Labyrinth CA Musical Workshop – Benefit Concert – a Africa interest event taking place on 2019-11-08 19:30:00 in United States
CONTEMPORARY MODAL MUSIC FROM CRETE Music doesn't understand national borders. It can't be so easily constrained. Music grows, it travels, and it resonates. Traditions, sounds, styles all interconnect. The modal music that Ross Daly and Kelly Thoma explore almost seems to exist outside time, weaving strands from so many parts of the world and combining past, present, and future together in gliding, mesmerizing melodies. They will be bringing that beautiful musical magic to California and New Mexico in November, 2019 for a series of benefit concerts to raise funds to begin Labyrinth Musical Workshop in California in 2020. Joining them on contrabass and percussion is Boston-based musician Michael Harrist. In 1982 Ross Daly began Labyrinth, which started as a very loose collective, a study group delving into the modal music of different traditions. We'd invite people to come and play, Daly remembers. It developed into a group called Labyrinth, then a production company, and extended into an annual summer music school. In 1997, after some years in Athens, the Labyrinth Musical Workshop moved back to Houdetsi, Crete, hosting students from around the globe who wanted to study modal music and traditions. A village is better than a city for this, as everything is in walking distance. We began with one-week seminars, everyone living and eating together. It now spans 18 one-week seminars with 44 instructors, with Labyrinth Musical Workshops in Cyprus, Italy, Spain, and Canada. We are now hoping to start a workshop in California. Modal music is music that is based around tones or modes rather than Western scales, and covers a region that stretches from the north west of Africa to western China, Daly explains. All of those areas have things in common, and they're all constantly changing and evolving. The term Contemporary Modal Music (created by Daly) is used to describe the sum total of contemporary compositions created today by musicians working within various modal traditions. This music is the continuation of the procedure of modal composing through a very free perspective and is not at all connected with the goal of "preserving traditions". Daly, a prolific composer and multi-instrumentalist, is a master of the Mediterranean lyra, a bowed fiddle that also has more than a dozen sympathetic strings. He has spent his life exploring the possibilities and connections in modal music, recording and performing all over the globe as well as hosting the annual Labyrinth Musical Workshop in his home village of Houdetsi on the island of Crete. He has lived there since 1975, drawn to the place as part of a musical odyssey that began when he was just thirteen years old. I'm of Irish descent, born in England and raised everywhere, Daly recalls. I studied classical music when I was young, but once I was in my teens and heard Indian and Iranian music everything changed. I went to India and Afghanistan and studied the sitar and rabab. On the way I passed through Crete and fell in love with the lyra and the music. I came back in 1975 and stayed. Some things in life grab you; Crete and its music did that for me. The music he writes pulls from different corners of the world. Threads of North Africa mingle with the bright, varied colors of India. Swooping melodies from the Balkans are tempered by Asian delicacy, and the whole has a transcendent quality. Daly's contemporary modal music comes from no time and all time, from everywhere and nowhere. But perhaps thats apt for a man who has never considered himself a national of any country. There's a way to belong but not to be a native, Daly says. I live outside a national identity and thats always been a great advantage; I can feel at home anywhere. My earlier recordings were a mix of original music and traditional pieces that I arranged, but I've always been drawn to composition, so in recent years the work on the albums has all been my own. I can construct my own strange point of view. He's amassed a large catalogue of music over time, a remarkable total of 38 albums. Along the way he's also developed a generous ethos about his work; most of his recordings are free to download from his website. Lyra virtuosa Kelly Thoma, born in Piraeus, Greece, is a musician who attended Labyrinth Musical Workshop as a student and is now a teacher there, as well as an accomplished composer and performer. She is undoubtedly one of the most exceptional pioneers of contemporary Cretan music, where tradition meets experimentation to create fresh musical pathways. Thoma is most interested in the creative contemporary expression of the beauty of modality (the phrase-orientated non-harmonic aspect of the music which often employs non-tempered intervals) resulting in a musical genre that exceeds the boundaries of Cretan music and strict music categories. She has released 3 CDs of her own compositions, participates and records with Tokso Folk String Quartet (with Anne Hytta, Eleonore Billy and Sigrun Eng) and has performed around the globe with Ross Daly, Trio Chemirani, Omer Erdogdular, Derya Turkan, Zohar Fresco, Efren Lopez, Pedram Khavar Zamini, Dhruba Ghosh, Ballake Sissoko, Erdal Erzincan, Mehmet Erenler, Yurdal Tokcan, Mayu Shviro, Ustad Mohammed Rahim Khushnawaz and many more. https://www.labyrinthmusic.gr/en http://www.kellythoma.com http://www.rossdaly.gr
at Occidental Community Center 3920 Bohemian Highway Occidental United States – Add your South African Event here.
Have you tried: Farking?