<p>Hold your breath. The plaintive song of a gypsy laden with love, yearning, and a deep passion to imbibe every emotion between finding love, losing it and regaining it, strings the air with forgotten dreams. <br /><br /></p>.<p>Until music for the soul rises in tandem with Norig’s mantra of life — to sing until she grows old, resurrecting these dreams along its course. Only, Norig isn’t a gypsy. Of Grenoble-Spanish origin, she was lured by the music of the gypsies of Eastern Europe years ago, when she was 30. “I met a 17-year-old girl from the community who rendered the song of the gypsies and was smitten,” says Norig, who, until then, felt something stir within her, each time she listened to Flamenco, the music of her own ancestors.<br /><br />Today, as Norig’s voice swims through a profusion of strings, riding the vicissitudes between hurt and celebration with deep-throated gusto, one grasps the depth of emotion with which she is drawn to this genre of music. This drawing, which was a shift from her earlier profession, seems to be ordained by the Gods.<br /><br />Alternate expression <br /><br />“I began my career as a fashion designer and visited Chennai 14 years ago. I had to present trends to a fashion designer in Bangalore too and showed my work on textile colour. I loved drawing then and was interested in dresses and clothes. <br /><br />I was 25 and happy to be here. But, underlying all that, I wanted to express myself differently, and thought that I could perhaps learn singing, which is good for the body and soul. Two years later, I wanted to be a singer for certain. As a singer, I am happier to be here now,” beams Norig, who on her India tour across Chennai, Mumbai, Pondicherry, Hyderabad, Delhi and Bangalore, took connoisseurs to the precincts of the heart of Romanian gypsies with her intonations.<br /><br />All this, without any knowledge of the Romanian tongue! “I don’t speak Romanian but understand everything I sing, because gypsy music is always about one theme — you love but you hate, and you always drink wine,” explains Norig, as she changes track to Indian music with Aap chahe na jaan chali. <br /><br />And you see how connected Norig is with its composer Gulabo Sapera of the nomadic Kalbeliya tribe in Rajasthan. “I don’t understand Gulabo’s language either, but I fell in love with the song when I heard it and requested my teacher Martina Catella, the famed ethnomusicologist who has worked with Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, to teach me to sing it,” says Norig.<br /><br />It was with such instant love that Norig was first drawn to the music of the gypsies of Eastern Europe. “I watched the movie Time of Gypsies, heard the song Ederlezi, and told my teacher that I wanted to sing this one song,” says Norig, who took two years to learn it. “I sang it every morning in the subway in Paris on the way to my music school Glotte Trotters, and this led me to my first show in 2001,” she says.<br /><br />Collaboration<br /><br />Fast forward to 2003, and Norig found herself recording the soundtrack of Exiles for famous filmmaker of gypsy origin and best director, 2004 Cannes Festival, Tony Gatlif. “It all happened by chance,” says Norig, adding, “The young gypsy singer I was accompanying was in Paris for a recording.<br /><br /> Tony got to know I was a singer and said, ‘sing now’. I sang an acapella rendition, and he decided: ‘Great, I’ll record with you!’”<br /><br />With that start, on a gypsy music roll in 2004, Norig accompanied the Kostovitza Orchestra from Romania to perform at festivals. “This orchestra plays for the gypsy circus, and initially, I trembled because I had to sing along to the strings of violin and guitar. It was a different playing ground, for I was accustomed to singing acapella without accompanying instruments,” she explains.<br /><br />Thereon, Norig has attempted to keep a band of accompanists as she did on her India tour with Mathias Levy on violin, Olivier Lorang on double bass and Joris Viquesnel on guitar. “Musicians being together on a stage is about soul connect, and people can choose to stay or go according to the connection they feel,” explains Norig.<br /><br />For her own connect, she explores within as she transforms Maria Tanase’s poems into song and gathers her own compositions titled Ionela. “I work with composer Sebastian Giniaux, which is my influence, apart from gypsy, classical and jazz. I like to sing traditional music and so arrange the songs differently,” says Norig, who dreams to continue being a singer and have a child.<br /><br />Drawn to beauty by instinct, Norig takes home the sights and sounds of India. “Indian women are so beautiful, and the food is wonderful, so different from France, and the flavours of Pondicherry, an area I’ve instinctually become connected to,” says Norig with a huge smile.<br /><br />But she loves to cry. “Romanian music makes me cry. It would be pretentious to say that I am happy to be sad, without shame,” says Norig. <br /><br />Breathe free as the elixir of free-spirited emotions surface through the music of the gypsies.<br /></p>
