In Between Spaces: Complex Collaborations #3: Mother Tongue // Burkina Electric

In Between Spaces: Complex Collaborations #3: Mother Tongue, Burkina Electric
!!! The third set originally announced for this evening, by Billy Bao with Margarida Garcia and DJ Marfox, has been postponed due to Covid-related reasons. !!!

With Complex Collaborations, the event series In Between Spaces presents different collaborations between musicians from different regions of Africa, the African diaspora and Europe: exciting musical hybrids between jazz, noise, improv, experimental music and danceable pop. In addition to the concerts, talks and interviews on the artistic process, the challenges of collaboration, the reception and economy of the projects, as well as a collaboration with a Cologne primary school are planned.
The first concert evening of "Complex Collaborations #3" spans the spectrum from transcultural jazz to a brute trance board: The Trio Ivoire - with Cologne pianist Hans Lüdemann, Ivorian balaphone master Aly Keita and fine percussionist Christian Thomé has singer Dobet Gnahoré as guest. Nainy Diabaté, who carries on her family's griot tradition, and the exceptional French pianist Eve Risser, with a penchant for preparations, minimalist rhythms and imaginative harmonies, present the German premiere of their first duo programme. The Tunisian-French band Ifriqiyya Electrique takes the audience to ritualistic heights with their overwhelming Post-Industrial Sufi Trance Rock.
The second evening is even more colourful: the trio Mother Tongue with pianist Oscar Jan Hoogland, singer Mola Sylla and drummer Frank Rosaly invent with warmth and serene intensity floating states between African tradition, improvisational experimentation and free jazz. With their long-standing project Burkina Electric, four musicians and dancers from Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast and cultural border crosser Lukas Ligeti combine traditional West African music and concepts of Western avant-garde, Afro-pop, electronica and dance.
Mother Tongue
Oscar Jan Hoogland is another outstanding pianist on stage on the second day of Complex Collaborations - even if the piano remains closed on Mother Tongue, because here Hoogland prefers the electronic clavichord of his own design in interplay with the African instruments of singer Mola Sylla. The trio invents states of suspension between African tradition, improvisational experimentation and free jazz with warmth and serene intensity.
"A Dakar griot singer, an Amsterdam improviser , a Chicago jazz drummer. Mola Sylla, Oscar Jan Hoogland and Frank Rosaly perform The Triangle. Rosaly has been involved in the improvised and experimental music community since 2001 when he became an integral part of Chicago's musical fabric, navigating a fine line between the vibrant improvised music, experimental, rock and jazz communities. Like Rosaly, singer and percussionist Mola Sylla is in many ways a musical explorer. Born and raised in Dakar, Senegal. He grew up in the tradition of the griots. Griots play conveying stories - sometimes decorated with music, theatre and dance - an important role in the culture in West Africa. His rhythm and melodic compositions differ from the western agreed schedules and provide surprising twists. Oscar Jan Hoogland is the sound of Amsterdam in person. He is an instant composer and inventor of his own instrument by putting a clavichord, a keyboard instrument from the 17th century, on 220 Volt electricity. As the last student of the late pianist, composer and improvisor Misha Mengelberg he tears like a tornado through the Amsterdam jazz and improv scene."
Burkina Electric
Four musicians and dancers from Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast and the cosmopolitan avant-garde composer Lukas Ligeti combine traditional West African music and concepts of Western avant-garde, Afro-pop, electronica and traditional dance in their long-standing project "Burkina Electric". Ligeti, a cultural border crosser, has worked with the Kronos Quartet, musicians from Sonic Youth and the Grateful Dead, among others, and plays not only drums, but also a truly extraordinary instrument, the midi-fied marimba Lumina, developed by Don Buchla. The joint project with Abdoulaye Kounanda, Maimounata Lingani, Idrissa Kafando and Zoko "Zoko" stands for a special bridge-building and a playful approach to musical and cultural meta-concepts.
An event by ZAM Zentrum für Aktuelle Musik e.V. in cooperation with the European Centre for Jazz and Contemporary Music Stadtgarten as part of "IN BETWEEN SPACES".
"Complex Collaborations #3" is supported by Fonds TURN of the German Federal Cultural Foundation.