Jani Lang & Martin MacDonald

Jani Lang & Martin MacDonald Jani Lang is a Hungarian fiddle player currently living in Scotland. He has earned his BA hons/ MA as a classical player, but also studied folk music from traditional artists and is dedicated to promoting the music of Eastern Europe and the Balkans. He won the special prize for young classical violinists in the 1993 ‘Koncz Janos’ national violin competition and first prize and the prize of excellence at the first National Hungarian Folk Music Competition in 1996. He has played throughout Europe and the UK, and in 2000, toured with ‘Fiddles on Fire’. Television and radio appearances include programmes on the BBC, Hungarian National Television, Denmark Radio, and Radio Nacional de Espana. Interviews with Jani appear in Irish Music Magazine (7/11, 2002), FRoots (246, 2003), Irish Dance Magazine (Jan., 2004) and he earned a four-star review in the Scotsman in 2008.

Martin Macdonald hails from the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides. He became proficient at the Highland bagpipe at an early age and soon taught himself any instrument on which he could lay his hands, eventually settling on the guitar. He now teaches classical guitar at the University of Aberdeen, while keeping in touch with his traditional roots and developing his interest in a wide range of musical genres.

The two joined forces in 2007, taking audiences on a journey through the different styles and cultures of the Balkans and Eastern Europe, the guitar creating unusual and varied backdrops for Jani’s fiddle playing.