The Balkans has always served as a crossroads
between East and West and the region’s history is
well known. It has been a theatre for numerous conflicts,
conquests and migration; but it is also a land of exchanges,
a cultural melting pot made up of diverse populations; Greeks,
Turks, Slaves, Albanians and Tsiganes; Christians, Jews
and Muslims. Willingly or by force, these peoples have learned
to live together, all the while preserving their fragile
symbols of identity.
By presenting musicians from six countries
– and from an imagined land – this festival
will highlight the parallels between strong styles, which
come from a common source of inspiration. Over and above
the particularities (Albanian polyphonies, Bulgaria’s
asymmetrical rhythms, Macedonian brass bands) the music
has a family feel to it that touches and seduces us. Let
us then be charmed by Orpheus’ lyre or, like wandering
Ulysses, by the sirens’ song, risking our souls, charmed
by the magic of sound.
Maria “La
Patsch” de la Paz: song
Marc “Brutsch” Berman: accordion, song
Alexandra “Pietrouchka” Tundo: clarinets,
song
Ben “Vadim” Vicq: guitar
Léon “Walabatsch” Kadi: Violin,
trombone, flute
Mathias “Pariku” Noverraz: drums
Rachel Delégise: dance
Free entrance
Audio extract :
Rotitschk (8'56)
In 2005, seven characters from a Vlagachian
thriller united before of pile of instruments that included
a helicopter-accordion, a trombone forged in iron and a
poppy-petalled double bass. Since that time, Vagalatschk
has created a fun and festive universe, which takes us into
the mad, musical world of Vlagachie, a fantastical incarnation
of the Balkans. For the festival’s opening, the Ateliers
d’ethnomusicologie have chosen to offer this concert
to their public.
Thursday 23 September, 9pm
Concert
Pérgamos Project- Café Aman Rebetiko, music and dance from Greece
and Asia Minor
Pérgamos Projects invites us on
a musical journey through early twentieth century Greece,
with some of the most beautiful Rebetiko songs. Entitled
Café Aman, this programme follows, through music,
the movements of Asia Minor's Greeks, who would go to meet
in the port areas of Salonica and the Piraeus. The Rebetiko
is the music of cabarets, smoking dens and prisons and is
a refuge for those excluded by a pitiless society.
The music of well-known composers will
be honoured through song, dance and instrumental improvisation.
Friday 24 September 8.30pm
Concert
Naat Veliov and the Original Kocani Orkestar Tsigane (gypsy) brass band from
Macedonia
Founded in Macedonia by the incredible trumpeter «
King » Nat Veliov, the Kocani Orkestar became known
in Emir Kusturica’s film «Time of the Gypsies».
The music, brilliantly performed by a scorching brass section
to wild rhythms, takes us to the festive atmosphere of the
towns and villages of the Balkans. Their eclectic repertoire
bares the marks of various sources of inspiration and is
passed down the generations, in keeping with tradition.
Saturday 25 September 5 pm
Cinema
« Rembetiko » Costas Ferris (Greece, 1983, 35mm, 148’) Greek
with French subtitles
Golden Bear at Berlin Film Festival 1984.
With Thesia Panagiotou,
Sortiria Leonardou, Hrysoula Hristopoulou, Sofia Emfietzi,
Thodoris Papadopoulos, Petros Flippidis, Manolis Karantinis
Movie extract :
Smyrne, 1919: Adrianna, wife of the Rebetiko
singer Panayis, gives birth to Marika. Years later, after
her mother’s violent death and the birth of her own
child, Marika and a musician friend find themselves in the
taverna where Babis and his orchestra played.
Costas Ferris was born in Egypt to Greek
parents, but it was really in Greece that he threw himself
into cinema. Rembetiko is his fifth feature length film.
Saturday 25 September 8.30pm
Concert
Istanbul Sazendelari – The Night of the Ney Istanbul’s great soloists
1st half :Istanbul Sazendelari
Göksel Baktagir: cithara kanun
Yurdal Tokçcan: lute oud
Selim Güler: fiddle kermençe
Emrullah Sengüller: cello
Bülent Elmas: percussion
The first part of this exceptional evening
dedicated to Istanbul’s music scene reveals the richness
of Turkish classical music. Founded in 1999, Istanbul Sazendelari
brings together 5 of Istanbul’s best musicians. With
a contemporary feel, the group offers up incredible improvisations
and creative music based on a demanding classical tradition.
