Formed in 1986, the Tükrös Folk Music Ensemble plays traditional Hungarian folk music in a customary all-string line-up, sometimes complemented with a cimbalom. The unique feature of the records they''ve been releasing since 1996 is that each one concentrates on a different region. Distinguished among these was 2000''s Folk Music of Szatmár from the 1900s, which won a gold certificate from the Hungarian Academy of Arts. Our Mezőség, released in 2008, paid homage to the finest Gypsy bands from the towns and villages of the Transylvanian Plain. It is the music of this region that made folk music a defining experience for the members of the ensemble, confronting the musicians with the fact that "the beauty, power and dynamism of music from the region''s village bands is capable of providing an extraordinary experience for the listening audience, even without any thought to reworking it or mixing it with other genres.”
The ensemble made it their mission to pass on this tradition - and this is what it has done over the course of its 30-year career. Their most recent album, entitled The Music of Forests and Waters, collects a "bouquet” of the loveliest songs from the country around the Maros (Mureș) and Küküllő (Târnava) rivers. The CD is in part a tribute to local sources of information and master musicians (including Aladár Csiszár, Béla Gáspár and Albert Rácz), and also a reminder that a way of life that is close to nature might be in danger of vanishing entirely.
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