The world's fastest Roma brass band and one of the most famous and legendary Roma bands returns to Prague!

Over the course of a career spanning a quarter of a century, the world's fastest brass band has played more than 3,000 concerts around the globe and released a string of highly acclaimed albums. One of today's finest live bands comes from a remote village in eastern Romania. They are easy to distinguish from other Balkan brass bands: they play with punk intensity and jazz virtuosity. The band was formed near the Moldovan border, in the village of Zece Prajini, home to 80 Roma families who have worked their fields and played music for generations. Under the communist regime, the region was cut off from civilisation, allowing a musical tradition that disappeared elsewhere in Romania to survive. Its roots stretch back to the Ottoman Empire and draw on the style of Turkish military bands.

The dominant instrument of these “Turkish bands” was originally the zurna, an oboe-like pipe whose piercing sound could cut through even the loudest chaos of battle. In the 18th century, military bands replaced their traditional Oriental instruments with European ones while retaining the original Turkish style of playing. The group was discovered in 1996 by German music enthusiast and later impresario Henry Ernst – and when he brought them to London, The Times described their music as a “hellish racket”. Fanfare Ciocărlia have recorded ten albums, many of which reached the top of the charts and inspired filmmakers – renowned Turkish documentary filmmaker Fatih Akin captured their triumphant performances in Berlin clubs. Eastern European music expert Garth Cartwright writes enthusiastically about the band in his book Princes Amongst Men, cinematic enfant terrible Sacha Baron Cohen commissioned them to provide music for the film Borat, and their tracks have been remixed and adapted countless times by dozens of DJs and bands.

On their later albums, the band included radical reinterpretations of Western evergreens – including the James Bond theme and Caravan by Duke Ellington – demonstrating just how insignificant the boundaries between musical genres can be. The band also excels in unique stage projects – Gypsy Queens & Kings showcases some of the greatest Roma artists, while Balkan Brass Battle is a dramatic musical showdown between Fanfare Ciocărlia and a kindred Serbian brass band known from the films of Emir Kusturica.

The event is organised by Rachot Production.