Gheorghe Ene (born February 13, 1959), known as Ionică Minune, is a

Romani Romani may refer to: Ethnic groups * Romani people, or Roma, an ethnic group of Indo-Aryan origin ** Romani language, an Indo-Aryan macrolanguage of the Romani communities ** Romanichal, Romani subgroup in the United Kingdom * Romanians (Romanian ...

Romanian Romanian may refer to: *anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Romania **Romanians, an ethnic group **Romanian language, a Romance language ***Romanian dialects, variants of the Romanian language **Romanian cuisine, traditional ...

accordion Accordions (from 19th-century German language, German ', from '—"musical chord, concord of sounds") are a family of box-shaped musical instruments of the bellows-driven free reed aerophone type (producing sound as air flows past a Reed (mou ...

ist.

Life and career

Ionică Minune was born in Costeşti,

Buzău County Buzău County () is a county (județ) of Romania, in the Historical regions of Romania, historical region Muntenia, with the capital city at Buzău. Demographics In 2011, it had a population of 432,054 and the population density was 70.7/km ...

Romania Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern and Southeast Europe. It borders Ukraine to the north and east, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Bulgaria to the south, Moldova to ...

into a family of ''

lăutari The Romanian language, Romanian word lăutar (; plural: ''lăutari'') denotes a class of musicians. The term was adopted by members of a professional clan of Romani musicians in the late 18th century. The term is derived from ''lăută'', the ...

''. The members of his family played different instruments and they used to be booked together as one ''

taraf ''Taraf'' ("Side" in Turkish) was a liberal newspaper in Turkey. It had distinguished itself by opposing interference by the Turkish military in the country's social and political affairs. It was distributed nationwide, and had been in circula ...

'' (band) at various events in the village. At the age of four, Ionică took his older brother accordion and played a waltz by ear without any kind of training. Since then he continued to play and practice, mostly for his own pleasure, as he didn't want to become a professional musician. In the early 1990s he moved to France. There, besides

lăutărească music Lăutărească music (, ) is a musical tradition widespread in the historical regions of Romania (Wallachia, Moldova, and Transylvania. Its performers, known as lăutari, are professional musicians, typically of Romani origin, who play at wedding ...

, he started to play

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Its roots are in blues, ragtime, European harmony, African rhythmic rituals, spirituals, h ...

, manouche jazz, as well as other kinds of music. Despite living a good life (he received French citizenship and an apartment) he did not feel very comfortable in France and returned to Romania in 2006. There, he started an accordion school together with the accordionist Constantin "Fulgerică" and the

cimbalom The cimbalom, cimbal (; ) or concert cimbalom is a type of chordophone composed of a large, trapezoidal box on legs with metal strings stretched across its top and a damping pedal underneath. It was designed and created by József Schunda, V. ...

player Cristinel Turturică (a former member of Taraf de Haïdouks). Throughout his career, besides many great ''lăutari'', Ionică Minune played with artists such as

Bobby McFerrin Robert Keith McFerrin Jr. (born March 11, 1950) is an American singer, songwriter, and conductor (music), conductor. His Vocal pedagogy, vocal techniques include singing fluidly but with quick and considerable jumps in Pitch (music), pitch—fo ...

Oscar Peterson Oscar Emmanuel Peterson (August 15, 1925 – December 23, 2007) was a Canadian jazz pianist and composer. As a virtuoso who is considered to be one of the greatest Jazz piano, jazz pianists of all time, Peterson released more than 200 recordin ...

Michel Petrucciani Michel Petrucciani (; ; 28 December 1962 – 6 January 1999) was a French jazz pianist. From birth he had osteogenesis imperfecta, a genetic disease that causes brittle bones and, in his case, short stature. Despite his health condition and rel ...

Richard Galliano Richard Galliano (born 12 December 1950, Cannes, Alpes-Maritimes) is a French accordionist of Italian heritage. Allmusic biography/ref> Biography He was drawn to music at an early age, starting with the accordion at 4, influenced by his father ...

Marcel Azzola Marcel Azzola (10 July 1927 – 21 January 2019) was a French accordionist. He performed with Stan Getz and Jacques Brel, among others. The famous line "" ("Heat up, Marcel") in Brel's song "Vesoul" refers to Azzola, who played the accordion duri ...

Didier Lockwood Didier Lockwood (11 February 1956 – 18 February 2018) was a French violinist. He played in the French rock band Magma in the 1970s, and was known for his use of electric amplification and his experimentation with different sounds on the electri ...

, Tschavolo Schmitt and

Florin Niculescu Florin Niculescu (born 8 February 1967 in Bucharest) is a Romanian violinist of Romani (Gypsy) ethnicity. Family background and education Niculescu was born into a family of educated ''lăutari''. Everybody in his family was involved in music: h ...

References

Sources

Interview with Ionică Minune

Bobby McFerrin vs. accordion and cimbalom
{{DEFAULTSORT:Minune, Ionica 1959 births Living people Romanian accordionists Romani musicians Romanian Romani people Lăutari and lăutărească music 21st-century accordionists