Cultural Dessert

Fanfare Ciocarlia

Regular readers will know about my enthusiasm for Balkan Gypsy brass music. 2007 looks like being a vintage year for British fans of Balkan brass with Kocani Orkestar, the Boban Markovic Orkestar and Fanfare Ciocarlia all visiting the UK. On Wednesday I was at the Barbican in London to see the award-winning Romanian Gypsy brass band, Fanfare Ciocarlia. Fanfare won a BBC Radio 3 Award for World Music last year (reported here in April 2006) and are great friends of my former colleague at Making Music, Jackie Grant. Thankfully they had not brought a goat with them on this occasion but they did bring a host of guest performers that resembled a 'Who's Who' of Balkan Gypsy music.

In 2000 the Barbican held its first '1000 Year Journey' festival of Gypsy music and Fanfare Ciocarlia made their mark with an amazing performance on the free stage in the Barbican foyer that went on into the small hours of the following morning. Seven years later they were back - this time in the sold-out main Barbican Hall. There was a buzz around the building well before the performance started: this felt like a major 'event'. There was wonderful support from American duo 'A Hawk and a Hacksaw' creating their own blend of traditional Hungarian Gypsy music with their collaborators, Hungary's Hun Hangar Ensemble. Then Fanfare Ciocarlia and their guests commanded the stage for more than two hours. Wow! Never before have eleven mostly balding, middle-aged men, wearing their bright-coloured short-sleeved shirts outside their sensible slacks to disguise their widening midriffs, played so energetically, so frantically, so furiously and so loudly! Fanfare Ciocarlia play fast - very fast - no, really very fast! Fanfare Ciocarlia are 'The Flight of the Bumble Bee' on speed - going down a very steep hill - in a runaway train - with a strong tailwind. When they pause between pieces to gather their breath you wonder for a second whether the next tune might be a contrasting slow one - then the percussionist looks at his colleagues, raises his sticks and rapidly beats 'tap tap tap tap' and they're off again at breakneck speed. Exciting as this is it can get a little monotonous and I was grateful for the variety provided by a galaxy of co-stars.

Fanfare Ciocarlia's patriarch, Ioan Ivancea died late last year and their new CD 'Queens & Kings' is a tribute to him, featuring legendary Gypsy musicians from across Europe. At the Barbican this week Fanfare Ciocarlia were joined by the gorgeous Romanian singer Florentina Sandu, French trio Kaloome, Romanian dancers Aurelia and Tantzica and Bulgarian rocker Jony Iliev (who had hurt his back and had to be helped to hobble across the stage to take his place on a chair with microphone in hand - at which point he came alive and gave a lively, soulful performance). Also appearing was the amazing Hungarian Gypsy singer with the bizarre squeaky voice Mitsou (whose band Mitsoura were one of my highlights at last year's WOMAD festival - reviewed here in August 2006).

But the star of the show was undoubtedly the 'Queen of the Gypsies', the legendary Macedonian singer Esma Redzepova. Esma has had an amazing life - performing across the globe in front of adoring crowds and heads of state including Nehru and Tito, adopting 46 children from the streets of Macedonia, campaigning against poverty, and being nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize - twice! She still has a wonderful voice and led a rousing finale with all the performers (and several members of the audience) returning to the stage to hop and spin to the frenetic beat. Fanfare Ciocarlia's CD 'Queens and Kings' is out now on Asphalt Tango Records - go on, you know you want to ...

Labels: Albums, Concerts, Music

posted by Robin Simpson @ 4:27 pm