Family R
Teodosievski / Redžepova
Esma Redžepova
Macedonian Roma — Skopje
Style: Balkan Romani brass & wedding
Esma Redžepova with Stevo Teodosievski’s ensemble. BBC: died in Skopje, 11 December 2016, aged 73, after a short illness — hospital and family. Guardian: born in Skopje’s old town in the war years; married Stevo in 1968.
BBC, 11 December 2016: Macedonia’s “Romany music queen” died in Skopje after a short illness, according to hospital and family. Age 73. One of the first vocalists to sing in the Romani language on that public scale.
Guardian obituary, 14 December 2016: born in Skopje’s old town in the war; father Ibrahim Redžepova, shoeshine; mother Canija, seamstress. Stevo Teodosievski, accordionist and bandleader, asked the father to let her join the ensemble. They married in 1968.
Guardian: in 1976, performing in Chandigarh, India, the couple were given the honorary titles of Queen and King of Gypsy Music. That is the Guardian’s wording of an honorary title, not a parish register, and not filed here as a World Romani Congress act.
The Skopje house planned as a museum is not a working public room. Macedonian reporting of a looted building is listed under Later.
Library of Congress Homegrown, 2016: Esma Redžepova & Folk Masters Play Romani (Gypsy) & Macedonian Music. The word Gypsy is in the Library’s title. She died later that year.
Esma Redzepova died in Skopje following a short illness, according to hospital and family sources.
Lineage
Birth and death on a vertical line — generation by generation. Places are listed where we could find them.
Generation 1
Esma Redžepova
Voice · 1943–2016
Born 1943 · Skopje, old town — Died 11 December 2016 · Skopje
BBC death; Guardian birth in the old town. Day of birth not filed from a second notice here.
Generation 2
Stevo Teodosievski
Accordion, bandleader
Guardian: asked her father; married 1968. Exact birth and death days wait for a second Macedonian notice.
Orchestra years
When the band was founded, when it split, when a new generation took the stand.
1968
Generation joins
Marriage — voice and accordion
Teodosievski ensemble
Guardian: she married Stevo Teodosievski in 1968, after he asked her father to let her join the ensemble.
1976
Rename
Honorary titles in Chandigarh
Esma and Stevo
Guardian: in 1976, performing in Chandigarh, India, honorary titles Queen and King of Gypsy Music — the Guardian’s wording.
Neighbours
Same country or city, but a different way of playing.