My edition of Concertzender’s 60-minute radioprogramme Wereldmineralen on 2 September 2010 features recent releases of African and Asian world music. You can listen to the programme via www.concertzender.nl , broadcast time is 19.00-20.00hrs (dutch time). After broadcast you can listen ‘on demand’ via this link.
In the first half hour there’s African music, starting with the album ‘La Difference’ of Salif Keïta from Mali, followed by the album ‘Télévision’ of Baaba Maal from Senegal. Then there’s a selection of recently released seventies Afrobeat-music from the sampler album ‘Nigeria Afrobeat Special’. In the second half hour the programme features new releases with music from Asia, starting with the album ‘He who travels far’ (release in September 2010) of Chinese-Mongolian band Hanggai. This group blends rock with traditional Mongolian music and overtone singing. The final part of the programme features music from the album Stringstruck by sitar maestro Purbayan Chatterjee.
An article on Purbayan Chatterjee’s recent fusion projects / In: Hindustan Times, August 15th, 2010
With his band Stringstruck Purbayan Chatterjee created an album of fusion music that earned him in July 2010 the award of ‘world music album of the year’ in India. Pleasant and striking surprises on Stringstruck are Purbayan Chatterjee’s singing and his playing on the dwo, an electric sitar.
Playlist of Wereldmineralen:
Titel: La Différance
Tijdsduur: 04’04
Uitvoerende: Salif Keïta
Componist: Salif Keïta
Album: La Différance
Label en Jaar: Universal Music 000422 88240266 ; P en C 2010
Titel: Papa
Tijdsduur: 06’58
Uitvoerende: Salif Keïta
Componist: Salif Keïta
Album: La Différance
Label en Jaar: Universal Music 000422 88240266 ; P en C 2010
Titel: Télévision
Tijdsduur: 07’04
Uitvoerende: Baaba Maal
Componist: Baaba Maal, B. Reynolds
Album: Télévision
Label en Jaar: PALM BEC5772521 ; P en C 2009
Titel: International
Tijdsduur: 03’11
Uitvoerende: Baaba Maal
Componist: Baaba Maal, B. Reynolds
Album: Télévision
Label en Jaar: PALM BEC5772521 ; P en C 2009
Titel: Cha
Tijdsduur: 03’53
Uitvoerende: Hanggai
Componist: Hanggai
Album: He Who Travels Far
Label en Jaar: World Connection WC 039 ; P en C 2010
Titel: Dorov Morlaril
Tijdsduur: 05’30
Uitvoerende: Hanggai
Componist: Hanggai
Album: He Who Travels Far
Label en Jaar: World Connection WC 039 ; P en C 2010
Titel: Golden bangle
Tijdsduur: 04’06
Uitvoerende: Hanggai
Componist: Hanggai
Album: He Who Travels Far
Label en Jaar: World Connection WC 039 ; P en C 2010
Titel: Dwo Bickram Ghosh Mix
Tijdsduur: 05’45
Uitvoerende: Purbayan Chatterjee
Componist: Purbayan Chatterjee
Album: Stringstruck
Label en Jaar: Times Music 885444227394 ; C 2010
Titel: Shadowlights
Tijdsduur: 08’22
Uitvoerende: Purbayan Chatterjee
Componist: Purbayan Chatterjee
Album: Stringstruck
Label en Jaar: Times Music 885444227394 ; C 2010
I guess with the upcoming second edition of the IGFA (International Gamelan Festival Amsterdam) in september 2010, gamelan is more on my mind these days - and btw, in the past I played Balinese and Javanese gamelan for almost twenty years - maybe that explains why I couldn’t resist making this Lotring-tribute video
The video contains footage of legendary Balinese musician I Wayan Lotring (1898-1983) dancing and playing in 1972. I combined this footage with a segment of Lotring’s composition ‘Liar Samas’, played by himself and his orchestra in 1972. You can find the complete recording on a marvellous 2cd-album, released by Ocora, titled ‘Hommage a Wayan Lotring’, an album I highly recommend, a very worthwhile buy if you like gamelan music from Bali.
In the 1920’s and 1930’s Lotring was an absolute sensation on Bali, revolutionising musical form of gamelan pieces on kebyar, pelegongan and gender wayang, and in so doing paving the way for others on Bali to take gamelan into new directions.
I would expect Canadian composer Colin McPhee to have filmed him in the 1930’s but haven’t seen that footage (I’ve only seen a few photographs of Lotring by McPhee). In his book ‘A House in Bali’ McPhee meets Lotring and even devotes a chapter to him. A nice read that brings you in the midst of musical history on Bali.
Natacha Atlas is a great singer. I remember her solo debut album ‘Diaspora’ was one of my favourites in 1994. Through the years she made a lot of other great albums and now there’s a new one on its way, to be released in September.
