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| Roby Lakatos, virtuoso fiddler... | |
b i o g r a p h y...........back to roster....up March 2007 Equally comfortable performing classical, jazz, and his native Hungarian folk idiom, celebrated virtuoso fiddler Roby Lakatos is a phenomenon who defies easy categorization. Conjuring a 19th century sense of romanticism, Lakatos displays strength as an interpreter that derives from his Roma heritage and experience as a composer and arranger, an improviser, a band leader, and consummate listener. "His playing, its immense control and exuberant inventiveness defied belief. I doubt whether I've ever seen a musician of such calm strength and charisma," gushes the Daily Telegraph. Adds the Times: "Roby Lakatos who, accompanied by his lugubrious but talented five-piece 'Gypsy Band', slithered and scampered his way - at about 100 notes a second - through four show stoppers, each more preposterously exuberant than the last." Lakatos has performed at the great halls and festivals of Europe and Asia. And following his recent highly successful debuts at UCLA Live and a sold-out performance at Carnegie’s Zankel Hall, he is now quickly expanding his presence in the United States. During the 06/07 season he debuts with the Minnesota Orchestra, Spokane Symphony, Stanford Lively Arts, the La Jolla Music Society and the University of Denver. Performances at the Grant Park Festival in Chicago and the Florida International Festival in Daytona follow in July 2007. Recent engagements have taken him to Tokyo, Istanbul, Singapore and the symphonies of Essen and Malmo. He has also been heard at Santa Cecilia in Rome, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, and with the Orchestre National de Radio France and the Dresden Philharmonic. In March 2004, Lakatos appeared to great acclaim with the London Symphony Orchestra in the "Genius of the Violin" festival alongside Maxim Vengerov. The Ensemble’s unusual appeal has brought about collaborations with some of today’s most famous musicians, including Giora Feidman, Herbie Hancock, Joshua Bell, Nigel Kennedy, Vadim Repin, Stéphane Grappelli and Randy Brecker. Sir Yehudi Menuhin was a great fan, always making a point of visiting the club Lakatos played at in the early nineties. When Zubin Mehta first heard Lakatos he spontaneously invited him to perform as a guest in a production of Die Fledermaus at the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich. In 1999, he debuted in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Japan where he now tours on a regular basis. Lakatos’ discography reflects his diverse interests in repertoire. His 1998 debut CD on Deutsche Grammophon, titled Lakatos, includes works by Kodály and Brahms, as well as music from John Williams’ score for Schindler’s List and Charles Aznavour’s La Bohème. It received the prestigious German ECHO-KLASSIK AWARD the following year. A follow-up CD, Lakatos: Live from Budapest, was released in 1999 and mixes jazz and gypsy idioms with contemporary and classical elements. As Time Goes By, also on DG, followed in 2002 and includes masterpieces from such films as: Fiddler on the Roof, Once Upon a Time in America and many others in arrangements by Kalman Cséki and Roby Lakatos. Fire Dance was released on the Avantijazz label, and his latest disc, Klezmer Karma, a collaboration with the Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra on AvantiClassic hit stores in late 2006. Born in 1965 into the legendary family of Gypsy violinists descended from Janos Bihari, "King of Gypsy Violinists," Roby Lakatos was introduced to music as a child and at age nine he made his public debut as first violin in a Gypsy band. His musicianship evolved not only within his own family but also at the Béla Bartók Conservatory of Budapest, where he won the first prize for classical violin in 1984.
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r e v i e w s...........back to roster....up "The diminutive Lakatos, who plays Gypsy violin, may also be one of the fastest virtuosos the instrument has ever seen. But in the world of performance art, size matters little. Lakatos, who was making his Madison debut, may not have attracted the largest crowd the Capitol Theater ever held, but it easily was the most enthusiastic one. [...]The familiar Gypsy violin sound was given added depth by Lakatos, a direct descendent of Janos Bihari, considered the king of Gypsy violinists. His self-effacing style won the audience early, and his massive skills kept them in the palm of his hand throughout the performance." - Madison Capital Times An impassioned Lakatos Spans Genres on the Violin "If violinist Roby Lakatos were paid on the basis of how many notes he plays in any given performance, he'd probably be the richest musician in the world. His performance Saturday night at Royce Hall was a stunning display of finger-blurring virtuosity. But it was much more, as well. Start with the fact that Lakatos' six-piece ensemble, a contemporized version of a Hungarian tzigane gypsy band, played a set that defied stylistic definition. Traditional numbers, delivered with dark intensity, alternated with such unexpected entries as Michel Legrand's "Papa, Can You Hear Me?" (from the film "Yentl"). Rhythms shifted from gypsy dances to tangos and jazz. Genre boundaries were washed away. Lakatos, whose most explosive phrases were often paralleled by the equally virtuosic playing of second violinist Lászlo Bóni, cruised through all this with ease. In the process, he offered what was, in essence, a master display of the length and breadth of his instrument, from rich balladry on the G string to stratospheric high harmonics, from impossibly rapid pizzicatos to even more astonishing bowed passages. Gypsy numbers showcased his slippery, emotion-driven phrasing. More classically oriented pieces triggered a precise approach. Then, in the program's third number, Lakatos suddenly leapt into jazz improvisation mode for "Honeysuckle Rose," ripping off a convincing, hard-swinging solo bursting with fast-paced bebop lines. The support from his players was flawless. Most have been with Lakatos for more than a decade, and their sense of symbiosis was present on every number. Cimbalom player Ernest Bangó was a virtuoso in his own right, and guitarist Attila Rontó added Hungarian-style scat vocalizing to his jazz-tinged acoustic playing. Pianist Kálman Cséki provided a subdued but vital harmonic presence, and Oszká Németh's bass was the music's propulsive rhythmic engine. Lakatos arrived at Royce as a relatively unknown quantity -- a sort of "devil's fiddler" throwback to the Paganini-like styles of the 19th century. But by the time he was finished, his mesmerizing playing had captivated his listeners, who understandably insisted upon several encores before they would allow him to leave the stage." Don Heckman, Los Angeles Times "With his boxer's frame, moustache and long jacket, he could have walked out of an 1860s daguerreotype. As for his playing, its immense control and exuberant inventiveness defied belief. I doubt whether I've ever seen a musician of such calm strength and charisma." |