Monika Lakatos, a celebrated singer of “Olah Gypsy” music from Hungary, has become the first Romani artist to receive the prestigious World Music Expo (WOMEX) lifetime achievement award.
Soft-spoken but with a passionate singing voice, the 42-year-old hails from the tiny Olah Gypsy community, a branch of the Romani ethnic minority, Hungary’s largest at around seven percent of its population of 9.8 million.
“I am proud to win it as both a Gypsy and a Hungarian,” the diminutive dark-haired singer, said Saturday before she received the award at a WOMEX gala concert in Budapest.
Photo : AFP
Previous winners include Senegalese performer Cheikh Lo and Portuguese fado legend Mariza.
The award was “timely” given the contribution of Romani artists to the world’s musical culture, WOMEX jury member Balazs Weyer said.
Lakatos was recognized for her “outstanding artistry, as well as her social impact and personal dedication to keeping alive the Olah Gypsy tradition,” Weyer said.
“Her pure voice has such an immediate effect, you can see the change in the eyes of people listening,” he said.
The distinctive Olah singing style emphasizes tone and spontaneity, with a repertoire of lyrical “listening” songs and danceable “whirling” ones.
Unlike more widely known strings-based Hungarian Gypsy music, the Olah version uses traditional percussive instruments like water urns, wooden tubs and spoons, as well as a beatbox-like sound called “vocal-bassing.”
“The Olah style is the soul of Gypsy music, it’s a living culture, life weaves the songs together,” Lakatos said.
Olah Gypsies migrated from neighboring Romania in the 19th century and now number only around 30,000 people. Most live in rural northeast Hungary near Nagyecsed, a village 250km east of Budapest.
Traditionally horse traders and traveling salesmen, many Olah Gypsies now struggle with deep poverty.
Within its male-dominated community, Lakatos, born in Budapest but with roots in Nagyecsed, says its members respect traditions like not holding hands or declaring love in public.
“We do that through song and dance instead,” she said.
After learning traditional Olah Gypsy music with cousins and friends as a child, Lakatos won a national TV talent show in 1996 aged 17.
Now she fronts acclaimed ensemble Romengo and performs in a duo with her musician husband Mazsi Rostas.
A mother-of-one, her daughter also occasionally sings in another of her groups Gypsy Voices, which promotes young, mainly female, Olah singing talents.
“It’s important that this musical culture is passed on at home, in case later generations are only able to learn about it from books,” she said.
Lakatos also celebrates what she calls her “dual identity as a Hungarian Gypsy.”
The Romani, often on the receiving end of discrimination, face widespread exclusion from mainstream Hungarian society.
But “our common language of music is a link bringing people together,” she said, adding that festival-goers in Hungary often tell her after concerts that they didn’t know about Olah Gypsy music until seeing her.
“If people don’t know a culture then maybe they can be afraid or suspicious of it,” she noted.
May 26 to June 1 When the Qing Dynasty first took control over many parts of Taiwan in 1684, it roughly continued the Kingdom of Tungning’s administrative borders (see below), setting up one prefecture and three counties. The actual area of control covered today’s Chiayi, Tainan and Kaohsiung. The administrative center was in Taiwan Prefecture, in today’s Tainan. But as Han settlement expanded and due to rebellions and other international incidents, the administrative units became more complex. By the time Taiwan became a province of the Qing in 1887, there were three prefectures, eleven counties, three subprefectures and one directly-administered prefecture, with
It’s an enormous dome of colorful glass, something between the Sistine Chapel and a Marc Chagall fresco. And yet, it’s just a subway station. Formosa Boulevard is the heart of Kaohsiung’s mass transit system. In metro terms, it’s modest: the only transfer station in a network with just two lines. But it’s a landmark nonetheless: a civic space that serves as much more than a point of transit. On a hot Sunday, the corridors and vast halls are filled with a market selling everything from second-hand clothes to toys and house decorations. It’s just one of the many events the station hosts,
Two moves show Taichung Mayor Lu Shiow-yen (盧秀燕) is gunning for Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) party chair and the 2028 presidential election. Technically, these are not yet “officially” official, but by the rules of Taiwan politics, she is now on the dance floor. Earlier this month Lu confirmed in an interview in Japan’s Nikkei that she was considering running for KMT chair. This is not new news, but according to reports from her camp she previously was still considering the case for and against running. By choosing a respected, international news outlet, she declared it to the world. While the outside world
Through art and storytelling, La Benida Hui empowers children to become environmental heroes, using everything from SpongeBob to microorganisms to reimagine their relationship with nature. “I tell the students that they have superpowers. It needs to be emphasized that their choices can make a difference,” says Hui, an environmental artist and education specialist. For her second year as Badou Elementary’s artist in residence, Hui leads creative lessons on environmental protection, where students reflect on their relationship with nature and transform beach waste into artworks. Standing in lush green hills overlooking the ocean with land extending into the intertidal zone, the school in Keelung
RSS