I look forward to the release of Mounqaliba, where - as is explained in the video below - she explores links between Western classical music and Arabic classical music, ‘blending Middle Eastern, African and European sounds. Mounqaliba features new songs written in classical Arabic by Atlas and collaborator Samy Bishai, who learned violin from Russians and Armenians in Egypt. Atlas’ multicultural background - half Moroccan/Egyptian/Palestinian and half British and largely raised in Belgium - plays out in her genre-bending music, with its appreciation of Western electronic music and pop alongside a thorough grounding in Arabic musical traditions. For the new record, Altas had ambitious intentions: “What I hope I have achieved is to match the lyricism of classical music with the inherent poetry of Arabic… To create a melange of ideas and examined opposites.” Mounqaliba will release 21 September via Six Degrees Records.’ (quoted text from: http://www.sacbee.com/2010/08/30/2992535/riff-report-new-music-this-week.html#ixzz0yE48cYHU )
Natacha Atlas explains about the upcoming release of Mounqaliba
One of Natacha Atlas’ lovely dance hits, Mon Amie La Rose
Recently published on YouTube in two videos: selected segments of unique footage from 1972 of the legendary Balinese composer, musician, dancer I Wayan Lotring (approx.1898-1983).
Lotring is arguably Bali’s most influential gamelan composer/musician of the twentieth century. And of course a great dancer as well. We see Lotring at old age dancing and playing his own compositions with fellow musicians. When playing, we see Lotring mostly as the leader of the ensemble, playing the kendang (drum). Segments are shown of the famous 1972 performances that have been published on Ocora in 1974 (rereleased in 1989). Below you’ll find part two. At 2′40″ in this video the famous piece ‘Gambangan’ is played and from 6′16″ there’s my very favourite piece ‘Liar Samas’
Great as this footage of Lotring might be, there are also two regrettable minuses regarding this material:
1. It’s in black and white (filmed from a black and white tv screen?). I can’t imagine (ethno)musicologist Jacques Brunet shot this material in black and white. Moreover, his recordings of these sessions are presented on Ocora along with colour photos in the cd booklet.
2. Sound and image are not sync. It would be very easy to correct this. I’m always surprised to see this. Why do uploaders not correct this before they publish? As a consequence we don’t get to see the real artistic beauty of Lotring’s dancing along with the music and of his (drum)playing with the orchestra. Ooooww!!!
It’s quite amazing that the best newspaper coverage on the demise of dutch folksong collector and radiomaker Ate Doornbosch (1926-2010) comes from an overseas neighbour: British music journalist Ken Hunt wrote an excellent obituary about Ate Doornbosch for the British newspaper The Independent. To read this obituary, click here.
I think it’s regrettable that the dutch national NOS Journaal of public television broadcasting didn’t report on television on Ate Doornbosch’s passing away.
Ate Doornbosch, busy transcribing
Of the big dutch newspapers (Telegraaf, Volkskrant, Parool, Trouw, NRC) only NRC published a short obituary. Still, without any doubt Ate Doornbosch was a figure of national importance. He became famous with his radio programme ‘Onder de Groene Linde’, that ran 1316 times between 1957 and 1993 and in its heydays attracted 350.000 listeners per episode. It was the longest running radio programme ever on dutch national radio.
Ate Doornbosch recording old dutch folksongs at the people’s homes
“Few folk-song collectors anywhere match Doornbosch’s achievement, the public face of which was the long-running radio series Onder de Groene Linde (”Under the green linden”) and “his work was fairly compared to that of the US collector Alan Lomax”, writes British music journalist Ken Hunt about Ate Doornbosch in the aforementioned obituary.
It’s great to see that a foreign newspaper fully recognises the meaning and stature of the pioneering work of Ate Doornbosch. Here’s the link to the obituary once more.
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* outside of the dutch press and media the only extensive dutch obituary I found is this one, written by professor Louis Grijp of the Meertens Instituut in Amsterdam.
“Liederen uit de hele wereld klinken in de huizen. Wie heeft er nog aandacht voor een traag oud lied, dat vroeger de lange winteravonden kortte of een eindeloze werkdag op het land?”
Op 23 juli 2010 is op 84-jarige leeftijd de Nederlandse radiomaker en volkskundige Ate Doornbosch overleden. Hij is op 29 juli gecremeerd. Doornbosch presenteerde van 1957 tot 1993 dertienhonderdzestien keer het populaire radiopogramma ‘Onder de Groene Linde’ waarin hij overal in Nederland mensen thuis bezocht en opnamen maakte van door henzelf gezongen, mondeling overgeleverde liederen. Doornbosch legde op die manier zo’n 5000 traditionele liederen vast. Zijn inspanningen leverden een imposant archief op dat in Amsterdam wordt beheerd door het P.J. Meertens Instituut.
Saturday 7 March, at 24.00hrs, another great 6-hour night programme is broadcast on De Concertzender, produced by me, Pieter de Rooij, and by Charlie Crooijmans. You can listen to a great selection of overtone music from (more…)
On monday, 24 november 2008, at 12.15 PM in The Hague, the Minister of Education, Culture and Science in the Netherlands, Ronald Plasterk, met a delegation of employees of De Concertzender. Managing Director of De Concertzender, Gusta Korteweg, presented him a petition that pleads for the preservation of De Concertzender in its present form, radiodistribution included.
Minister Ronald Plasterk has just received the petition from Gusta Korteweg, managing director of De Concertzender
After receiving the petition from the Concertzender-delegation Minister Ronald Plasterk (more…)
