Roby Lakatos, the semi-official "King
of the Gypsy Violin," and his group gave a concert at the Hungarian
Embassy on May 1.
The Lakatos family, featuring seven
generations of violinists, has long established its honored place in the
pantheon of outstanding Hungarian musical performers.
The family's history begins with Janos
Bihari, the favorite violinist of the Habsburgs. His mastery two centuries
ago so amazed Franz Liszt that the composer was moved to create his
immortal Hungarian Rhapsodies. Subsequent generations of the family were
equally lauded across Europe.
Roby Lakatos' father settled in Paris,
making a living with the help of the excellent violin that he had
inherited from his uncle. His daughter, who is now 15, has already
mastered the most intricate "family secrets" of playing gypsy
music.
Roby Lakatos graduated from the Budapest
Conservatory, becoming the first member of the family to receive a formal
musical education. He started his career in Brussels, playing in a
restaurant called "The Gypsy Orchestra" that was frequented by
the cream of the violin world - Yehudi Menuhin, Maxim Vengerov, and Vadim
Repin among others.
The members of Lakatos' ensemble are:
guitarist and cymbalon player Ernest Bango, second violinist Laszlo Boni,
pianist Kalman Cseki and bassist Oscar Nemet. The group played classical
gipsy tunes along with jazzy transcriptions of popular melodies
intertwined with Latin motifs.
The band was joined on stage by Ambassador Simonyi on
guitar and Charity Tilleman-Dick on vocals
