Balkan Brass World

Fanfare Ciocărlia (alternate spelling Ciocârlia) is a popular twelve-piece Roma brass band from the northeastern Romanian village of Zece Prăjini. The band began as a loose assemblage of part-time musicians playing at local weddings and baptisms. In October 1996, the German sound engineer and record producer Henry Ernst visited Zece Prajini and convinced a number of the musicians there to assemble a touring band. These musicians decided to name the band Fanfare Ciocărlia: Fanfare being a French word that has passed into Romanian and is used to designate a brass band; Ciocârlia being the Romanian word for the skylark. Since their discovery by Ernst, who serves as their manager, they have played more than thousand concerts in more than 50 countries across the globe.

With historical roots in Austrian and Turkish military bands, Fanfare Ciocărlia's instrumental lineup includes trumpets, tenor and baritone horns, tubas, clarinets, saxophones, bass drum and percussion. Their song lyrics are usually either in Romani or Romanian. Their musical style stems primarily from the traditions of Roma and Romanian folk dance music, but they also borrow freely from Turkish, Bulgarian, Serbian and Macedonian musical styles, and they incorporate a number of tunes gleaned from international radio, Hollywood and Bollywood in their broad repertoire as well. They are best known for a very fast, high-energy sound, with complex rhythms and high-speed, staccato clarinet, saxophone and trumpet solos, sometimes performed at more than 200 beats per minute. They are also known for using no sheet music in their performances, sometimes randomly blasting their horns and clarinets in the middle of a song, and for playing old, battered instruments onstage.

The band won the BBC Radio 3 World Music Award for Europe in 2006. Their latest release is entitled Queens and Kings.

The full-length film "Iag Bari - Brass on Fire", directed by Ralf Marscalleck, features the life of Fanfare Ciocărlia members, focusing on the small Romanian Gypsy village of Zece Prajini in contrast to the large concert venues the band attends. It would go on to win "Best Documentary Award" at the Festival De Cine Documental Musical in Barcelona and Madrid in November 2003. It was also awarded "Best Long Documentary Award" on the Roma Festival for TV and Radio Production Golden Wheel in Skopje, Republic of Macedonia.

The band can also be spotted in the film "Gegen die Wand" (Head-On) by Turkish film director Fatih Akın. In 2004, the film won the Golden Bear at the International Film Festival in Berlin.

The song "Asfalt Tango" was the main track of the animated movie "Fallen Art" by Tomasz Bagiński.

In October 2004, Asphalt Tango Records released the first Fanfare Ciocărlia DVD that included a full live concert and Iag Bari, along with other video segments.

Fanfare Ciocărlia's version of "Born to be Wild" can be heard on the closing credits of the movie "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan".

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It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Fanfare Ciocărlia".