Gosti

Formed in September 2020 and originally named the Beier•Griffin•Pollak Trio, Gosti took on its new name after performing at WOMADelaide 2023. The trio brings together three multi-talented musicians who have over many years played together in various combinations. Some of their previous groups are Ross Daly’s Australian Labyrinth, Dva, dididumdum, Makedonski Bop and The Balkanics.

Each player brings a diverse pack of cards to the table.

Tunji Beier at the age of ten was studying Yoruba drumming in Nigeria. Six years later he travelled to Bangalore in South India to study percussion for three years at the Karnakata College of Percussion under the mentorship of Mr TAS Mani. This intense period of study enables Tunji to bring his mastery of the mridangam, kanjira, ghattam and morsing to the instrumentation of Gosti.

Philip Griffin’s extraordinary talents defy categorisation as they cross so many areas of musical activity. In his own words, “Since the 1980s I have been playing music in a wide variety of styles, photographing all kinds of things (but particularly birds and reptiles), making videos, teaching, music directing and quite a few other activities besides” – that’s an understatement. In this trio he plays oud, electric bass, rabab, guitar, balalaika and ukulele.

Linsey Pollak discovered a bamboo grove when he was 19 and has been making and designing wind instruments ever since. While making instruments in London in the 1970s, he travelled to Macedonia to study the gaida (Macedonian bagpipes) for eight months; an experience that changed his life. Since then he has created dozens of varied music projects and toured his solo shows all over the world. In this trio he plays his self-made instruments – cylisax, hybrid duduk, clarinis, gaidanet, Crow and Donna.

The music played by Gosti is mostly original compositions by Linsey. These are strongly influenced by Macedonian traditional music with a focus on rhythmic variation and non-Western modes. However, each of the three players brings a diverse array of sounds, skills, styles, and emotional content to the music that develops and extends each of the compositions. The real strength of the trio lies with the journeys that these pieces are taken by way of the improvisations and solos of all three players and also by the ease with which they all play and improvise together. The sound of Gosti is fresh, but listeners can also hear the maturity and depth that long-term musical partnerships can bestow.

(Promotional photos by Simon Woods for Sunshine Coast Chamber Music Festival 2023)