In the traditional university setting,
students learn about other cultures in the classroom. However, the School of Music offers a different experience, where scholars and community members can learn about different ethnic groups through immersion in music and dance.

The music school will present Hungarian Gypsy Music from Transylvania on Sunday as part of its World Music Series. The performance will take place 8 p.m. at Beall Hall.
“The World Music Series is a series of concerts and usually lecture demonstrations emphasizing music from various cultures throughout the world,” ethnomusicology Assistant Professor Mark Levy said, “especially more traditional, older layers of music.”
Sunday’s performance is sponsored by the Hungarian Cultural Center in New York. It will include music from the group known as Band from Szászcsávás (pronounced “SAS-chavash”), as well as two dancers from a professional Hungarian ensemble. The group has toured in Europe for the past 10 years; this is their third tour of the United States.
The six musicians are all related to each other. The lead violin, bass and viola players are brothers. The group’s American manager, Kalman Magyar, said the other members are in-laws or other relatives. “They have been together since they’ve been alive,” Magyar said.
The music (violins, violas, bass violin and kontra) and dance are lively and traditionally performed for “life cycle” celebrations and weddings. “The texts of their songs really do say a lot about life in their village,” anthropology and folklore Associate Professor Carol Silverman said. “You have to understand that Eastern rural life was based around lifestyle celebrations and all of these required music.”
The musicians are Roma, or “Gypsies.” They hail from a region where the majority of inhabitants are Hungarian. Only 20 percent are Roma.
“Roma are really the most persecuted people in Europe — what you might call a persecuted minority. Historically, the ways they could make their living is very limited,” Levy said. “One occupation they chose is music, because that’s sort of appreciated — an occupational niche they could get into.”
Levy said the musicians have a wide repertoire because they need to appeal to a wide variety
of ethnic groups.
“Obviously, you can make a better living if you can play for as many different ethnic groups as possible,” he said.
The story behind the artists’
culture is vast and intricate — a situation Levy calls “complex.” Transylvania has technically been part of Romania, not Hungary, since the end of World War I. The result of such shifts left the region populated with many different cultural groups — Romanian, Saxon, Jewish and Romani.
“It’s a multiethnic part of the world. This part has been, historically, many things,” Silverman said.
Silverman specializes in Romani culture and has worked with the band before, when she organized a New York panel on Romani poetry and music in 2001.
Levy, Silverman and Magyar agree music and dance are excellent ways to learn about other cultures.
“Some people don’t think music is related to political issues, but it is,” Levy said. “Music is a great door into understanding a culture. Music isn’t just notes and rhythms.”
Magyar says music and dance are good channels of communication because they lack the
language barriers that traditional
education often poses.
“I think this group is amazing,” Silverman said. “It shows how Eastern European music is indebted to the Roma. Behind every musical thing, there’s always a history — this group especially.”
Levy said people should also attend the performance simply for its aesthetic value. “This (history) may all be very interesting,” he said, “but people should come because the music and dance is so exciting.”
Magyar said the group has received a positive response in the United States. He is optimistic not only about Sunday’s performance, but about the impact of sharing different cultures in general.
“It’s wonderful to share any culture with other people,” Magyar said. “If every nation would play music together, as opposed to going into war together, it would be a much better world.”