UDSM THIS SATURDAY!!

PRESS RELEASE

ALLIANCE FRANCAISE and THE FRENCH EMBASSY PRESENT GANGBE BRASS BAND (from BENIN REPUBLIC) in concert in Dar es Salaam:

World Music / GANGBE BRASS BAND / from Benin Republic (West Africa). The Band is on tour in the French Cultural network of Alliances Françaises in Africa. A fantastic West African brass band turned jazzy to make everybody dance. This renownedAfrican Brass Band is on an international tour of Alliance Françaises in East Africa.
Onstage, an amazing fusion between jazz and traditional rhythms of Benin is displayed by the 8musicians, using brass instruments, traditional percussions and vibrant vocals.

“To be an artist is to assume a role”, says Gangbe, and this new album takes us back to human beings and their misfortunes, albeit with a complete absence of pessimism. It’s an album that refuses to keep talking about Africa in terms of misery, manipulation or disease. Each song implores us to see the world as an enormous playing field for cultural exchange and encounter. It was by travelling to the United States, especially to New Orleans, but also and perhaps foremost to Haiti, that the band touched upon the same culture as theirs: “just like home”. In what is the incredible result of slavery, many hours away by plane, one finds the same spirits as those worshipped at home and, what’s more, the same music.

Above all, one finds the same attitude to life, the same way of looking at the forces that drive it. So this “Door of No Return” is one that was taken by those who set out to far away places, never to return. But their breath has returned; their spirit has travelled acrossthe world, carried by new musical traditions: jazz, soul, blues, swing, funk . . . and the link with Africa as the point of departure was woven regardless of frontiers. A link that should be optimized because all these new musical forms of the twentieth century are in some way a gift from Africa to humanity.

The highly rated artistic and cultural values of the presentation make it most suitable for University students. To offer UDSM Department of Fine and Performing Arts students and Tanzanian musicians a unique opportunity to interact with their West African counterparts, a 3 hour workshop will be organized by Alliance Française at the Music Department, UDSM gathering students for a percussion and brass instruments practice session and cultural exchanges.
TWETU LOBO, a Tanzanian band will appear as opening act for the Gangbe Brass Band.
Venue: Nkrumah Hall, UDSM.
Date: Saturday 18th April 2009.
Time: 7pm – 10pm
Opening act : TWETU LOBO, from Tanzania
FREE !

Also in Arusha, on Wednesday 22 april, 7pm, at Bella Hotel (Riverside Shuttle Stand nearImpala Roundabout)

This event is sponsored by: Midcom, Tanzanian Standart Newspapers (Daily News and HabariLeo), Precision Air, TBC 1 and TBC international, Clouds FM.