The Night of the Ney Istanbul’s great soloists
– 2nd half
Muhammed Sadreddin
özçimi: flute ney
Ahmed Sahin: song, ney
Murat Salim Tokaç: ney, lute, tanbur
Ahmet Çalisir: song, drum bendir
In contrast to Istanbul Sazendelari’s creativity and
instrumental mastery, the Night of the Ney programme focuses
on the depth and spiritual dimensions of playing.
The ney, a frail reed flute, is not only
a key instrument in Turkish classical music, but it is also
the archetypal symbol of Sufi heritage. With instrumentals
and vocals, this meditative music is also completely in
keeping with the Sufi spirit.
Thursday 30 September 8.30pm
Concert
Music of Crete Masters of traditional music
Reaching back to Antiquity, Crete’s rich musical tradition
bares witness to the eventful history of an island where
diverse influences confronted one another. This crossroads
of civilisations brings us a music where East and West seem
to have found an exceptionally fertile common ground - it's
a unique fusion of Dionysian spirit, ecstatic dances and
ancient ballads.
The concert brings together 5 of Crete’s
most well known singers and musicians in a programme that
is representative of the island’s different styles,
which include songs, pastoral melodies and dance tunes.
Friday 1 October 6.30pm
Cinema
« Whose is this song ? »
(Chia e Tazi
Pesen?)
Adela Peeva (Bulgaria, 2003, Beta, 70’) Original
version with French subtitles
Bartok Prize, Ethnographic film festival, Paris, 2004
Imagine Adela Peeva’s surprise when
she discovered that a song from her childhood – one
that she believed to be Bulgarian – was also sung
from Greece through to Turkey. Wanting to know more, and
motivated by the naïve hope that this song could serve
as a bridge between peoples who have always fought each
other, she travelled all over the Balkans, seeking out musicians,
singers and experts in an effort to discover its origins.
Friday 1 October 8.30 pm
Concert
Dimitar Gugov Ensemble The Bulgarian art of gadulka
Dimitar Gugov:
song, fiddle gadulka
Nikolai Paskalev: fiddle gadulka
Temelko Nikolov Ivanov: flute kaval
Yavor Taskov: lute, tambura
Georgi Nedkov: accordion
Hasan Mustafov: drum tapan
In Bulgaria, the gadulka (a small string instrument with
bow) is used in music that is both popular and refined.
Accordingly, the repertoire comprises of dances, asymmetrical
rhythms, songs and instrumental improvisation. Alone or
accompanied, the gadulka is an instrument that articulates
all the emotions in Dimitar Gugov’s inspired and fundamentally
festive expression of traditional music.
Saturday 2 October 5 pm
Cinema
The Song of a Lost Country
Bernard Lortat-Jacob
and Hélène Delaporte (France, 2006,
Beta, 68’) Albanian and Greek with French subtitles
Bartok Prize, Ethnographic film festival Paris 2007
Found in the north of modern-day Greece, Chameria (Camëria)
is the lost country that Albanian Muslims were forced to
leave after the war. So one sings and cries simultaneously
with nostalgia for this land. Shaban Zeneli is a singer
living in Albania who returns to his father’s village,
where he sings when overcome with emotion..
Albanian populations, comprised mostly
of Muslims, who settled in Epire were expelled from Greece
at the end of the war. Albanians from the villages of Epire
in Greece lost their land and still maintain a strong and
painful longing for their country of origin. This is expressed
mostly through music and in particular through song –
crying songs that capture and cultivate a sensation of sadness
and great beauty.
Saturday 2 October 6.30pm
Conference
Singing together/being together (South Albania)
Bernard Lortat-Jacob
Free entrance
What happens in these “group songs”
where everyone is asked to participate? How do the voices
combine? What are the expressive intentions of singers and
those accompanying them? These are some of the questions
Bernard Lortat-Jacob, Mediterranean music specialist, will
answer.
It is difficult to know what represents
polyphonic songs today in South Albania: is it a reactionary
and more or less dying art recalling a totalitarian regime?
Or is it the direct heir of very tough communist regime
that nearly all would like to forget? Then how does one
explain that in the villages – despite their being
deserted – and even more so in the towns, so many
singers take pleasure in making music together, for hours,
around a table, with the help of raki of course.
