Lajkó Félix / ContraBayando // A38 Ship

The evening will be opened by ContraBayando, from Freetown, playing French chanson, tango, rumba, bossa nova and a touch of ethno.

Lajkó Félix was born in Yugoslavia on December 17th in 1974. He started playing the zyther when he was 10 and won all the possible prizes in this category in Yugoslavia and Hungary. He first had a violin in his hand when he was 12, and has finished the six years of musical school in three years time. He has then finished his formal studies and turned towards concerting. Played jazz with Dresch Quartett (H), contemporary music with the Hungarian piano composer and player Szabados György and was a member of the Ensemble Ritual Nova of Boris Kovac. Has performed with Romanian born, London based Alexander Balanescu. Has played in Budapest, Prague, Berlin, Belgrade, Paris, Bordeaux, Frankfurt, Edinbourgh, Tokyo, Bratislava, Venice, Verona, Wuppertal and Monte Carlo, and has twice toured Romania this year. In 2001, Félix has played at the world famous theatre festival of Avignon and the most prestigious Theatre de la Ville in Paris and has had a very warm welcome at the Pina Bausch Festival in Wuppertal.

"My music is based on the delicacy and colourfulness of my instrument. I do not play any new types of musical genre, I only follow my own path and improvise and write music. I cannot see differences between musical styles and ways, so I play folk-, classical-, rock-, blues-, and improvisational music. I have written music to several theatre plays and films for Yugoslavian and Hungarian directors. I wrote a musical piece for the festival commemorating the Sarajevo Cultural Olympics."

Has peformed with Min Tanaka from Japan, Noir Désir (F), Alexander Balanescu (GB) and with Boban Markovic (YU). The famous Hungarian film director Miklós Jancsó has shot a movie about him in 1999. Félix has been awarded the prize of "Young Artist" in Hungary and in the year 2000 has received "Pro Urbe" (For The City) in his home town of Subotica / Szabadka. Last September he has finished working on his previous album, that blends his talent as an instrumentalist and as a leader of a group, where musicians from different cultural background blend a very specific East-European sound never heard before. Another speciality of the album is the fact that it has been recorded in a forest, totally analog, that gives the sound such "openness" not experienced in the recording industry lately.