> Songs and music from the States of Barinas and Apure
The Arpa llanera comes from the Llanos, the great flooded plains of the South ; a powerful music with its rough singing (canto recio) which evokes huge landscapes and the hard way of life of the Llaneros.
> Mountain songs and bayin instrumental music (Taïwan)
Hakka people is an important Chinese minority (92 million) living mainly in mountainous areas. Hakka groups settled in Taiwan in the 17th century bringing with them their customs, their rites and their music.
The Dolan are a sub-group of the Uighurs. They live in the immense desert of Taklamakan, in the center of the province of Xinjiang or Chinese Turkestan. This CD is devoted to their canonical musical repertory, the Muqam.
For more than a century, Western musicians and listeners have been fascinated by Central Javanese gamelan music and the beauty of its melodies, the richness of its sounds.
The Hausa, 24 million approximately, are one of the largest Muslim groups of sub-Saharian Africa. Their social organisation, very old and quite hierarchical, is based on a philosophy of success and the power it provides. This explains all the songs of praise, of education and moral advices which consitute the core of their repertoire.
The violonist and musicologist Nidaa Abou Mrad and his ensemble bring back to life the last pieces notated by Safiy a-d-Dîn al-Urmawî, one of the masters of the Abbasid era, who died Baghdad in 1294.
The Kyrgyz have kept their ancient Turkic musical forms which are surprisingly closer to the intonations of Northern Europe than to those of neighbouring peoples such as Tajik, Afghan or Uzbek.
Among the liturgical chanting of the Ethiopian Church a specific genre, called ‘aqwaqwam , includes the liturgical chants accompanied by sistrums, drums and dance.
Maale are one the 40 ethnic groups of southern Ethiopia. The Maale music is very rich. It encompasses a cappella polyphonic singing, vocal polyphonies accompanied on the lyre, whistled polyphonies, solo flute playing, flute orchestras, horns, drums.
In Kerala, the large shawm (oboe) nâgaswaram is, first of all, an instrument of the temple music. In this album, O. K. Subramaniam performs Carnatic music: the classical tradition of South India, in an innovative and yet traditional style.
Devoted to 10 of the 48 ethnic groups that make up the population of Laos, this album of field recordings made in several villages acknowledges the extraordinary musical wealth of this country.
