By:

• Helen Bowater

Contents:

One movement

Availability

• This work has 2 scores

Programme Note

The lautari are a caste of Roma or ‘Gypsy’ musicians who live in Clejani, a village in Rumania, southwest of Bucharest. The older lautari are vigorous storytellers, wiht a flexible music repertoire, who improvise constantly. An ensemble of lautari have become internationally renowned as Taraf de Haidouks or ‘Band of Brigands’. It was their performance of Nicolae Neacsu’s composition Balada Conducatorolui (‘Ballad of the Dictator’), a song about the oppressive distator Nicolae Ceausescu (1918-1989), that sparked this piece.

Lautari was written for violinist Mark Menzies in 2003.

Helen Bowater

Commissioned:

Written for Mark Menzies

Performance History

	09 Jan 2007	Performed by Kees Hilhorst, violin
	13 Jan 2007	Performed by Kees Hilhorst, violin
	06 Feb 2010	Performed by Mark Menzies in the Davis Theatre at University of Alaska Fairbanks
		Mark Menzies