world music, jazz, popular music
WOMEX 15 Budapest - Day 1
22 October 2015, Thursday
5:30 pm - 11:30 pm
WOMEX 15 Budapest
WOMEX 15 Budapest - Day 1
- 7:30 pm - 8 pm
Cinema, Lecture Hall, Müpa Budapest
The Lost Soul, Tommi Kainulainen
- 8 pm - 9:15 pm
Cinema, Lecture Hall, Müpa Budapest
Sumé - The Sound of a Revolution, Inuk Silis H.egh
- 9 pm - 9:45 pm
Twin stage A, WOMEX Tent, Müpa Budapest
Pierre Kwenders (DR Congo/Canada)
Polyglot, post-retro-modernist, post-world-music pop-star Pierre Kwenders straddles continents, styles and epochs, channelling his many cross-cultural enthusiasms into his Afro-electro beats. Classic Congolese soukous and rumba, South African pop, hip-hop and R&B feed a melting-pot of influences where Papa Wemba, Sam Mangwana and Franco rub shoulders with Michael Jackson, Edith Piaf and Beyoncé, with lyrics in French, English, Lingala, Kikongo and Chinoba. Born in Kinshasa, Kwenders emigrated to Canada in 2001, aged 16. He didn't think about making music professionally until he met producer Alexandre Bilodeau. Two EPs released in 2013 started the motion leading to his debut album, Le Dernier Empereur Bantou - a nod to his interest in the overlooked empires of Africa - which picked up a 2015 Juno Award nomination for Best World Music Album. Forget the W-word, he calls it Afrofuturism.
- 9 pm - 9:45 pm
Club Duna stage, Festival Theatre, Müpa Budapest
Iļģi (Latvia)
Over the years Ilgi's traditional style gave way to fuller instrumentation and bolder arrangements. Violin, kokle and bagpipes blend with guitars, electric bass and drums to create a simultaneously ancient and contemporary sound, developed over the years by band members with diverse musical backgrounds. The Latvian recording industry has awarded Ilgi Best Folk Album five times, most recently for 'Tur saulite perties gaja'. Ilga Reizniece has received the Latvian Ministry of Culture's Grand Award in Folklore.
- 9:30 pm - 10:15 pm
WOMEX stage, Béla Bartók National Concert Hall, Müpa Budapest
Aziza Brahim (Western Sahara/Mali/Spain)
Aziza Brahim was born and raised in the Saharawi refugee camps in Algeria where her family settled in late 1975, after fleeing from the Moroccan occupation of Western Sahara. In the severe conditions of the desert camps, Aziza discovered music as a way to express her personal emotions and thoughts of resistance. When she was 11 she journeyed to Cuba to further her school studies. After graduating her application for a music scholarship was denied. Disappointed but not discouraged, she returned to Algeria and set about developing her own musical path, joining the National Sahawari Music Group. In 2000 she settled in Spain where after a series of cross-cultural collaborations she founded her own band, Gulili Mankoo. In 2014 her third album, Soutak, bridging Sahawari and Malian music, was released by WOMEX label award-winners Glitterbeat.
- 9:45 pm - 10:30 pm
Twin stage B, WOMEX Tent, Müpa Budapest
Vaudou Game (Togo/France)
Singer and guitarist Peter Solo was born in Aného-Glidji, Togo, the homeland of the Guin tribe and a major centre of Voodoo culture. He was raised with that tradition's values of respect for all forms of life and the environment, a spiritual heritage he now celebrates with his band, Vaudou Game. Chanting and percussion are at the heart of Voodoo practice, the voices using different harmony-laden scales for select purposes. Solo uses these scales as the basis for his innovative compositions, adapting the sung harmonies and densely interwoven rhythms for contemporary instruments, conjuring up slabs of raw funk drawing on classic 70s Afro-Soul and thick, trance-like grooves evoking a more spiritual ambience. Solo formed the band in 2012 in Lyon, France, introducing them to Voodoo values and teaching them to sing in the Mina language.