<p>Hold your breath. The plaintive song of a gypsy laden with love, yearning, and a deep passion to imbibe every emotion between finding love, losing it and regaining it, strings the air with forgotten dreams. <br /><br /></p>.<p>Until music for the soul rises in tandem with Norig’s mantra of life — to sing until she grows old, resurrecting these dreams along its course. Only, Norig isn’t a gypsy. Of Grenoble-Spanish origin, she was lured by the music of the gypsies of Eastern Europe years ago, when she was 30. “I met a 17-year-old girl from the community who rendered the song of the gypsies and was smitten,” says Norig, who, until then, felt something stir within her, each time she listened to Flamenco, the music of her own ancestors.<br /><br />Today, as Norig’s voice swims through a profusion of strings, riding the vicissitudes between hurt and celebration with deep-throated gusto, one grasps the depth of emotion with which she is drawn to this genre of music. This drawing, which was a shift from her earlier profession, seems to be ordained by the Gods.<br /><br />Alternate expression <br /><br />“I began my career as a fashion designer and visited Chennai 14 years ago. I had to present trends to a fashion designer in Bangalore too and showed my work on textile colour. I loved drawing then and was interested in dresses and clothes. <br /><br />I was 25 and happy to be here. But, underlying all that, I wanted to express myself differently, and thought that I could perhaps learn singing, which is good for the body and soul. Two years later, I wanted to be a singer for certain. As a singer, I am happier to be here now,” beams Norig, who on her India tour across Chennai, Mumbai, Pondicherry, Hyderabad, Delhi and Bangalore, took connoisseurs to the precincts of the heart of Romanian gypsies with her intonations.<br /><br />All this, without any knowledge of the Romanian tongue! “I don’t speak Romanian but understand everything I sing, because gypsy music is always about one theme — you love but you hate, and you always drink wine,” explains Norig, as she changes track to Indian music with Aap chahe na jaan chali. <br /><br />And you see how connected Norig is with its composer Gulabo Sapera of the nomadic Kalbeliya tribe in Rajasthan. “I don’t understand Gulabo’s language either, but I fell in love with the song when I heard it and requested my teacher Martina Catella, the famed ethnomusicologist who has worked with Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, to teach me to sing it,” says Norig.<br /><br />It was with such instant love that Norig was first drawn to the music of the gypsies of Eastern Europe. “I watched the movie Time of Gypsies, heard the song Ederlezi, and told my teacher that I wanted to sing this one song,” says Norig, who took two years to learn it. “I sang it every morning in the subway in Paris on the way to my music school Glotte Trotters, and this led me to my first show in 2001,” she says.<br /><br />Collaboration<br /><br />Fast forward to 2003, and Norig found herself recording the soundtrack of Exiles for famous filmmaker of gypsy origin and best director, 2004 Cannes Festival, Tony Gatlif. “It all happened by chance,” says Norig, adding, “The young gypsy singer I was accompanying was in Paris for a recording.<br /><br /> Tony got to know I was a singer and said, ‘sing now’. I sang an acapella rendition, and he decided: ‘Great, I’ll record with you!’”<br /><br />With that start, on a gypsy music roll in 2004, Norig accompanied the Kostovitza Orchestra from Romania to perform at festivals. “This orchestra plays for the gypsy circus, and initially, I trembled because I had to sing along to the strings of violin and guitar. It was a different playing ground, for I was accustomed to singing acapella without accompanying instruments,” she explains.<br /><br />Thereon, Norig has attempted to keep a band of accompanists as she did on her India tour with Mathias Levy on violin, Olivier Lorang on double bass and Joris Viquesnel on guitar. “Musicians being together on a stage is about soul connect, and people can choose to stay or go according to the connection they feel,” explains Norig.<br /><br />For her own connect, she explores within as she transforms Maria Tanase’s poems into song and gathers her own compositions titled Ionela. “I work with composer Sebastian Giniaux, which is my influence, apart from gypsy, classical and jazz. I like to sing traditional music and so arrange the songs differently,” says Norig, who dreams to continue being a singer and have a child.<br /><br />Drawn to beauty by instinct, Norig takes home the sights and sounds of India. “Indian women are so beautiful, and the food is wonderful, so different from France, and the flavours of Pondicherry, an area I’ve instinctually become connected to,” says Norig with a huge smile.<br /><br />But she loves to cry. “Romanian music makes me cry. It would be pretentious to say that I am happy to be sad, without shame,” says Norig. <br /><br />Breathe free as the elixir of free-spirited emotions surface through the music of the gypsies.<br /></p>
