György Zerkula Jj.

György Zerkula was born in Odorheiu Secuiesc in 1986. His choice of career was determined by the fact that he spent a lot of time at his grandparents' home in Gyimesközéplok as a child: his grandfather, János Zerkula, was a famous Gyimes folk musician and violinist.

It was precisely this family background that led György Zerkula to classical music: he first encountered complex, ornamented folk melodies, and without a proper technical background, as a beginner violinist, he found grandfather's level of quality unattainable. In addition, he felt that if he became a folk musician as the grandson of János Zerkula, he would never be free of expectations.

Later on, after graduating from prestigious music schools and after his grandfather's death, he tried his hand at folk music as first violinist of the Bern Symphony Orchestra. His Hungarian colleagues in Bern asked him to do so because they were planning to put together a concert programme of Hungarian music.

"I took the old recordings, the computer and started to write down this music. It was a wonderful experience when I realised that I actually knew this, I just hadn't rehearsed it yet. I knew what I wanted to play and how I wanted to play it, it was just something I had to practice. I had to find a writing style that I understood and then play it. I'm very grateful to my colleagues for encouraging me to start doing this," said György Zerkula in Cluj Napoca.