- 9:45 pm - 10:30 pm
offWOMEX stage, Atrium, Müpa Budapest
Kleztory (Canada/Moldova)
- 10:30 pm - 11:15 pm
Twin stage A, WOMEX Tent, Müpa Budapest
Palenke Soultribe (Colombia/USA)
Palenke Soultribe's infectiously energetic live performances, fuse deep Afro-Columbian roots with shimmering electronic beats, live percussion and integrated, improvised visuals. The origins of the band go back to 2001 when bassman Juan Diego Borda and keyboardist Andres 'Popa' Erazo worked on a project known as Polaina Dinamita, which created an underground buzz in their hometown of Bogota, Colombia, pioneering the experimental fusion of electronica with Caribbean music. In 2006, after completing personal projects, the duo decided to reunite again in Los Angeles and start producing again. They took on a new name, Palenke Soultribe, and deepened the focus on Afro-Columbian rhythms, teaming up with drummer Argel Cota and percussionist Clodomiro Montes, unlocking a new sound; a club music combustion of LA underground beats, dynamic roots, live percussion, heavy bass and vital visuals.
- 10:30 pm - 11:15 pm
Club Duna stage, Festival Theatre, Müpa Budapest
Federspiel (Austria)
The idea of the band came from Rudi Pietsch, lecturer on the university for music and performing arts, Vienna/Folk Music Department. His focus was right from the start on original folk music, rehearsing with the group compositions that had been specifically arranged for these musicians and their instrumentation. Numerous performances in Austria at prestigious festivals and concert halls like Wiener Musikvereins & Konzerthaus Vienna, Glatt & Verkehrt Festival. INTERNATIONAL appearances in the UK (City of London Festival), Germany (TFF Rudolstadt), Switzerland, Belgium, Latvia, Italy and in May 2015 a first small tour in Canada.
- 11 pm - 11:45 pm
WOMEX stage, Béla Bartók National Concert Hall, Müpa Budapest
Cimbalomduó (Hungary)
Cimbalomduo is a summit meeting of two master cimbalom players who, over the past few decades in their separate careers, have done more to raise the global profile of this emblematic Hungarian instrument than anyone else. Kálmán Balogh has enjoyed a multi-faceted career, collaborating with many well-known Hungarian bands, touring the world as leader of his own ensemble and as a soloist. Miklós Lukács has made a reputation as a virtuoso in the worlds of contemporary classical music, performing with leading European orchestras, as well as in the jazz sphere, collaborating with luminaries such as Archie Shepp and Charles Lloyd. He is also an award-winning composer and leader of his own quintet. Together they take their cross-genre experiences and shared knowledge of Hungarian traditional music to a new level of virtuosity.
- 11:15 pm - 12 am
Twin stage B, WOMEX Tent, Müpa Budapest
Nine Treasures (China)
Forged in the creative crucible of the booming Beijing Indie-rock scene, Nine Treasures' brand of folk-metal melds the wide-screen traditional sounds of their Inner Mongolian homeland with the urban crash of contemporary heavy rock. It's a marriage made in metal heaven with the rousing melodies and the galloping rhythms of the horse-head fiddle energetically enhanced by a rocking rhythm section. Filigree flourishes on balalaika merge into crunching guitar riffs while the guttural growl of grasslands throat singing lends itself perfectly to the metallic mix. Since releasing their debut album in 2012 they've been causing outbreaks of unbridled pogoing and head-banging on the expanding Chinese festival and club scene as well as at international festivals in Taiwan and Ulan Bator in Mongolia. It's horse-head-banging thunder on the tundra: roots meets rock in a mutually inspiring mosh-up.
- 11:15 pm - 12 am
offWOMEX stage, Atrium, Müpa Budapest
The Nordanians (The Netherlands)
When Oene van Geel (viola), Mark Tuinstra (guitar) and Niti Ranjan Biswas (tabla virtuoso) played together for the first time there where immediately fireworks, roaring u-turns and cinematic tearjerkers. Then they started writing songs together based on traditional raga's, smashing funk and delicate chambermusic. This gave them a great new impulse on stage for even more interaction and improvisation and made them build a rocking live reputation. They love to play with the three of them but they also get inspired by playing with special guests from around the globe.
