An innovative B.C. jazz musician will return to the Shadbolt Centre for the Arts for a live concert. Romanian-born and raised violinist Lache Cercel has pioneered a new genre of music that he calls Roma Jazz.
He will perform with his ensemble at the Burnaby venue at 7:30 p.m. on April 10. The Romani musician last played the Shadbolt Centre in 2024.
The Roma are an Indo-Aryan group from Rajasthan who migrated westward over the centuries. Many became wandering musicians, playing a critical role in the rise of flamenco music in Spain. In the Romanian Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia, Roma people were held in bondage until slavery was finally abolished in 1856.
Cercel is highly conscious of this history and the Roma people’s struggle for survival and freedom. And this is at the core of his music.
“I grew up in this family where I have two sides of music—classical, from my grandpa, who was the one who put the violin in my hands when I was six,” Cercel told Pancouver in 2023. “Then, my father trained me to also have knowledge in folk and Roma music.”
He developed an interest in jazz when he was 15 years old after hearing French violinist Stéphane Grappelli on an ultra-short-wave radio. After his early exposure to classical, classical café, and Roma folk music, this marked the first time that Cercel listened to western jazz. Fascinated by what he heard, he asked his cousin to smuggle Grappelli’s music to him in Romania.
After studying a Grappelli cassette tape again and again, Cercel mastered all of the legend’s improvisations. That set him on a path to integrating jazz with his other musical influences, hence the term “Roma Jazz”.
In 1986, the Romanian government designated Cercel as an “Artist of the People”. But he was eager to escape the brutal Communist regime headed by Nicolae Ceaușescu and defected to the West two years before the dictator was toppled in a 1989 revolution.
The Shadbolt Centre for the Arts presents Lache Cercel and Roma Jazz at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, April 10. For tickets and more information, visit the Shadbolt Centre website. Follow Pancouver on X @PancouverMedia and on Instagram @PancouverMedia.
