Gheorghe Zamfir
Romanian pan flute musician
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Key Takeaways
- Gheorghe Zamfir ( Romanian pronunciation: [ˈɡe̯orɡe zamˈfir] ; born April 6, 1941) is a Romanian nai (pan flute) musician.
- He is known as "The Master of the Pan Flute".
- The composer Vladimir Cosma brought Zamfir with his pan flute to Western European countries for the first time in 1972 as the soloist in Cosma's original music for the movie Le grand blond avec une chaussure noire .
- Zamfir continued to perform as a soloist in movie soundtracks by composers Francis Lai, Ennio Morricone and many others.
Gheorghe Zamfir (Romanian pronunciation: [ˈɡe̯orɡe zamˈfir] ; born April 6, 1941) is a Romanian nai (pan flute) musician.
Zamfir is known for playing an expanded version of normally 20-pipe nai, with 22, 25, 28 or even 30 pipes, to increase its range, and obtaining as many as eight overtones (additional to the fundamental tone) from each pipe by changing his embouchure. He is known as "The Master of the Pan Flute".
Career
Zamfir came to the public eye when he was approached by Swiss ethnomusicologist Marcel Cellier, who extensively researched Romanian folk music in the 1960s. The composer Vladimir Cosma brought Zamfir with his pan flute to Western European countries for the first time in 1972 as the soloist in Cosma's original music for the movie Le grand blond avec une chaussure noire. The movie received several awards, including the Top Foreign Film from the National Board of Review in 1973. Zamfir continued to perform as a soloist in movie soundtracks by composers Francis Lai, Ennio Morricone and many others. Largely through television commercials where he was billed as "Zamfir, Master of the Pan Flute", he introduced the folk instrument to a modern audience and revived it from obscurity.
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