Bela Lakatos

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At approximately 750.000, Hungary has one of the world`s largest Roma populations. It is a land with a rich tradition in classical music (Bartok, Kodaly, Liszt). Today in Hungary, there are two distinct worlds of Gypsy music: rural folk (performed almost exclusively for the Gypsy community) and `restaurant music` (performed primarily for tourists). In fact, most tourists in Hunagry will only see `restaurant music`. Eating establishments in Budapest and throughout Hungary regularly have small Gypsy orchestras consisting of several fiddlers, bass, vocalists and cimbolom players dressed in elaborate costumes to entertain the patrons. In 1989, Gusztav Varga (founder of the legendary Hungarian Gypsy band Kalyi Jag) teamed up with the singer and arranger Bela Lakatos and a group of young musicians who still spoke Romany as their mother tounge. Their mission was to ensure the survival of the Gypsy folk songs from the Szabolcs-Szatmar-Bereg region and to launch the `next generation` of Hungarian Gypsy music. The project is particularly fitting for Kalyi Jag, a group that has founded a cultural centre in Budapest. Their goals include ending segregation in Hungarian schools and housing, as well as helping to launch more than sixty Roma musical ensembles - among them, Bela Lakatos & The Gypsy Youth Project. Bela Lakatos % The Gypsy Youth Project began by collecting traditional rural Gypsy folk songs, and many of them gathered on these research expeditions, are featured on this recording

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