专辑简介

The Gázsa Band was formed in 1992 by some of the best folk musicians in Hungary who have spent years studying and learning authentic village music from famous masters of folk music, who, in most cases, lived in remote rural areas. The band takes its name from its leader’s nick-name, István Papp. He was born and raised in Transylvania and has played with many “giants” of Hungarian folk music. The Gázsa Ensemble has accompanied the famous Budapest Ensemble for a decade. Together, they have performed in many countries, including the United States, Canada and Mexico, to critical acclaim. In their 2000 North American tour, The Ensemble was praised by The New York Times as “admirable” and “compelling”; the New York Newsday noted “superb musicians … lively, seductive music”; The Boston Globe praised their music to be “pulsating”; and in the Chicago Sun Times, the group’s fiddlers were called “irresistible” and the musicians “superb.”

The Carpathian mountains surround an area of Central Europe, “home” to many ethnic groups, each possessing wonderful folklore, especially folk music and dance. Hungarians represent the majority in this geographic region, but Romanians, Slovaks, Serbians, Croatians, Ukrainians, Gypsies and others have also preserved their wonderful folk treasures. Although the performers in the Gázsa Ensemble are all Hungarians, they have explored the beauty and depth of all traditional cultures in the Carpathian Basin in great detail. In their performance, they show the music and dance of a variety of ethnic groups and offer a memorable cross-section of the colorful ethnic music and dances of people living in Central Europe.