Roby Lakatos

Roby Lakatos is a violinist from Hungary who combines jazz, classical, and Hungarian Romani music.

Career

Lakatos was born in 1965 into a family of Romani violinists descended from János Bihari, a composer who influenced Brahms and Liszt. He was introduced to music as a child. When he was nine years old, he made his public debut as first violinist in a Romani band. In 1984 he won first prize for classical violin at the Béla Bartók Conservatory of Budapest.
For the next ten years, he led the house band at a Brussels restaurant where he was complimented by Yehudi Menuhin for his performance of a piece by Liszt. In March 2004, he appeared with the London Symphony Orchestra in the orchestra's Genius of the Violin festival with Maxim Vengerov.
Lakatos recorded a Prokofiev album with Polina Leschenko, Christian Poltéra, and Martha Argerich; Klezmer Karma with the Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra, Yiddish singer Myriam Fuks, and accordionist Aldo Granato; Roby Lakatos with Musical Friends with Stéphane Grappelli, Vadim Repin, Randy Brecker, Tony Lakatos, Marc Fosset, and the Vieuxtemps Quartet.