Gypsy HeartBeats has been especially created for the 2015 WOMEX opening gala. As Budapest hosted this prestigious worls music event, it was evident that it had to celebrate the music of the Carpathian basin. After a successful Hungarian HeartBeats Opening Gala in 2011 in Copenhagen, we, the creators of this special occasion have realized their dream ‘Gypsy HeartBeats’ on stage now. Though this Gala was located in Budapest, it has focused on the musical transmitters of the region, the Roma people.

The purpose of this opening was to show how lively and creative the Romani tradition is. Our intention was not only to snapshot the roots, but also to open up the horizont with presenting the evolvement of this tradition in our modern life. Voices were in the centre of the production. Firstly Attila Oláh a singer and dancer showed the interaction between vocals and dance, followed by the vocal heritage revival band Romengo. Tcha Limberger took the lead then, who was born into the sinto tradition in Belgium and meanwhile searching for his idols of Gypsy musicians he has fallen in love into Transylvanian village music. Bea Palya showed us in a suggestive performance how she exploited her own mixed personal heritage. The finale was a subtle flow of all these colours: Ferenc Radics, one of the foremost representative of urban Gypsy music with István Pál Szalonna and his band of the Hungarian State Folk Ensemble came onto stage to play together with all of the singers and performers of the show.