WOMAD

Muszikás

From Hungary

Over the past year, Márta Sébestyén's voice has been heard by millions. Her vocals gliding over the track 'Szerelem', (performed by Muszikás) are a recurrent theme in 'The English Patient', the film that swept the board at this year's Academy Awards ceremony. The film has brought international success to the Hungarian singer and the group, although WOMAD regulars will have been familiar with them for some time. Since the late eighties, Márta and Muszikás have been frequent visitors to Britain, highlighting the power and beauty of Transylvanian music (which, although part of Romania, has a large Hungarian minority population) through carefully judged sets of tánchaz music (the word means "dance house") that build to a furious climax. The Muszikás line-up includes fiddles, gardon (a Hungarian cello) and double bass, and the group's intricate ensemble playing provides a perfect backdrop for Márta's emotional voice.Márta began singing when she was seven, and has won many prizes in Hungary for her interpretations of folk songs. She collects much of her material on field trips to remote villages, and then perfects it at a tánchaz evening. These mini-festivals of traditional music took off in popularity in the seventies when they were seen as a way of keeping the old Hungarian traditions alive in the face of a monolithic state. These days, Márta is as likely to be playing in Japan as in Budapest and, as well as 'The English Patient', she has also sung with Deep Forest and with Peter Gabriel. Despite such innovative collaborations, it is the music of Slavic central Europe that remains closest to her heart. As well as Transylvanian song and dance with Muszikás, she also sings the songs of southern Hungary with Vujicsics. This music has Serb, Croat, Slovene, Bosnian and even Macedonian roots. But whichever form of Slav music she cares to sing, in whatever language, Márta imbues it with a passion that can be readily understood by anyone.