"Taraf de Haidouks"

The Singapore Art Festival offered an interesting show on its agenda: “Taraf de Haidouks” from Romania. These guys are playing gipsy music from Romania and they had two concerts in Singapore.

I managed to go and it was very nice, because these guys were very genuine and original. They were playing more Romanian and Gypsy folk music and the feeling was more like being at a traditional wedding or ball. It is very different then Hungarian folk music, but it was nice to hear live music. Actually I “consume” more Romanian culture here in Singapore then I did back home, hehehe. I also saw some movies (not that good one though) and a theatre play with Horatiu Malaele recently.

They made a good show and at the end of the show they just came down from the scene and started to play in front of the hall just like they would play on the streets and they even gather some money, just as the gipsy street musicians would do. The posh hotel where the concert was looked like a regular gipsy street and the atmosphere was just fantastic, people applauding, taking picture and having fun.

Had some discussions with the local people who participated at the concert to get their opinion. For them it took a while until they got into the mood of the concert and started to understand what this music is about. For them at the beginning it sounded very wicked and strange. It was probably just noise and some exotic sounds. But at the end I guess they got into it and started to enjoy it and understand a bit of it.

One thing is for sure with this EU integration. The exposure of Romania is much bigger in Asia then before and people are more curious to know more about Romania as an EU country as before here in Asia. The truth is that in Asia Europe means EU and whoever is not in EU does not really count. There were more activities in this past 6 months related to Romania then in the whole period since 2005. Lots of improvement needed in organizing and promoting these events (there are lots of issues with them, believe me), but at least something is moving forward. Good for the country.