Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

The recordings on this double album are the result of field-trips from August 2003 to June 2012 into the region of the Nilgiri Hills (the "Blue Mountains") in South India, which is home to the Kota, Toda, Mele-Nadu Irula and Alu-Kurumba people, among others. These indigenous groups create music - on instruments like the conical, belled 'Shawm,' the bamboo trumpet and the Idioglottal clarinet, with singing in a variety of techniques - that covers a vast aesthetic field, from the immediately "Indian" accents of Kota Bhajan, to Toda singing which seems to come from another world altogether. The release includes an extensive booklet with photographs and notes on the life and languages of these people.

Classical Music

This release celebrates the Bektashi ceremony of the djem, which features semah sacred dancing and sung poetry accompanied on the saz lute. The djem is both a liturgy commemorating the founding myths of the Bektashi faith and a fraternal agape (ritual feast) uniting an entire community. Music, listened to with great intensity, is a link between all that permeates this entire ritual. In these recordings from the Turkish region of Antalya, two 'choirs' are present: one, conducted by Muzaffer Gurgu, recorded in 2004; the other, conducted by Suleyman Can, in the 'mother' house (the house of the ancestral djem) in 2011.

Classical Music

Griot music accompanied on the delicate dambararou lute, ritual songs of therapeutic possession accompanied on the gogue fiddle to the rhythm of gon and karou drums, and a boldly dynamic women's choir -different aspects of Bariba traditional music from the descendants of a kingdom established in the 15th century, and long reputed for it's fierce resistance to exterior domination.

This set features both vocal intensity and religious fervor from the two main Sufi brotherhoods of Senegal (the Tij+�niyya and the Mur+�diyya, founded respectively in the 18th and 19th centuries). Featured selections include hymns and poems to the glory of Allah.

Bele tradition evokes distant Africa with it's mix of song, dance and drums. Once discouraged, this form of artistic expression has now become an emblem of Martinique. With a contemporary flair, Edmond Monde-sir pays homage to masters of the genre including Benoe �t Rastocle and Felix Caserus.

Classical Music