Sheet music by Basil Bunelik

I was born in England in the middle of last century, but had a musical education in Lviv in Ukraine, where we lived for a couple of years, as my mother is Ukranian. We moved to London in the early 60’s and continued to be involved in Ukranian folk culture. In the 70’s I started to play accordion for The Balalaika Dance Group and also for the Society for International Folk Dance. In the 80’s I formed a professional group - Troika - which performed the folk music of East Europe. I became interested in many types of East European folk music especially Romanian, and was awarded a British Council grant to visit Romania in 1988. In the 90’s I teamed up with John Holden, one of the few virtuoso Balalaika players in the west and we played a variety of venues including a residency at the Royal Savoy in Lausanne. I became involved more and more with jewish ’klezmer’ music principally through Merlin Shepherd who was playing with Troika around 1990 and I was awarded a grant by The Jewish Music Institute to form a community band in Exeter called CITY STREETS to perform the music of East European Jews in Devon. in 2001 I formed Piaffinitee which performed the chansons of Edith Piaf venues all over UK. Now under the name of Affinitee we present the best of French chansons and accordion musette music.