Saturday 2 October 8.30pm
Concert
Mallakastër Ensemble Albanian vocal polyphonies and instrumental
music
Guri Rrokaj, Fatmir
Tahiraj, Muhamet Zotaj, Ali Shametaj, Vladimir Shehaj:
song
Refat Sulejmani, Shaban Zeneli : song (tradition çam)
Bashkim Llapushi : song, clarinet, flute, oboe gaida
Ardian Muka : song, lute
Vladimir Shehaj : accordion
Ali Shametaj : percussion
Viktor Sharra : direction
Despite a profound dramatic intensity, Albanian vocal polyphonies
remain relatively unknown. As tradition would have it, the
Mallakäster choir comprises of seven singers, four
of whom produce the vocal bourbon (kaba), a genuine backdrop
of sound against which the soloists develop their melodies.
These a cappella represent the most alluring aspects of
a rural culture that has resisted all the vicissitudes of
Albania’s history.
This workshop will be led by Vassilis
Dimitropoulos, a specialist on the subject who is also a
professional dancer and internationally recognised researcher
and professor. Vassilis Dimitropoulos made his debut in
the world of traditional dance in1973. He studied the ethnography
of dance in Paris and spent more than five years conducting
in depth research in the Florian region, in Greek Macedonia.
He has also been directing his own dance group since 1982,
a date that coincides with the creation of the Research
Centre for Hellenic Folklore, of which he is the founder.
Musicians from the Psathas family, a house
of Macedonian musicians, will accompany him. The grand father,
Vangelis Psathas, who has been playing the zourna since
the 50s, is without doubt the most respected performer from
the Naoussa region. He transmitted his art to his sons Antonis
and Dimitris, as well as to his grandson Vangelis, who will
liven up the stage with trumpet player Paschalis Karvoumaris.
Location
Centre Orthodoxe de Chambésy, Chemin des Cornillons
12, 1292 Chambésy
Times
Saturday 2 October, 10am – 1pm and 2pm – 6pm
From 8pm onwards, dance with orchestra and pot-luck dinner
(free entry)
Sunday 3 October 2pm-6pm
Fees
CHEF and ADEM members: 120. - / half workshop 80.-
Non-members 150.- / half workshop 100.-
Register by 25 September
2010
Registration
Centre hellénique d’étude du folklore
Case postale 1833 – 1227 Carouge - Phone 079 247 60
41 www.chefgeneve.ch Organised by : Centre héllenique
d’études du folklore (CHEF) / ADEM
Festival Staff
Programming, editorial :
Laurent Aubert Production : Zoya Anastassova Press relations : Alexis Toubhantz Internet site : Astrid Stierlin Administration : Nicole Wicht Workshop : Pantelis Vervatidis, Centre
hellénique d’études du folklore (CHEF) Sound : Hans Fuchs Technical production : Liliane Tondelier Box office : Floriano Tamagni Film projection: : Cédric Caradec Cuisine : Philippe Wetzel Graphics : Tassilo Photos : Jérôme Cler, Murat
Gumuskaya, Juan Carlos Hernandez, Takis Kunelis, Bernard
Lortat-Jacob, Viktor Sharra, d.r. Thanks : Murat Gumuskaya (Turquoise Production) Partner : Plateau libre (Neuchâtel)
Concert Tickets
30.- full price
20.- reduced price*
15.- students, teenagers
10.- children 12 years and below, 20ans/20 francs card
Cinema Tickets
10.- full price
5.- reduced price*
General Pass
120.- full price
80.- reduced price*
Carte découverte/Discovery
card
80.- 4 concerts of choice during the 2010-2011 season
Billetterie
Service culturel Migros, 7 rue du Prince, Geneva, (Mon-Fri,
10am-6pm), (except cinema tickets) from 6 September.
At the Alhambra, one hour before the performances
Information : 022 919 04
94, no reservations by telephone
Food
Light meals and snacks from 7pm
ADEM
The Ateliers d’ethnomusicologie
Founded in Geneva in 1983, the Ateliers
d’ethnomusicologie (ADEM) is a cultural association
dedicated to world music and dance. Throughout the year,
it offers concerts and festivals, lessons and courses, as
well as activities for young people. It also produces books
and CDs and supports migrant musicians who live in the region.Become
a member
You’ll benefit from reductions on
ADEM activities and concerts, as well as those of our partners,
the AMR-Sud des Alpes, the Musée d’ethnographie
de Genève (MEG) and Amdathtra.
Single membership: 50.- Supporting membership: 100.-
CCP 12-6003-0
For more information :
ADEM – Ateliers d’ethnomusicologie
10, rue de Montbrillant – 1201 Genève
Email : adem@worldcom.ch