Main Page | See live article | Alphabetical index

Taraful Haiducilor

Taraful Haiducilor (a.k.a. Taraf de Haidouks) are a troupe of Romanian Gypsy musicians, from the town of Clejani, the most prominent such group in Romania in the post-Communist Era.

They are known in their native Romania as "Taraful Haiducilor". Roughly, this means "gang of thieves", but "taraf" is also the traditional name for a group of lăutari (traditional Romanian Gypsy musicians). "Haiduc" or "haidouk" is a word of Turkish origin; in Romanian it has a rustic or archaic connotation. Most of those who know the band in the Western world know them by way of French-speaking areas, where they are known as "Taraf de Haidouks", since French lacks a genitive case.

The group formed in 1989, shortly before the death of dictator Nicolae Ceauseşcu. The original group encompassed about a dozen musicians; later configurations were to include as many as thirty. Early contacts in the West included Swiss ethnomusicologist Laurent Aubert and Belgian musician Stéphane Karo.

Table of contents
1 Members
2 Albums
3 Books
4 References
5 External Links

Members

Some of the core members of the group: Other members and collaborators

Albums

Commercially released

Non-commercially released

Before the Haidouks organized themselves as a group, many of them were recorded on an ethnomusicological album: The following albums were produced by Fundaţia Alexandru Tzigara-Samurcas in
Bucharest, in association with Euroart, the cultural fund of the Department for European Integration of the Ministry of Culture and Religious Affairs of Romania.
*misspelling theirs

Books

Hopa, tropa, Europa (Hop and trot around Europe) by Speranţa Rădulescu, (Museum of the Romanian Peasant, 1992) describes the group's first European tour.

References

Liner notes of "Outlaws of Yore"

External Links

Unofficial site with a lot of sound recordings, although not the greatest interface.