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This message addresses all those wandering between romantic admiration and virulent hatred towards Gypsies. For centuries, Roma either have been seen as freedom-loving, spontaneous, romantic tambourine-players, or have been hated, sanitized from, and killed in the gas chambers in hidden holocaust.
History is repeating but the sequences are ever faster: as thousands of visitors saw this summer Paradise Lost-The First Roma Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, expressing admiration and gratitude for “opening their eyes” and admitting that “sometimes I was wrong” (Book of visitors, August 2007), only 260 kilometers away, in Tuscany, the cradle of European renaissance, four Roma children perished among the flames that had enveloped the miserable hut they were living in.
As we were talking this November to Damian Draghici, a world renowned Romanian Gypsy panflute virtuoso who recently had a concert in Venice, Romanian Roma in Italy were targeted by racist attacks; 20 of them were expelled from the country; those remaining were scared for the safety of their children and belongings.
We are in 2007, the European Year of Equal Opportunities for All, and Draghici is appointed by the Romanian President as the country’s Ambassador of Equal Opportunities. What does Ambassador Draghici think about attacks against Roma?
“It is always very painful for me when I see this type of racist and discriminating incidents. Everyone is minority somewhere. I think white people should accept our integration in their culture as other people accept them.”
Damian was born in Bucharest in 1970 to a Roma family that had nurtured musical talent for seven generations:
“I started playing music at the age of three. It was normal for my family where everyone had been a musician for seven generations. There were instruments everywhere around me and I started playing.”
At the age of 12 he started performing in restaurants and clubs and defying clichés:
“In the same time I played at weddings and worked in orchestras in Bucharest. From the age of 12 till 18 I won 5 times the first prize of the National Festival of Romania.”
By the age of 14, besides traditional Roma music, Damian had performed Mozart and Bach on national television. Romanians nicknamed him The Speed of Light because of his ability to play complex, challenging music at fast tempos.
In 1988, after being refused an exit visa by the Ceausescu regime, he decided to flee the country. He escaped to Yugoslavia, hiked over 600 kilometers and found himself in Athens, Greece.
For several years Damian played the piano in Greek nightclubs. In 1996 he was accepted to Boston's prestigious Berklee College of Music: recognized as an exceptional talent, he was awarded a fully paid, four-year scholarship.
But it only took him two years to graduate from the revered music school.
He settled in California, released his first CD in America which brought him invitations for concerts from around the world. He was admired as an enormous talent and named Unreachable Damian Draghici.
Although he says that, due to his work, “my home is where my next project is”, and although he was well in Greece and in America, he missed his native Romania:
“There are things that I missed about Romania. It is the country of my birth; certain traditions and the warmth of the people are really amazing there.”
Back in Romania, Damian Draghici had an ideal biography to become a national hero: he opposed the communist regime; escaped the country without a dollar in his pocket and worked hard his path to the stars; started as just another poor Roma musician and ended as The Great Romanian Prodigy.
After 12 released CDs, in November 2001 he made a big return to his native country. With a 150-piece orchestra he played in front of 72,000 people at the legendary Centru Civic in Bucharest. It was a strong symbolism: the grand boulevard that Ceausescu modeled on the Champs-Élysées as a monument to his rule was for the first time in its history used to its full potential by – in a way - the most successful opponent to the very same regime.
He still lives in California and often visits Bucharest. This year he spent 9 months in Romania working on a new movie which he says “hopefully is going to change the perception of people about Roma.”
In the meantime, he has visited almost every country in the world:
“I can’t tell you exactly how many countries I have visited… For the last 20 years I have been performing almost all around the world. It may be easier to say that there are maybe only 20 or 30 bigger cities in the world where I have not performed.” (Laughs)
In those journeys, Damian says, he was most impressed by the people, cross-cultural experiences, and by the power of music:
“It is so amazing to see that no matter where you are in the world, music has such an incredible effect on people. Music has the power to communicate things you would not be able to say in words.”
He continues to defy clichés: sometimes he plays classical music and the panflute. But recently and more freqently, as at the concert on 19 October in Venice, he plays drums and traditional Roma music. He lives two parallel musical lives: one of Damian Draghici, a Berklee College of Music graduate, panflute virtuoso; the other of a member of 18-strong bend Damian and Brothers, which nurtures a Balkan-type Gypsy folk sound.
In June 2007 Ambassador Draghici was a key-note speaker at the opening of Paradise Lost-The First Roma Pavilion at the 52nd Venice Biennale. He met another man who fled communism from his native Hungary to become a well-known philanthropist and financier: George Soros.
“I spent with him almost 4 hours, and I was impressed to find out how much he knows about Roma culture, especially about our music and history. I felt honored to be able to share some of my ideals and dreams with him. George Soros is the pioneer of a new era. No other man has ever had a vision and heart to do the sort of things he did for Roma.”
George Soros is a “great example” for Draghici – he says he hopes one day he will be able to engage in philanthropy and do for Roma what Soros has done.
How did Ambassador Draghici feel by opening the First Roma Pavilion at the Venice Biennale?
“Emotions were very high….. I had hard time trying not to cry from happiness. It was the beginning of a new dream: finally our art is shared with the entire world. The exhibition expresses the Roma culture through a vision of Roma artists themselves, not through an interpretation by others. I think all of the artists did a great job. I really think that all of them are exceptional in their own way.”
Asked what he would like to tell to the readers of the Roma Pavilion News, Damian sends a visionary message:
“We are you, and you are us - we are the same. We can be hurt the same, we cry the same. We are just called Roma. Love us as you love our music and art. Just look inside your heart before you make a judgment and statement: remember that one God made us all.”
Concert, Damian Draghici and Brothers
19 October 2007, 9 P.M.
Venice-Mestre, Teatro del Parco Bissuola
Co-organized by Paradise Lost-The First Roma Pavilion and Cultural Councilor of the City of Venice
View Romania-Simply Surprising, a promotional video featuring music by Damian Draghici.
Listen Sharaiman, a song performed by Damian and Brothers.
Read a New York Times interview with Damian Draghici.
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