Gyantár Fiddlers in Cambridge, Montgomery and Chester – All in One Weekend!

In May 2023, at the invitation of Folktone Productions, the two lead fiddlers of the Gyantár Band from Szeged—Bence Vörösmarty and Enikő Magyar—visited the UK. Our first stop was the 10th anniversary celebration of the Hungarian School in Cambridge. It was a fantastic experience to hear local Hungarian students perform folk songs and traditional Hungarian chants. It’s hard to even imagine the amount of work, patience, and perseverance required for young people raised in the British school system to understand and come to love their parents’ native language—to preserve their Hungarian identity in the alluring Western world. On the evening of our Cambridge visit, we headed toward Montgomery for the Bristol Hungarian folk dance group’s team-building event. In addition to getting to know each other and rehearsing with the band, we also visited the historical site connected to The Bards of Wales and the Arany János memorial plaque placed there. It was uplifting to see that the local council also considers it important to keep the memory of our cosmopolitan poet alive. After our night in Montgomery, we traveled to Chester, where we performed at an event called Hungarian Cultural Day Chester. The day featured a concert-style performance, accompanying the Bristol dancers, and a dance house session—plus, Enikő even managed to squeeze in a little violin teaching between sets. By the time we reached the airport parking lot, we were happily exhausted. We toasted the success of the weekend—and Bence’s birthday.