Chilik Frank & Noar Carmi present: Viznitz Nigunim

Anyone familiar with music genres knows that one of the world’s most beautiful genres is Balkan music. Originally from the southeast Europe, it is unique in the poetry of the gypsy culture. When you hear a gypsy violin the sound grabs your hear. It is known to have the classic Western but also Eastern scents.

It turns out that Romania also Chassidic, recognizes the value of this type of music. The Imrei Chaim of Moiz’nitz, would go especially to the road, listening to gypsy singers and tell his chasidim to sing the Niggunim in times of joy and yom tov. ‘”Take a singer of the land” – he would say refers to taking the singing of the nations of the world and raising its level to use the tunes to praise Hashem.

Two years ago the artist Naor Carmi, a ba’al teshuva through Chabad, who plays with the best singers in the country, took upon himself to determine the degree of influence the gypsies had on this chasidus. It turned out there is over 200 melodies drawn from Gypsy culture, directly and indirectly. Naor decided to begin a unique project : Selected Songs of Vizhnitz based on gypsy melodies ‘, and introduce the general public to the result. He did this in an original way: he found an authentic gypsy violin, a musical Jewish family brought from the Balkans, invited the renowned Klezmer musician Chilik Frank – and from combination of all that, he is able to demonstrate the purity of Vizhnitz and purity Gypsies alike.

Of course, it was not possible to purchase tickets to such an event. Tickets sold out months in advance. The Main Event was held last year and was recorded in perfect quality after much work. The studio album is out available.

Click PLAY below to hear the song “Nigun Simcha”