Roby Lakatos Releases New Double-Album LA PASSION

Lauded as the "fastest-fingered fiddler in the world" by the Daily Telegraph, the supernatural Roby Lakatos returns with La Passion, a stunning new double album recorded live at the iconic Sydney Opera House. La Passion immerses the listener in musical freedom, warmth, matchless virtuosity and long-forgotten melodies set in totally new and original arrangements, with the unique energy that emanates from Roby Lakatos' live performances. The double Hybrid SACD Surround recording on Avanti Classic is available now from Allegro Classical.

Lakatos' new program includes works he has arranged and recorded for the first time, such as Meadowlands, a famous Russian folksong; The Flight of the Bumblebee; Du Schwarzer Zigeuner; and L'Alouette (The Lark), lasting more than twelve minutes and capturing Lakatos in a jubilatory improvisation. The second CD is devoted to the most famous bis of the violinist's repertoire, with such beloved pieces as Two Guitars, Fire Dance, Black Eyes (Ochi Chornyje), Brahms Hungarian Dance No.5, and Vittorio Monti's Csárdás. This album is also the first opportunity to experience the what Lakatos calls his new "Alliance." In addition to his oldest collaborator, second violinist Lászlo Bóni, La Passion features a rejuvenated ensemble of phenomenal young Hungarian musicians, aged from 19 to 25.

"When Roby Lakatos spun out his first cadenza, the earth stood still," said The Independent, "Lakatos left us with birdsong in our ears." Born into a legendary family of gypsy violinists, Lakatos made his public debut in a gypsy band at age 9. His musicianship evolved within his own family as well as at the Béla Bartók Conservatory of Budapest where he won first prize for classical violin in 1984. In addition to his virtuoso ensemble, his collaborators include Vadim Repin and Stephane Grappelli, and his playing was greatly admired by Sir Yehudi Menuhin. A musician of extraordinary stylistic versatility - equally comfortable performing classical music as he is playing jazz and in his own Hungarian folk idiom - Lakatos is the rare musician who defies definition. A gypsy violinist or "devil's fiddler", a classical virtuoso, a jazz improviser, a composer and arranger, and a 19th-century throwback, he is the kind of universal musician rarely encountered in our time.