November 2- 4
11:00 Latvian Music Academy
Presentation of CD BORSH
December 1
19:00 Daile theatre
THE SHIN (Georgia) & VALTS PŪCE (Latvia)
Presentation of CD "Es arī", Latvian - Georgian world music programme
Tal Kravitz is a classically trained Israeli musician, singer, and teacher. He is also a traveler who searches for original tribal music in the furthest corners of the world, bringing back songs, sounds, rare instruments, and people’s stories. Tal plays piano, harp, guitar, a variety of bagpipes, the musical saw, African drums, and many other folk instruments.
During his travels, Tal photographs the lifestyle of indigenous tribes and records their music as it has been sung and played for centuries. He later uses this material to promote ethno-musicological research in societies whose traditions and music are in danger of extinction.
Israeli classics, Yiddish music, Hassidic music, and holiday songs are also part of Tal’s world music repertoire, which he calls “a world-embracing musical journey” and “an encounter between Israeli classics and ethnic musical instruments.”
Puerto Flamenco was one of the hottest acts at last year’s Malta Arts Festival, as anyone seated in the front rows surely knows. And if you were one of the lucky ones near the stage, perhaps you got sprayed by the sweat and liquid Brylcreem gushing from the dancers. Riverdance and Michael Flatley: eat your heart out! This is the Mediterranean coast on a sultry summer evening in July, where flamenco, not the Irish quick-step, rules the night. It’s fast, furious, passionate, and hot!
What’s fascinating about watching Puerto Flamenco is that you’re seeing pan-Europeans act out the essence of Sevillian flamenco. Francesca Grima, co-director of the company and its lone female star, is Maltese, and her fellow director, drummer Andrej Vujicic, is originally from Serbia. The pair came to Seville almost ten years ago to follow the flamenco dream. That’s not a career choice for the fainthearted!
The dancers endure gruelingly long days of training and rehearsals. Afterward, they spend the evening performing almost until the wee hours. But the hard work has definitely paid off. Francesca and Andrej have gathered an impressive cast of fellow dancers, which includes members of the award-winning Eduardo Trassierratrio and Jesus Herrera, winner of the highest awards in the world of flamenco dancing, la Perla de Cadiz and la Union.
This year’s act, entitled Triana 41010 (a suburb of Seville where the company is based), is billed as Puerto’s “most ambitious, creative adventure yet.” It draws energy from this legendary bohemian suburb—the cradle of flamenco, toreros, and all things Andalusian. Triana has been described as a “feast for the senses, with the production swinging madly from relentless artful merrymaking to awe-inspiring solemnity,” recalling Andalusia’s “colourful feasts, incense-laden religious pilgrimages and day-to-day vitality…”
Ivan Kirchuk Lead vocal, 12-string guitar, 3- and 4-string domras, smyk, gusli, pipes, whistles, mound harmonica, reed stick, zhaleykas, lyre, ocarinas, wargan (jaw harp), pipe, rainmaker, duda, kalimba.
In Belarusian, the word “troitsa” means both the numeral three and the religious concept of the Trinity, emphasizing the group’s connection with Belarusian national traditions. Troitsa was founded in 1986 by Ivan Kirtchuk, a senior lecturer at the University of Minsk. Kirtchuk’s goal was to popularize Belarusian songs and connect them with universal musical traditions. Troitsa performs on a wide range of Belarusian folk instruments, as well as instruments from other countries of the world, and continues to preserve the old Belarusian language in its songs. Critics have called their style of music “folk-fusion” with world music influences. The band’s most recent albums, Zhar-Zhar (which means “hotly, hotly”) and Son-Trava (“dream herb”), were both released in 2008.
The seven Sicilian men who make up the group Antichi Suoni (“ancient sounds”) have studied, sung, and performed the folk music of their native Sicily for many years. The group has participated in countless festivals all over Europe, delighting listeners with their authenticity and musicality. The group has recorded several albums; their latest CD will be released in late 2009.
The vocal group Cosmos is undoubtedly the most popular a cappella ensemble in Latvia. The singers’ professional training and incredibly broad vocal range allows them to perform a full spectrum of musical genres and styles, from medieval polyphonic chants to contemporary jazz, pop, and world music.
The members of Cosmos spend lots of time and energy mastering their singing skills with the world’s leading vocal music specialists, including the Hilliard Ensemble, Take 6, the Real Group, the New York Voices, Flying Pickets, and M-Pact, who have already accepted Cosmos as colleagues in the international elite of a cappella music.
This year, in honor of the tenth anniversary of the Porta Festival, Cosmos will perform a special world music program at the opening concert.
Production Company: Roberto Galante (Italy)The remnants of two ancient cultures, one farming and one gypsy, once again meet in the sacred space of devotion. "The spirituality of the Roma people is simple, immediate and very intense in the expression of the various languages among which dance and music are the most important. Through dance they express the desire to unite with the divinity, with their own bodies, their feelings, their own beings... Dance in front of Saints Cosma and Damiano is to symbolize their union with the divinity. Their language is a symbolic language made up of gestures where the body language prevails over the verbalism of the prayers..."
Production Company: TSI - Televisione svizzera di lingua italiana (Switzerland)“Talam” is a journey through the roots of mankind, a tour of man’s both welcoming and hostile abodes. It is an investigation of the colours and primeval sounds of music and an attempt to capture their communicative power.
"Talam" is a series of documentary films based on the music and ethnic traditions of various reģions.
Searching for the roots of traditional music in South Africa seen as an expression of the culture of the various communities that live there. Musically speaking, the Rainbow Nation is a unique melting pot of African traditions and American influences. From a musical standpoint, the most prominent are the Zulu, who have developed a highly original musical form called Iscathamiya, based on their ‘a cappella’ choirs formerly used in gospel singing. The urbanized Zulu, living in the city hostels and working mostly in the mines, have thus produced a successful sound which has become known all over the world thanks to the great African poet Joseph Shabalala and his Ladysmith Black Mambazo. The documentary also explores ways of life, music and dance of the N’debele, the Xhosa, the Basotho, all of them filmed in their original environment in the Mpumalanga, the Eastern State and the KwaZulu-Natal. The origins of South African music are traced back as far as the san, the earliest inhabitants of this part of Africa, whose musical legacy is witnessed by the instruments, the healing dances and the ‘click sound’ that are so much part of the South African tradition. The modern South African sound can be heard in clubs all around Johannesburg and Durban and at the North Sea Jazz Festival of Capetown: such venues are part of the present program as foremost examples of the integration of traditional forms and American influences. Beside Shabalala, the film includes performances by Busi Mhlongo, Madosini, Amampondo, Big Voice Jack.