Otava Yo

Otava Yo turns Russian folk songs into powerful dance music, a new Russian Beat.

  • You must be logged in to see the company address and website.
public contact
  • You must be logged in to see the public contact.
business contact
  • You must be logged in to see the business contact.

A group of professional folk musicians in St. Petersburg, Russia, spontaneously got together in 2005 and formed Otava Yo as a side project. They wanted to create new interpretations of Russian folk music, accessible to all audiences, and to revive old favorite Soviet tunes
After working on its "Russian beat" concept for three years the band released a new album, "Once Upon a Time."

Some call them "modern buffoons", others describe the music as "communal flat groove", and both are true. Otava Yo serves up its music in a vigorous manner with a good dose of humor, mixing up overdriven traditional Russian instruments with a stereotypical Russian look, which simultaneously frightens and attracts the tourists.
Witty song introductions emerged with the music, livening up already energetic performances. The band is very popular in its home city of St. Petersburg, playing some 80 concerts a year at various venues and events. 2010 and 2011 were especially successful - Otava Yo played at several well known European folk festivals, breaking records in festival CD sales and
meeting the President of Estonia; made its first music video; received an award from Bratislava’s Humor Academy; and produced a play based on Russian Christmas songs, to be released on an album in December 2011.

Instrumentation
Alexey Belkin - vocals, Russian fife, gusli (Russian psaltery), bagpipe
Dmitry Shikhardin - vocals, fiddle
Alexey Skosyrev - vocals, acoustic guitar
Petr Sergeev - darbuca, bass drum
Yulia Usova - vocals, violin
Timur Sigidin - bass guitar

participating in

  • WOMEX 2023
  • WOMEX 2022
  • WOMEX 2019
  • WOMEX 2018
  • WOMEX 2017
  • WOMEX 2016
  • WOMEX 2015
  • WOMEX 2014
  • WOMEX 2013
  • WOMEX 2012
  • WOMEX 2011
  • WOMEX 2009
  • WOMEX 2008
  • WOMEX 2007

Members

You must be logged in to see the company members.

Ads

Russian folk group Otava Yo presents new videoclip!

After 8 months of hard work russian folk group...

Otava Yo releases new live video

Russian folk band Otava Yo presents new live...

News

Otava Yo has released the new video

Russian folk group Otava Yo has released the new...

Otava Yo's new video

Russian folk-group Otava Yo has release the new...

Russian group Otava Yo presents it's new video!

Russian group Otava Yo (Womex official selection...

Russian post-folk group Reelroad released first video!

Russian post-folk group Reelroad has released...

Otava Yo has released the film-concert

Russian folk-group Otava Yo (Womex official...

Otava Yo has released the new live video

Russian folk group Otava Yo (official Womex...

Otava Yo presented new videoclip

The Russian folk group Otava Yo is happy to show...