Theatre staging a true musical mix

May 13 2008 by Karen Price, Western Mail

A WORLD class violinist and a celebrated ballet company will be entertaining audiences in West Wales this weekend.

Accomplished multi-instrumentalist Tcha Limberger brings the Budapest Gypsy Orchestra to Theatr Mwldan, Cardigan on Friday.

Limberger comes from a famous family of gypsy musicians and grew up with the gypsy-jazz style of Django Reinhardt.

Drawn to Hungarian gypsy music from an early age, he spent three years studying its roots in Budapest. Now just 30, he tours with this small orchestra of hand-picked Budapest gypsy musicians.

Limberger was last seen in the UK with the reclusive guitarist Lollo Meier and earlier this year with Fabrizzio Cassol’s Vespers. Now he is joined by a selection of top gypsy musicians from Budapest on their debut UK tour presenting the style of music known as Magyar nota – passionate music as familiar to Hungary as tarantella is to Neapolitans.

The performance will be followed at the venue on Saturday with a production from the New English Contemporary Ballet.

With its fast-growing reputation for virtuoso performances, the company promises an evening of ballet with a thoroughly modern slant.

New English Contemporary Ballet, which launched two years ago, aims to provide audiences with accessible, international quality dance which fuses the lyrical beauty and virtuosity of the classical with the inventiveness and modern relevance of the contemporary canon. The evening’s programme at Theatr Mwldan is described as bold, fresh and confident.

Richard Wherlock’s S(c)ent with its fluid, exquisitely shaped duets and trios provides the company’s dancers with a beautiful, lyrical platform for their virtuosity while a new commission from the Italian choreographer Davide Bombana brings a distinctively neo-classical flavour to the show.

Tcha Limberger’s Budapest Gypsy Orchestra is at Theatr Mwldan, Cardigan, on Friday and the New English Contemporary Ballet Company is at the venue on Saturday. The box office number is 01239 621200.