Vilk Collective
Vilk Collective
St George’s Bristol - Glass Room - Sunday 15th December 2024
“a virtuoso trip, utterly beautiful” - BBC Introducing
“Vilk Collective are an utterly unique proposition, there are elements of jazz, dub, funk, hip hop, Iran and Cuba that combine so well it’s a testament to the skill of the band and the music itself. Most importantly though, Vilk Collective have a groove that anyone can lock into.” - Chris Knight Director of Kelburn Garden Party Festival.
“Simply sublime! Your set warmed my heart and raised my spirits even higher than they normally are. I just love the depth of your lyrics & the beauty of the pulses & chords you choose to convey your meaningful messages. I really enjoyed the relaxed way that you engaged the audience's participation. I automatically found myself joining in at those parts - it works wonderfully.” Eugene Skeef, South African curator of Act4Music Jazz Festival
Vilk Collective at its core, is creative duo Roxana Vilk and Peter Vilk, both musicians and award winning filmmakers, who met in Bosnia just after the war. Conflict was a backdrop to both their childhoods, Roxana grew up in Iran and her family fled as the Iran/Iraq war started. Pete was born in London but his parents grew up in the old Czechoslovakia and had fled to London when the Russian tanks invaded in 1968.
They both grew up listening to eclectic music from Iranian Folk songs & Persian Funk to Czech Jazz & Punk. At the heart of their artistic approach is collaboration - for 15 years they recorded & performed with top musicians like Yann Seznec on Keys (Mathew Herbert), Allan Ferguson on Bass (Freaky Family), Dougie Hudson on Percussion (Salsa Celtica)
BBC TV and BBC Persian have filmed Vilk Collective for 3 separate music programmes & recorded live sessions at The Premise Studios, London and they were selected for the UK Jazz Expo. They were selected to perform for the ‘Housewarming’ opening of the new Bristol Beacon on the 2nd of Dec 2023, as well as performing at St George’s Bristol as part of their Listening Room programme.
They were recently artists in residence at Trinity Community Arts Centre and developed a community music project called Lullabies where they collected songs and heritage stories from across communities, celebrating over 96 languages that are spoken in the city. Their Lullabies project was awarded a Here and There community music award which led to them developing a show called Circle/دایره , a new immersive performance of live music in Persian and English work grown out of an artistic collaboration between award winning light installation artists Squidsoup and award winning musicians Vilk Collective. With sold out shows at Trinity, The Egg theatre, Bristol Beacon, Arnolfini and St Mary’s Fratton, Freedom Festival Hull and the Immersive 360 Dome Plymouth. The tour was funded by Arts Council England.
They released their single “Just Disappeared” featuring renowned Cellist Su-a Lee (Scottish Chamber Orchestra) The music video won 2nd Grand Prix du Jury at AVIFF Cannes Festival and Best Artist Award at New Renaissance Film Festival London.
They are currently recording, mixing & collaborating with Bristol musicians for a series of singles and an album release in 2025
LINKS
https://www.facebook.com/vilkcollective
https://vilkcollective.bandcamp.com
https://www.instagram.com/vilkcollective
https://soundcloud.com/vilkcollective