Roby Lakatos Ensemble
August 1, 7:30 p.m., Eric Harvie Theatre, The Banff Centre
Tickets: Adult $40 - $25 · Student/Senior $36 - $23 · Child $20 - $13
Gypsy Barbeque!
August 1, 5 to 7 p.m. · Music and Sound Patio · $12.50
Box Office: 403.762.6301 or 1.800.413.8368
Presented as part of the 2009 Banff Summer Arts Festival
“Virtuoso is an overused term these days but in Roby Lakatos’s case,
it may be an understatement.”
— Glasgow Herald
Roby Lakatos was born into a legendary family of gypsy violinists in Hungary in 1965. Nine years later he was making his public debut. Today, he is known as “the devil’s fiddler” for his virtuosic performances, fusing traditional classical pieces with the energizing vitality of Hungarian gypsy music inherited from his family. The Roby Lakatos Ensemble brings that sound to The Banff Centre’s Eric Harvie Theatre on August 1, following the Centre’s annual Banff Summer Arts Festival barbecue.
As a descendant of Jonas Bihari, the “king of gypsy violinists,” Lakatos was initiated into the world of gypsy music as a child, and he inherited a unique legacy. He studied at the Bela Bartók Conservatory of Budapest, where he won first prize for classical violin in 1984, and has since travelled internationally with an ensemble of musicians who share his unique heritage and upbringing. The ensemble’s unique sound is created with guitar, violin, piano, bass, and the rare cimbalom — a gypsy-tuned hammered dulcimer.
Lakatos is referred to as a “devil’s fiddler,” a classical virtuoso, a jazz improviser, a composer and arranger, and a 19th-century throwback — a universal musician rarely encountered today.
Lakatos’s music reflects the deep tradition rooted in the cultural heritage of the gypsy people, but incorporates wide range of influences. He mixes jazz and gypsy traditions with contemporary and classical elements and performs works ranging from Hungarian folk music, to Johannes Brahms, to John Williams, all with his signature sound. In March 2004, Lakatos appeared to great acclaim with the London Symphony Orchestra in the orchestra’s “Genius of the Violin” festival alongside Maxim Vengerov. He sold out his first North American appearance at Carnegie Hall in 2006, has collaborated with Vadim Repin and Stéphane Grappelli, and his playing was admired by Yehudi Menuhin.
Banff Summer Arts Festival patrons are invited to begin the evening with the Festival’s popular annual barbecue, on the Centre’s Music and Sound Patio.
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- More information about the 2009 Banff Summer Arts Festival.
