchestra played again in almost its first line-up. Ulixes (2001), made with the Italian Harmonia Ensemble, Alone at My Wedding (2002) and The Ravished Bride (2008) are among their albums.

"Siki, siki baba" from Alone at My Wedding was used on the soundtrack of the film Borat, which brought the band a new audience; Naat Veliov joined Esma Redžepova in a lawsuit over the unauthorised use of their music. Kočani Orkestar have played the Mozart hall in Vienna and a jazz-rock festival in Denmark before a crowd of 100,000, recorded with the Italian singer Vinicio Capossela and the Israeli singer Meira Asher, and written music for films and Turkish TV advertisements.