Meeting Contemporary music (Africa)

plus APR, 09 2013

6pm Interview: Serena Facci talks to Vincent Kenis

9pm Concert by Konono n.1

Venice, Teatro Fondamenta Nuove

Organised jointly by the Intercultural Institute of Comparative Music Studies and the Teatro Fondamenta Nuove, this concert is an invitation to focus on specifi c aspects of African music. As already highlighted by last year’s concert, RE: AFRICAN:MIX, the exciting creative scene on that continent offers many ideas for comparing the now basically transcultural nature of contemporary musical phenomena, of which Konono N°1 is one of the most accomplished results. Konono N°1 is a group of musicians from the Democratic Republic of Congo who were initially inspired by traditional music.
They settled in the capital Kinshasa, which in the 1970s had been the driving force of the new Congo urban music.
The group electrifi ed its instruments, also resorting to material salvaged from the junkyard. The result was a radical change in their sound, now much closer to the aesthetics of rock and more extreme electronic noise music. The concert will be introduced by an interview with Vincent Kenis, the director of Crammed Discs, the fi rst promoter of the group on the European music scene, conducted by Serena Facci,
an ethnomusicologist specialised in Central-African traditional music.