Hojsak and Novosel with Teodosii Spasov in Osor on August 23 - the man who first played jazz on the kaval

The duo Hojsak and Novosel, with Teodosii Spasov on kaval, play Osor's main square on August 23, 2026, starting at 9 pm. Kaval, double bass and tambura is a line-up that does not exist as a genre, and that is exactly why it is worth hearing.

Teodosii Spasov was born on March 4, 1961 in Isperih, Bulgaria, and was the first to start playing jazz on the kaval. Mixing traditional folk music with elements of jazz and classical music is the basis of nearly all his original compositions. The kaval is a folk instrument with a limited technical range in its traditional use, and Spasov is the man who showed that the range was a question of repertoire, not of the instrument.

Croatian musicians Tihomir Hojsak on double bass and Filip Novosel on tambura created the album „Duckling Soup” with Spasov, a combination rarely encountered not only on the Croatian but on the world scene. The pairing works because both the tambura and the kaval are instruments with their own folk history, which means the meeting is not exotica but a conversation between two traditions on the same ground.

Osor's main square is an open space, unlike the church that hosts the rest of the Osor Music Evenings, and that gives this ensemble a completely different sonic picture. Tickets range from 10 to 15 euros, roughly 616 to 924 denars, sold through entrio.hr.