- 12 am - 0:45 am
Twin stage A, WOMEX Tent, Müpa Budapest
Jaakko Laitinen & Väärä Raha (Finland)
Jaakko Laitinen & Väärä Raha (fake money) are five Helsinki-based Laplanders operating on the amorphous Nordic borders of Balkan gypsy grooves, Russian romances and old-school Finnish tango and humppa. The throbbing rhythmic combo, laced with expertly wrought accordion, trumpet, bouzouki and bravura harmony singing, fronted by the besuited figure of besotted crooner Jaakko, have been thoroughly responsible for causing maximum enjoyment throughout Finland and across several borders as far as Turkey and Macedonia. In five years they have released three albums, provided music for a movie by Saija Mäki-Nevala, collaborated with Bavarian band Django 3000 and played countless gigs winning fans with driving dances, melting ballads and deep lyrics bristling with philosophical observations on eternal subjects like unfulfilled love, disappearing money and taxi rides in Lapland nights. Real stuff, no counterfeit.
- 12 am - 0:45 am
Club Duna stage, Festival Theatre, Müpa Budapest
Sutari (Poland)
- 0:30 am - 1:15 am
WOMEX stage, Béla Bartók National Concert Hall, Müpa Budapest
Trumpeter Avishai Cohen's Triveni (Israel)
Since trumping all oncomers in the Rising Star category in the DownBeat Critics Poll, Avishai Cohen has been solidifying his reputation as a musician with an individual sound and a questing spirit, creating new ways of seeing jazz while drawing on the infinite legacy of the past masters. And it's with his new trio project, Triveni, that he's attracting ever more attention. The line-up of trumpet, double-bass and drums interact with empathetic sensitivity, creating an imposing space full of real and suggested harmonies, evoking sadness, menace, joy and playfulness, with added elevations when Cohen uses electronic effects to conjure up giddying multi-timbral flourishes. His tone is both expressively raw and assuredly refined and, whether pushing new boundaries with his own compositions or lovingly reworking some classic jazz standards, always a joy to hear.
- 0:45 am - 1:30 am
Twin stage B, WOMEX Tent, Müpa Budapest
Sarabi (Kenya)
Sarabi's uplifting, energetic and eclectic mix of East African rhythms, benga, soukous, Afro-beat, homespun reggae and global rock and pop influences serves as an inspirational platform for their commitment to raising awareness of social issues and creating change in Kenyan society. All the members of the Sarabi band grew up in Nairobi's Eastlands slums, some are from broken homes, learning early on about street survival; charismatic lead singer, Mandela, was twice arrested for his political opinions and activism. Now music is the medium for the message they're taking to the people with gigs and educational programmes. 2015 sees them spreading the word internationally with the release of Nigerian film-maker Taye Balogun's documentary of their story, Music Is Our Weapon, and invitations to the Sauti za Busara, Roskilde and Africa Oyé festivals. Crowd-pleasers with a conscience.
- 0:45 am - 1:30 am
offWOMEX stage, Atrium, Müpa Budapest
Natig Rhythm Group (Azerbaijan)
At the age of 9, Natig began studying the instrument with teacher Azer Aliyev at Music School.At the age of 24 Natig received the invitation from Alim Qasimov, master of mugam and performed at his band between 1999-2007 all over the world. In 2001 he founded 'Natig Rhythm Group' and collaborated many international artists such as Billy Cobham, Misirli Ahmet, Ruslana, In-Geun Jun and performed at concerts of international stars such as Rihanna. While performing all over the world he also became a state artist of Azerbaijan. His remarkable performance at the grand opening of The Eurovision Song Contest in Azerbaijan made him known by a large number of audience worldwide.
- 21-25 October
Müpa Budapest
WOMEX - Instrument exhibition
Presented by: Hangvető, Müpa
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We wish to inform you that in the event that Müpa Budapest's underground garage and outdoor car park are operating at full capacity, it is advisable to plan for increased waiting times when you arrive. In order to avoid this, we recommend that you depart for our events in time, so that you you can find the ideal parking spot quickly and smoothly and arrive for our performance in comfort. The Müpa Budapest underground garage gates will be operated by an automatic number plate recognition system. Parking is free of charge for visitors with tickets to any of our paid performances on that given day. The detailed parking policy of Müpa Budapest is available here.
