About Petra

Petra Nachtmanova was born in Vienna to a Polish mother and a Czech father. Since the early childhood she has been exposed to different cultures and styles of music, always searching for the connecting elements between them. Her musical paths have led her from the capital of Classical Music through Renaissance and Baroque music in England, local Chinese Pop Idol in Ningbo, Bulgarian Polyphonic choirs, Turkish Bağlama Music as far as the Persian Radif Tradition.

As a singer and as a researcher of folk music and poetry Petra focuses on Eastern Europe, Central Asia and the Middle East.  Living in Berlin since 2008 she has sung with the Bulgarian Folk Ensembles Bulgarian Voices Berlin and Peperuda, and she has been a founding member of the Berliner band Tralalka playing traditional Eastern European songs in new arrangements. Her work on Turkish Music and the Bağlama has been developing since 2010. Since then she has performed on ITV Public Television in Azerbaijan, on the Turkish Radio Metropol FM, and she has represented Austria in the International TRT Türkcevizyon Festival 2014  in Denizli.  As a researcher she is working together with the film director Stephan Talneau on the documentary film project about Bağlama and related instruments, SAZFilm.

Petra is fluent in German, Turkish, English, French, Italian, Russian, Polish and Czech, and able to communicate and work in other related languages.

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