Career
Zamfir came to the public eye when he was "discovered" 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. This was very successful, and since then, he has been used as 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. In the United States his commercials were widely seen on CNN in the 1980s.
Zamfir's big break in the English-speaking world came when the BBC religious television programme "The Light of Experience" adopted his recording of "Doina De Jale", a traditional Romanian funeral song, as its theme. Popular demand forced Epic Records to release the tune as a single in 1976, and it climbed to number four on the UK charts. It would prove to be his only hit single, but it helped pave the way for a consistent stream of album sales in Britain.
After nearly a decade-long absence, Romanian pan flute virtuoso Gheorghe Zamfir returned to Canada in January 2006 for a seven-city tour with TRAFFIC STRINGS quintet . The program included a world premiere: Vivaldi's Four Seasons for PanFlute and string quintet arranged by Lucian Moraru, jazz standards, and well-known favourites.
Most recently, Zamfir has been sampled by Animal Collective in the song "Graze" on their EP Fall Be Kind.
Read more about this topic: Gheorghe Zamfir
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