Zoe Aqua (SUA), Florin Codoba & The Banda Pălatca // concert | Tranzit Days XXVIII

Zoë Aqua Aqua was born and raised in Denver, Colorado. She played Suzuki violin while her dad led songs at their local synagogue and played klezmer music on the weekends. After college, Aqua lived in Brooklyn for a decade amidst a generous and progressive Jewish community that stoked her love of old klezmer recordings and her fascination with Eastern European music. She later became an active figure in New York’s klezmer revival scene, co-founding the bands Tsibele and Farnakht. 

From 2021 to 2023, Aqua lived in Romania on a Fulbright grant, conducting ethnographic research on Transylvanian folk music. She travelled extensively through regions such as Mezőség, Szék, and Maramureș, learning from local musicians and documenting their unique fiddle styles. She also performed in historic synagogues in Satu Mare and Cluj, collaborating with artists from Romania’s folk scene. Her forthcoming live album, In a Sea of Stars (Summer 2025), weaves together klezmer and Transylvanian traditions, reviving melodies and rhythms that once resonated across intercultural communities of the region.

She says that “"In a 150 year-old synagogue in Satu Mare, Romania, she felt an inexplicable at-home-ness. The vaulted ceilings were painted with stars and every note pouring from her violin was bathed in heavenly reverb.” (https://www.zoeaqua.com/)

The Banda Pălatca comes from the village Pălatca (hun.: Magyarpalatka). It is located in the central plains of Transylvania (Mezőség) (Romania), 30km close to Cluj Napoca (Kolozsvár/Klausenburg). The majority of the population consists of Romanians, followed by Hungarians and Roma.

This region survived the influences of Transylvanian Renaissance and Baroque. It brought forth a Transylvanian dance and music style. The subsequent "new style" of Hungary (and other foreign bourgeois influences) reached the region very late, and was taken only after strong selection. The interaction of the Hungarians and the Romanians, but also of Saxony and the Roma originated here the richest treasures of Transylvanian dances and music. The mutual exchange of dances and tunes merged the limits of the characteristics of the Hungarian and Romanian, so there is a true "bilingualism" of the dances and in the music.