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Masters of folk, classical and gypsy music return


By Margaret Chrystall


FOR their 10th anniversary year “Harringay’s favourite boy-band” – better-known as the Budapest Café Orchestra – return to tour Scotland on their own ‘North Coast 2000’.

That’s the number of miles the masters of folk, classical and gypsy music reckon they will be travelling this summer as they tour Scotland.

Jazz violin maestro Christian Garrick is leading the four-piece on their ninth consecutive tour, having learned plenty over the years about midges, the best places to find good eating – and charity shops with the finest vintage clothing to costume the café orchestra.

Christian said: “We are doing lots this year to celebrate our 10 years together – recording our 10th anniversary album, actually our first live album. And we have a new squeezebox concerto which is one of our unique selling points. It’s what we call a distilled concerto where we take a half-hour piece by a well-known composer and we turn it into what the composer always had in mind – but didn’t realise – a short four or five-minute version with the best tunes!”

Christian added: “This year we have stumbled across an undiscovered one by Tchaikovsky which is the squeezebox concerto in A minor.

“Our accordion-player Eddie Hession mastered it on the Enigma machine in no time. It’s in A minor, subject to change depending on Eddie’s mood on the day. If he is particularly under the weather it could go to D minor which is, of course, the saddest of keys, according to Nigel Tufnell of Spinal Tap anyway!”

In the North The Budapest Café Orchestra are still to play – the Universal Hall, Findhorn, on Friday, June 14; Eden Court, Inverness, on Saturday, June 15 and Torridon House Hall, on Sunday, June 16. Details: www.budapestcafeorchestra.co.uk


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