Toni Turi sang legendary Kazakh song "Balkadisha" at San Remo

By Zeena Urynbassarova

Toni Turi released new album "Balkadisha"The Italian engineer Tony Turi (former Agip employee) about whom we wrote several times in our newspaper ("The Ambassador of the Neapolitan song in Atyrau", etc.) who decided to change his career of the oil engineer to the singing career, started his rising to musical stardom here, in Atyrau, and he stepped onto the international stage with the Kazakh folk song "Balkadisha" that he sang at San Remo.doc last month. Tony participated in a selection round where he sang our "Balkadisha". It would be interesting to track Tony's evolution as a singer ….

First he sang on local Tandem radio, then he made a musical video clip on the song "Amo te" ("An Italian made a music clip in Atyrau") with the scenes of Atyrau city on the background, from here he travelled to Astrakhan and Taraz cities where he participated in musical competitions and festivals both as the singer and the guest. Then he translated the Kazakh national song "Balkadisha" into Italian and sang it at San Remo.doc. He then released a CD titled "Balkadisha" in Spain where he is going to promote it during his performance at the annual “Festimad” festival in Madrid.

It is obvious that restless Tony seriously undertook the musical career, moreover, he is going to conquer the European stage and he is using as his “marekting ploy” the Kazakh folk song that he once heard and fell in love with, when he lived and worked in Atyrau.

Frankly speaking, Europe only now, in my opinion, started to learn about Kazakh musical culture. UNESCO only last year included the Kazakh kui (instrumental music played on dombra) into the List of world cultural heritage ….

And Tony now is promoting Kazakh folk songs in Europe.

There is one interesting fact connected with the song "Balkadisha". Residents of the African village Kafuta in Gambia decided to change the name of their soccer team to "Balkadish" Tony Turi" after they heard this beautiful song on Internet. Now our "Balkadisha", thanks to Tony, is sung even in Africa.

Meanwhile, Tony plans to promote his album "Balkadisha" in Madrid, where he is going to sing with the Italian tenor Guerino Papa during annual musical event "Festimad" that is held at the end of May in Madrid.

It is pleasant to know that our land inspires people and uncovers their creativity when even "physicists" suddenly want to become "lyrics" as it is the case with Tony Turi.

https://www.facebook.com/toni.turi2.