- Title: FRANCE: HUNGERIAN GYPSY BAND KALYI JAG PERFORMS IN PARIS
- Date: 8th October 2001
- Summary: PARIS, FRANCE (RECENT) (REUTERS) SLV KALYI JAG'S LEAD SINGER GUSTAV VARGAS AND HIS MUSICIANS WALKING ALONG PARIS STREET SCU (SOUNDBITE) (Hungarian) LEAD SINGER GUSTAV VARGAS SAYING: "Ours is the music of the Gypsy people, that's what we do, and we try to make that music reach a level of excellence. It is like baking a wonderful cake, and decorating it in the most careful
- Embargoed: 23rd October 2001 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: PARIS, FRANCE
- Country: France
- Topics: General
- Reuters ID: LVADUDCGK001CDBF2HDQYZ6ACKDA
- Story Text: One of the world's most celebrated Gypsy bands, Kalyi Jag, has once again performed in Paris Kalyi Jag unleashed the raging charm of gypsy music at its best on a spellbound Paris audience. The band, founded in 1978 by young Gypsies from Szatmar county in north-eastern Hungary, was the first group in the country and in Europe who performed its own folklore on Roma mother language.
An amalgam of Roma dance and music, Kalyi Jag is a sort of festival of Roma culture, a musical agenda of a long suffering minority. It is the most prominent representative of Roma culture in Hungary, being the first band on the continent to perform authentic gypsy songs in the original Roma mother tongue. In their development, the band travelled and performed at workers' hostels, youth clubs, in camps and culture houses.
The band's breakthrough came in 1979, when the Hungarian Parliament awarded it the prize "Young masters of Folk Art".
Over the following two decades, Kalyi Jag has carved a niche for itself both at home and abroad as the masters of authentic Roma culture and folklore. Having toured the four corners of the globe, the band has enjoyed unparalleled success. In 1986, when half the country was singing their songs, the band signed a contract with Hungaraton, a major Hungarian record company, to put out their first album, which sold over 30,000 copies. The four records that followed enjoyed immense popularity, becoming gold and platinum albums, and were widely acclaimed by audiences in Europe, North and South America, India, Japan and Korea.
Kalyi Jag have several hundred Gypsy tunes in their repertory.
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