Mihai Gabriel Stângă (16 years old) and Gabriel Neagu (14 years old) are the youngest violinists that the ROM(a)NOR Interferences team met in their research. There are two ambitious young people from Drăgănești-Olt, who want to make violin making their main profession.
Mihai has been studying the accordion for five years.
"I started at ten years old, playing the organ (n.a. - refers to the electric piano). At the age of 11 I started playing the accordion together with a teacher who came to my home. We sing by ear, for now we don't know how to sing according to the sheet music, but we will probably learn".
Gabriel cântă la saxofon de vreo patru ani.
"I have had three teachers so far. I haven't studied the saxophone yet. For four years I also played the accordion, but I realized that it was not for me and I thought of trying the saxophone. I saw a lot of fiddlers playing with it and I liked the sound, it has a very sweet sound", Gabriel Neagu told us.
The two young people come from families of Roma musicians and thus they ended up studying various musical instruments at home since childhood.
"My father's father played the tambourine and my mother's father also played the tambourine," says Mihai.
In Gabriel's case, the father was neither a fiddler nor present in his life, leaving him when the young man was only two years old. But, on his mother's side, he remembers that the family was one of violinists.
"My great-grandfather was a violinist and my great-grandmother played the guitar. My grandfather played the violin, my godfather played the accordion. My sister, who is 17 years old, sings the vocals at the moment. I sang with her privately, at home", Gabriel said.
The two have not performed at any event together. "We study together, but we don't have a band. Our relatives who are fiddlers take us with them wherever they can, so that we can get more experience, but also some money. We are still young and cannot be counted on. There must be someone else there, with us", Mihai told the ROM(a)NOR team.
Both hope that in the future they will start playing at events without being with other experienced fiddlers. They are aware that it takes a lot of study and a lot of work.
