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!!!
On Saturday 27 and Sunday 28 september 2008 the Cité de la Musique in Paris offers a unique 24 hour raga-weekend of live concerts, with evening and night raga’s in ‘une nuit’ on saturday and with morning and afternoon raga’s in ‘un jour’ on sunday. Some of today’s greatest hindusthani and carnatic artists are performing. There’ll be concerts by a.o. Sudha Ragunathan (vocal), Kaushiki Chakrabarty (vocal), Amjad Ali Khan (sarod), Shashank (bansuri) and the Gundecha Brothers (vocal). If you want to have a look at the complete programme, see: ‘la nuit du raga’ and ‘le jour du raga’.
Yesterday I felt dismayed when I read on the web that french world music pioneer Hector Zazou died last week, at the age of 60. Dismayed, also because a few weeks ago I’ve heard that a new album of his, ‘In the House of Mirrors’, is bound for release later this month. Now it turns out that his new album will be (more…)
