At the Hungarian Cultural Center last night was a Christmas concert featuring Hungarian folk music group, the Kalaka Ensemble.
With members in their 40s and 50s, the
Kalaka Ensemble, which was formed in the 1970s, has been playing folk music unrelentlessly from the rather restrictive communist years to the present relatively liberal time in the new post-communist era. While in the past Kalaka had traveled and lived from time to time in different local villages to learn and to preserve the local folk music tradition, and thus acting as a resistance to foreign cultural domination, their mission in the 21st century is to adapt traditional folk music into a modern setting.
The fall of communism in 1989 had blessed Hungary with an unprecedented broad range of freedom of expression. This included musical expression. Gone were the days when folk music group like Kalaka had to fear of the ruling authority and were forced to make music underground. Today they enjoy unlimited freedom to express themselves -- at least in theory.
The nation's hunger for foriegn music that they missed throughout the entire Communist era, together with today's global market force, had not made Kalaka's struggle easier.
At the performance last evening, each Kalaka member played a few types of string and wind instruments, in addition to singing a wide range of vocals. Their repotoire of music is diverse...to be continued.
I thank
Petr, a music critic, commentator and journalist, who occassionally contributes to CBC Global Village, for allowing me to tag along his interview with the Kalaka Group.
Talk about
Prague being the center of Europe where different cultures meet.
Here we have the
Institute of France, the Italian Cultural Institute, the Austrian Rakouske Kulturni Forum, the Hungarian Cultural Center, the Slovak Cultural Institute and the
Polish Cultural Institute. Not to mention various foreign embassies that organize other cultural events on a regular basis.
