EIF: Roby Lakatos Ensemble
The Hub, Edinburgh, 05/07/25
Roby Lakatos (violin), Kalman Czeki (piano), Gábor Ladányi (guitar) Vilmos Csikos (double bass), László Rácz (cimbalom), László Bóni (second violin) – joined by Wynton Marsalis (trumpet).
Having duly enticed the preview audience as part of an all-star cast for the opening night at the Hub, eclectic violin master Roby Lakatos returned with his full Ensemble the following evening for a vibrant 75 minutes of inspired, well-appreciated music making.
While Lakatos won first prize for classical violin at the Béla Bartók Conservatory of Budapest in 1984, he has for many years been best known as an artful and seemingly effortless blender of Hungarian and Romani folk music, jazz, klezmer and other living and historic vernacular traditions.
Tonight’s concert ranged over all this diverse musical territory, infusing technical proficiency, careful arrangement and well-drilled rehearsal with plenty of improvisational flair and sheer joy. The packed house responded enthusiastically to a well-paced set that culminated in an appearance by Wynton Marsalis, whose trumpet pyrotechnics matched, fused and sparred with Lakatos during an infectious final number.
Apart from introducing Marsalis at the end, and a tune adapted from his album Peacock, a 2020 collaboration with Indian violinist Subramaniam Lakshminarayana, the music this evening flowed and segued without announcement. There were plenty of shifts in tone, pace and texture, with each member of the Ensemble given full space for expression.
Guitarist Gábor Ladányi can adapt to a variety of styles, but fast-picking echoes of Django Reinhardt are unmistakable. Vilmos Csikos’ bass is deep, warm and gutsy. They were complemented by the fluent Kalman Czeki on piano (who perhaps came off least well from the combination of a round acoustic and amplification) and second violinist László Bóni, who originally trained with Roby Lakatos’ father, and who brings an artful gypsy jazz vibe to the proceedings.
Meanwhile, László Rácz provided a quiet but emphatic masterclass in the use of the concert cimbalom – a trapezoidal chordophone with metal strings across its top and a damper pedal underneath. He and Czeki blended well, combining percussive and melodic features around and underneath the swirling violins and conversational guitar and double bass.
That included occasional touches of chromaticism and Eastern harmony from the cimbalom, embedded within a subtle, evolving musical menu which leaned naturally towards the sunny and diatonic.
What stood out across this condensed performance was the well-worked balance between artistic cohesion and individual flair, crafted tunes and spontaneity. Lakatos floats around the stage, sometimes in his own world and sometimes connecting with members of his Ensemble to emphasise or shape what is happening within the music.
Wynton Marsalis’s appearance for the finale (effectively a scripted encore) topped an absorbing evening. His speeding streams of staccato and legato notes blended beautifully with Roby Lakatos’ violin, guiding an ecstatic performance to its fitting denouement.
