Chamber music with a distinction, and a message that resonates with Earth Month — that’s the idea behind the following live performance introduced by The Chamber Music Society of Mississauga, which options the ensemble Kuné. Their live performance program titled Common Echoes takes its inspiration from the 4 pure components: earth, fireplace, air, and water, and takes place April 10.
Kuné is made up of ten immigrant musicians from everywhere in the world, and one Metis-Canadian, making a wealthy base of traditions to attract from in creating unique music. Common Echoes is the title of their 2023 album.
Kuné
Kuné was fashioned in 2017 as the results of an initiative by The Royal Conservatory of Music. Govt Director of Performing Arts Mervon Mehta selected the ensemble’s 11 performers with a view to celebrating the cultural variety of Toronto, and Canada. Its members hail from nations as widespread as Peru, Burkina Faso, China, and Iran, bringing their very own musical traditions and practices collectively to create a really distinctive sound.
The ensemble recorded their first album with the RCM. In 2021, they turned unbiased, and launched their second album on the Lulaworld label in 2023. They’ve carried out at Koerner Corridor, the Nationwide Arts Centre, the Nationwide Music Centre, and on the Ness Creek, Hillside, and Sunfest music festivals, amongst others.
Collectively, the members compose and organize music that comes from a way of experimentation and play, and fixed dialogue.
Its members are:
- Ahmed Moneka, darbuka, vocals
- Aline Morales, vocals, percussion, vocals
- Demetri Petsalakis, guitar and oud
- Alyssa Delbaere-Sawchuk, violin
- Dora Wang, dizi, xiao & alto flute
- Salif “Lasso” Sanou, vocals, djembe, n’goni, peul flute and tama
- Luis Deniz, alto saxophone
- Matias Recharte, drums & percussion
- Paco Luviano, double bass & electrical bass
- Padideh Ahrarnejad, tar
- Selcuk Suna, vocals, clarinet & tenor saxophone
We spoke to Matias Recharte concerning the ensemble and the music.
Water, Half III
Matias Recharte: The Interview
The Common Echoes program and its music goes again a couple of years.
“This challenge it began again once we had been nonetheless on the Conservatory in 2018,” Matias remembers. “We had been commissioned to do a set.”
The music, which centered on the 4 components of earth, fireplace, water, and air, was composed, organized, and even carried out reside over the course of a few years.
“After which the pandemic occurred,” he laughs.
Whereas the lockdowns had been in place, nevertheless, it gave the ensemble the time and alternative to use for funding that was then become their 2023 album, Common Echoes. Musically, the 4 components theme advanced into reflection on the local weather disaster.
“All of us come from totally different locations and we come from everywhere in the globe,” he factors out. The scenario provides various however associated views on the atmosphere and its points. For some areas, oil spills are widespread. For others, it might be drought. However, there are additionally commonalities, the “Echoes” that resound all through the world, and the music.
“It’s slightly bit like an ode to those issues that preserve life going.” The opposite aspect of the coin is mourning for what has been misplaced.
The music has been a part of their repertoire for a couple of years. “We’ve been enjoying a few of these songs for some time,” he says.
It’s additionally about Earth Day. “We’re additionally celebrating that.”
The Music
Style-wise, Kuné’s music is basically undefinable.
“It’s arduous,” he begins. “The easiest way to explain it’s, it appears like Toronto slightly bit.”
The ensemble’s music particularly tries to keep away from approaching the label of an “African music” a “Center Jap music”. “However all these components are current,” Matias says. One of many songs, for instance, is sung in each Portuguese and Arabic.
It’s about bringing the assorted components collectively in a musical dialog. Over time, that course of itself has resulted in numerous instructions, and the musicians studying from one another.
“We’ve advanced rather a lot,” he says.
“It sounds natural, in a bizarre approach,” Matias provides. “It’s actually attempting to seize that have.” It’s one thing each Torontonian, or anybody who lives in a various metropolis, can relate to. Everybody comes from a special background.
“What occurs whenever you put them collectively?”
World music, rightly, is passé as a time period these days. “World music. […] It’s like a little bit of a safari. We’re attempting to keep away from that,” he says.
It’s actually simply music that comes from the realities of coming to a brand new nation as an artist. Who do you get along with first? Clearly, different musicians.
“After I arrived […] I used to be very curious,” he says of his personal expertise. Getting along with different musicians was a pure early step, lengthy earlier than Kuné. “It’s actually sharing.”
He’s observed that lots of the individuals who will come as much as band members to speak after reveals are additionally immigrants. They’ll acknowledge acquainted elements of the music, even exterior the standard context, and even exterior their very own backgrounds. “There’s one thing that sounds acquainted.”
“Music doesn’t care about borders,” he notes. All the identical, there are few alternatives exterior international music festivals to see that type of true cross-cultural experimentation on stage. The traditions survive largely intact in immigrant communities. Whereas he appreciates the nostalgic enchantment, it will probably’t be the one route for the music — one which doesn’t take into modernity or evolution into consideration.
The angle of immigrant musicians, he factors out, is exclusive. After bringing your traditions and established practices, you now cross paths with others who come from nearly anyplace on this planet. It’s simply one other side of adapting to the brand new atmosphere.
“What now, that we’re all right here?”
Honouring your roots whereas reaching out to the remainder of the world expands the boundaries of the artwork kind, as he factors out.
“As soon as folks hear it, and so they see it, they’ll get it,” he says, and factors out, “Even should you’ve been right here for generations, your neighbours come from all over the place.”
Performances
Kuné’s efficiency calendar is pretty relaxed, given its bigger measurement, and the truth that a lot of its members have excessive profile careers on their very own, together with Brazilian-Canadian percussionist and singer Aline Morales and rising star within the worlds of theatre, movie, and musician Ahmed Moneka.
“That’s how we prefer it.”
Usually, earlier than any present, the ensemble will precede a present with a free preview and neighborhood outreach.
- Six of the members shall be performing a free live performance as a preview of the Common Echoes program on the Meadowvale department of the Mississauga Library on April 5 at 11 a.m. Admittance is first come, first served.
- Discover out extra concerning the April 10 live performance [HERE].
- They’ll be taking the identical program on the street to Huntsville, ON (July 11), and Path, BC (July 24), with dates via the yr, together with Quebec and St. Catharines, ON. Discover extra info [HERE].
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Anya Wassenberg is a Toronto Metropolis Editor at Ludwig Van. She is an skilled freelance author, blogger and writing teacher.