Kate Conklin, Fulbright Student, Academy of Music, Dance, and Fine Arts, AY 2001-2002

In 2021, Kate Conklin and Bryan Landers released their debut album entitled Mesechinko Ljo (Dear Little Moon). This is a fantastic collection of voice and banjo duets featuring the intricate melodies, striking harmonies, and complex rhythms of Bulgarian folk music, wildly reimagined. Bulgaria’s rich and storied past is written between the lines on the record, with songs drawn from across the nation’s many culturally and geographically distinct regions, but the collection is far more than just a time capsule or travelogue. Conklin’s vocal performances are a reflection of her two decades of singing the highly resonant and ornamented folk music of Bulgaria, and Landers’ instrumental settings are extraordinarily innovative and adventurous, utilizing a variety of unusual techniques to craft intricately textured sonic landscapes inspired by the melodies, lyrics, and history of each track. The result is an album that’s at once traditional and groundbreaking, a virtuosic cultural exploration that transcends beyond mere tribute to achieve something genuinely revelatory. More information about the album plus three official lyric videos are available at https://www.dearlittlemoon.com/