The group formed in 1989, shortly before the death of dictator Nicolae Ceauşescu, but actually they were discovered by Romanian ethnomusicologist Speranta Radulescu, who first recorded them in 1983 for the archive of "The Institute for Ethnography and Folklore". The original group encompassed about a dozen musicians; later configurations were to include as many as thirty. Early contacts in the West included Swiss ethnomusicologist Laurent Aubert and Belgian musician Stéphane Karo.