taraful haiducilor (a.k.a. Taraf de Haïdouks) are a troupe of Romanian Gypsy musicians, from the town of Clejani, the most prominent such group in Romania in the post-Communist Era.
“Haiduc” or “haiduk” is a word of Balkan origin which means something like “outlaw”; in Romanian it has a rustic or archaic connotation. Most of those who know the band in the Western world know them by way of French-speaking areas, where they are known as “Taraf de Haïdouks”, since French lacks a genitive case. They are known in their native Romania as “taraful haiducilor”. Roughly, this means “band of outlaws”, but “taraf” is also the traditional name for a group of lăutari (traditional Romanian Gypsy musicians).
The group formed in 1989, shortly before the death of dictator Nicolae Ceauşescu. The original group encompassed about a dozen musicians; later configurations were to include as many as thirty. Early contacts in the West included Swiss ethnomusicologist Laurent Aubert and Belgian musician Stéphane Karo. |
