News

We gladly present to you first single from our upcoming album currently in works. This track is some kind of bridge between our old and new sound. Album will be based on one of most popular medieval collection of songs "Cantigas de Santa Maria". It’s monophonic paraliturgical songs written in Galician-Portuguese (also known as Old Portuguese or Medieval Galician) in mensural notation. Cantigas were performed during church celebrations. Virgin Mary and all of her virtues and miracles are praised in those songs. Their stories are about life of Alfonso X El Sabio and his family, and local legends and tales. Big and small miracles are praised in cantigas such as: story how Virgin Mary defeated basilisk an dragon in Toledo, how she saved drunken monks sinking in the river near Salamanca, how she cured dying horse, punished thiefs, helped monks to get water against will of greedy knight and many more… The song what we present to you called "Como poden per sas culpas", tells the story of a man who suffered an illness that twisted his limbs and left him crippled because of his sins. He stayed that way for five years. He vowed that if he were cured he would take a quantity of wax to Salas every year. He was immediately cured. Without delay, he went to Salas with the wax. Although he had not walked for a long time, he was nimble and felt no pain.They thanked and praised Mary for the miracle.

This promo video shows bits of our “Rota Fortunae” program accompanied by fantastic show extravaganza from the Al'entrada Studio of Historical Dance!

We would like to introduce to you our new band member Marta Hovdysh. Welcome to our musical family!

We had a nice small tour this summer - a concert in Folkklubs Ala Pagrabs (Riga, Latvia), and several concerts in Finland: two-days festival Verlan Aika and incredible event in Raseborg castle - "Night of the Myths".

Some concert videos we want to share with you :

Also we recorded this video while living in the finnish forest :)

Friends!

Friends! Finally we have a lot of news after long time-out!
Also we have plenty of plans and new ideas as well. :)
And we will start with our nearest concerts:

- 4th of August - concert in Folkklubs Ala Pagrabs club, Riga, Latvia.
- 6th and 7th of August - Verlan Aika keskiaikatapahtuma festival, Finland.
- 13th of August – we take part in Myyttikestit (The Night of the Myths) in Raasepori castle in Finland.
- Second part of august (TBD) – concert in Ґенеза/Geneza art-cafe Kolomyya, Ukraine
- 17 of September – we take part in ball in Svirzh castle, Ukraine.

Our beloved listeners!

With the great joy we want to inform you that our new album "Rota Fortunae" - songs on vagants lyrics from the XIII ct. "Carmina Burana" is allready out! You could buy it in digital form on Bandcamp. In approximatelly three weeks where would be posibility to buy physical CD, in form of 3 panel digipack with colourful booklet.

We hope you will enjoy our new work!

   We want to invite you into medieval times!
Presentation of our new album «Rota Fortunae» will be accompanied by fantastic show extravaganza from the Historical Dance Theatre "Al'entrada"! Songs from the collection of vagant lyrics "Codex Buranus" (XIII ct.), dances, colorfull costumes and spirit of past times in the new project «Rota Fortunae» (Wheel Of Fortune). All of this you could see during our new incredible event:

17th of May in Lviv! (you can buy tickets here gastroli.ua
21st of May in Kiev! (you can buy tickets on entrance)

   Brave knights, dames in love, hardworking peasants, which will gather on spring celebration, heroes of favorite legends, mytchical creatures and normal citizents of medieval town are waiting for you. Fortune will smille to some of them, and Death with sharp scythe will come to others. Isn't it what we call life? So we invite you to this fantastic event!

   It’s time to tell about the event, we been working on for three years already and been intriguing our listeners with it recently!


   From ancient times Wheel of Fortune holds not the last place in symbolism and is extremely relevant in our time. A turn of Wheels of Fortune knows no mercy, it symbolizes the great global rotation, which has no payoff in advance for anybody - all men are equal. Anyone who is now at the top tomorrow will be humbled; one who is now at the bottom, tomorrow gets up to the top.
   Wheel of Fortune, in its cosmic aspects represents the idea of cyclical time, as opposed to linear time; it is the embodiment of eternal cycle of life, a symbol of world order. In the architecture it was represent as gothic rose.In Rome fate was called Fortune and had the same meaning. Later, in Christian times, Fortune was perceived as happiness and unhappiness as two forces that affect a person: light - angel behind the right shoulder, and dark - devil, looking out of the left shoulder.
   In the early centuries of the Middle Ages image of Fortune in popular culture became more close with Germanic notions of destiny, which included "happiness" and "unhappiness", "success" and "failure", "fate" and "luck." This convergence is reflected in the heroic epic and skalds poetry. Winged Fortune served as a prototype of Christian angels.
   Fortune took a special place in the culture of the West European High Middle Ages. We find her figure in medieval manuscripts in verses of troubadours and vagants; even medieval jurists applied interpretation of Fortune in legal incidents, not to mention the fact that Fortune - one of the favorite themes of medieval philosophy.
   Symbol of Wheel of Fortune was reflected in many medieval treatises, «Carmina Burana» among them also known as the «Codex Buranus» - an illustrated manuscript of the XIII century, a handwritten poetry collection (currently located at the National Library of Munich).
   Name of the manuscript in Latin means "Songs of Boyern" (the manuscript was found in 1803 in medieval monastery Beuern, now in Benediktbeuern, Bavaria). This is the largest known collection of vagants poetry made in southern Germany in the XIII century; it has 315 texts of various sizes.
   Early music ensemble “Kings & Beggars” is proud to present to the public the new album «Rota Fortunae» (Wheel of Fortune) based on lyrics from this manuscript in May. Kyiv historical dance theater Al'entrada will decorate the album presentation with fantastic action extravaganza performance with extremely bright costumes and interesting stories.

This medieval musical theater performance and album presentation will take place in Lviv (May 17) and Kyiv (May 21)
P.S . The author of cover art - artist Juliana Romaniv.