Hungarian violin virtuoso Roby Lakatos performed with his ensemble as part of the off program "Evening Serenades" at the 66th Dubrovnik Summer Festival last night, August 12th, at the Fort Revelin Terrace and delighted the  Festival audiences with their spectacular performance.

Born into the legendary family of gypsy violinists descended from Janos Bihari, “King of Gypsy Violinists”, Roby Lakatos studied at the Béla Bartók Conservatory of Budapest, where he won the first prize for classical violin in 1984. Although he is referred to as a Gypsy violinist or “devil’s fiddler”, a classical virtuoso, a jazz improviser, a composer and arranger, and a 19th-century throwback, yet he is actually the kind of universal musician so rarely encountered in our time, in what the Festival audience was convinced last night.

His strength as an interpreter derives from his activities as an improviser and composer and the fusion of jazz and Hungarian gipsy music thrilled the Festival audience. His scorching virtuosity of extraordinary stylistic versatility is indeed undisputed and spectacular and the audience had the opportunity to witness some special and rarely seen techniques of playing the violin. Jenő Lisztes is a cimbalist who has also shown incredible virtuosity on that instrument which we rarely see and hear. A young pianist and jazz singer Lana Janjanin accompanied them on the encore and the performance was concluded with a Romanian folk song „Lark“ which perfectly demonstrated their virtuosity once more.

Off Programme „Evening Serenades“ on the 66th Dubrovnik Summer Festival will be concluded on August 19th with the concert of French chansons performed by Tereza Kesovija at Skočibuha Summer Residence on Boninovo.