A Minute With: Hungarian violinist Kelemen - proud of Roma roots

By Michael Roddy

LONDON | Sat Sep 21, 2013 5:45am EDT

LONDON (Reuters) - Hungarian violinist Barnabas Kelemen has studied with the late virtuoso Isaac Stern and won Gramophone magazine's award for best chamber music CD of 2013, but what he is really proud of is his Roma heritage.

Kelemen, who was in London this week to accept the prestigious Gramophone award for his disc of Bartok violin sonatas and to appear with his wife Katalin Kokas in the Kelemen Quartet at Wigmore Hall on Sunday, credits his late Roma violinist grandfather as an inspirational figure in his life.

"I can play in the gypsy style and I love it," Kelemen, 35, told Reuters in an interview.

"It's very important artistically," he said, while noting that because of discrimination against the Roma community in Hungary and elsewhere in central Europe, "there are many examples of parents not talking about their background".

Kelemen, on the other hand, is proud that his grandfather Pali Pertis may well have been the model for French composer Maurice Ravel when he wrote his famous Roma-inspired, if not Roma-authentic, "Tzigane". It was commissioned by Hungarian violinist Jelly d'Aranyi and first performed by her in 1924.

"My grandfather was born in 1903 and as a very young prodigy, as a teenager, he travelled to Europe and it is not impossible that Ravel himself heard my grandfather in Paris."

Kokas, seated at the table during the interview, interjects to suggest that everyone knows this to be the case, but Kelemen, while not disagreeing, says: "It's not proven."

Here's what else he had to say about why the music of major Hungarian composers like Bartok and Kodaly is being played better than ever, why Hungarians may have an edge but aren't the only musicians who can play the pieces, and where his career is going from here.

Q: The Bartok violin sonatas for which you and pianist Zoltan Kocsis won the Gramophone chamber music prize are by no means new to disc, and in fact your mentor Isaac Stern recorded the first sonata back in 1951. What makes your version special?

A:: I have to tell you that the generation of Hungarian musicians working now and studying in the last 10 to 20 years, we were taught by fantastic masters who were educated by the generation of Bartok who drank this in like mother's milk. So for them it was rather new while for us it's natural but still very fresh. We speak a language that is unique and I am teaching a new generation of students already. So we are at a very lucky moment regarding Bartok and Kodaly's style.

Q: It's often said that Russian music is best played by Russians, Hungarian music by Hungarians, but is this the case?

A: I'm not one to say that Bartok can be played only by Hungarians but it is very important to Hungarians ... and you have to understand some of our music is going back to the ancient times, some of our folk tunes have relations to Chinese and Asian music and so it's really unique.

Q: With the Gramophone award, the Wigmore Hall recital and your appearance as soloist in the extremely demanding Penderecki Violin Concerto with the London Philharmonic Orchestra in November, this seems to be your year, is that right?

A: It's not my job to say but I'm doing my work and practicing and trying to play the best I can while enjoying some nice things that are coming up. I have always been a person and a musician who enjoyed developing step by step in my concert career. I am never pushing and no one is ever pushing too much behind me.

(Editing by Pravin Char)

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Entrepreneur Lee Beaumont set up 0871 phone that makes HIM 10p a minute from cold-callers

Lee Beaumont has made ?300 since he set up his own 0871 number'I was annoyed with the PPI calls when I'm trying to watch Corrie', he saidKept his free line for friends and family and premium rate for companies

By Martin Robinson

PUBLISHED: 08:06 GMT, 29 August 2013 | UPDATED: 00:16 GMT, 30 August 2013

Clever man: Lee Beaumont was plagued by cold calls so hit back with his own premium-rate phone number

FED up with the constant barrage of unwanted calls, Lee Beaumont decided it was time to take revenge.

The businessman turned the tables on the cold-callers by  setting up his own premium rate phone number – and has since pocketed ?300 as a result.

Mr Beaumont said he was inundated with calls to his landline from  salesmen, especially those offering help with compensation claims for mis-sold Payment Protection Insurance, so decided to make them pay to speak to him.

The 25-year-old paid ?10 plus VAT to set up a personal 0871 landline and now makes money every time he receives an unsolicited phone call.

He said it was ‘extremely easy’ to set up the number online.

He chose an 0871 number because it was more profitable than one starting with 0845 or 0844.

Mr Beaumont said he gave out the premium rate number whenever he needed to talk to utility companies but had a separate line for his friends and family to call.

‘I was getting annoyed at the PPI calls I was constantly getting so I thought there must be a way to make money out of them,’ he said.

‘I decided I would get an 08 number and realised if I had an 0871 number they would be charged 10p a minute.

‘Out of this I get to keep 9p for every minute, so I phoned up all of my service providers and told them I would be changing my number. This was in 2011 and I’ve made ?300 from it.’

Mr Beaumont, who runs an e-commerce business from his home in Leeds, said the cold calls had now dried up, but he continues to make a few pounds a month from utilities  trying to sell their products.

‘Companies ring me up and the first thing they ask is, “Why do you have an 0871 number?”,’ he said. ‘I tell them it is so I can make money out of them.

‘Npower were particularly annoyed and wouldn’t call me. They’d keep emailing me, but I’d tell them to call me. Eventually they gave in, but I have left them now and they regularly call asking me to rejoin them.’

Frustration: The calls came, as usual, in the evening during Lee's favourite shows, so he spend ?10 plus VAT on his own 0871 number (file picture)

Far from dreading the nuisance calls, Mr Beaumont now says he relishes the sound of the phone ringing.

‘I actually want to be cold-called now,’ he said. ‘I’d definitely recommend everyone to do it – it definitely stops the PPI calls.’

But premium number regulator Phone Pay Plus yesterday warned other members of the public against trying the same thing.

A spokesman told Radio 4’s You And Yours programme: ‘Premium-rate numbers are not designed to be used in this way and we would strongly  discourage any listeners from adopting this idea, as they will be liable under our code for any breaches and subsequent fines that result.’

Consumer champion Which? has been extremely critical of cold-callers and launched The Calling Time On Nuisance Calls And Texts campaign in March.

The campaign called for an expiry date on third-party consent, so firms have a limited period to call a consumer after they tick the opt-in box on a form.

It is estimated that up 700million nuisance calls are received every month. Research by Which? found eight in ten people have received an unsolicited call in the past month, while six in ten have received calls about Payment Protection Insurance and half have taken calls from accident claim companies.

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