Stary Olsa

STARY OLSA is a medieval Belarusian music band from Minsk, Belarus. The band was founded in 1999 by its present leader Zmicier Sasnoŭski and now consists of six musicians. Stary means "old" and Olsa is a name of old brook in the west part of Belarus.

Stary Olsa has released 10 studio albums and 3 live albums. The band uses maximal exact copies of old aged instruments such as Belarusian bagpipe, hurdy-gurdy, gusli (Baltic psaltery), svirel (reed pipe), shawms, jew's-harp, Belarusian trumpet, rebec, lute, cister, tromba marina and drums. The band’s music is deeply and inextricably linked to the traditional culture, history and musical traditions of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.

The band's repertoire includes Belarusian folk balladry and martial songs, dances, works of Belarusian Renaissance composers, compositions from aulic music collections (e.g. Polack Notebook, Vilnia Notebook), Belarusian canticles of the 16th - early 17th centuries, as well as European popular melodies of the Middle Ages and Renascence.

Besides its own concerts, the band performs at mediaeval culture festivals, spear-runnings, folklore and music festivals in Eastern and Western Europe, USA.

The band's recent album, “Medieval Classic Rock", is a little different from the others. The band went on a Belarusian TV show in 2014, and performed some modern rock songs on their medieval instruments. The videos went viral, and fans worldwide prompted them to run a Kickstarter campaign for an all-rock album. The campaign was such a success that they not only produced the album, they had enough left to tour the USA. And until you've heard "Iron Man" performed on the hurdy-gurdy, your life is just not complete.
Today's hits are but "a small stop on a long musical continuum." Stary Olsa shows just how much our current musical traditions owe to their medieval roots. Come listen to living history and party like it’s 1499!