GOLD ROADS

 

from Mali to Japan

 

Claire Merigoux, voice 

Ballake Sissoko, kora

Martin Bauer, viola da gamba

Kengo Saito, Afghan rubab and sitar 

Rishab Prasanna, bansuri 

Mosin khan Kawa, tablas

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Just as nomads and sailors let themselves be guided by the same celestial star that helped them cross space and time, it is the musicians of ODO Ensemble who embark on a journey on THE ROADS OF GOLD in the Middle Ages .

 

At the time of the African Golden Age, in the 14th century, in the ports and trading posts of Africa, Europe, the Orient and Asia, places of numerous commercial exchanges, religions and beliefs, myths and rituals, musicians and singers met.

 

In addition to exchanging the gold of the Sahel for Asian silk, there were those who exchanged the arts and music, reflecting a living impregnation due to the modes of oral transmission.

 

ODO Ensemble in this journey, also ventures into a meeting between traditional modal music and Western music.

 

Voice, Kora, viola da gamba, rubab, bansuri, sitar, tablas...

 

When the kingdom of Mali dialogues with Genoese Corsica, Babylon, Ispahan, India and Japan, singer and musicians make souls vibrate.

 

They tell us a dream, a story, the history of their people, transmitting through sounds, ancestral knowledge and poetry, with spices of desires and scents of hope.

 

These “Surviving Musics” are worth gold, like an inestimable treasure, so precious to preserve, intangible heritage of a cultural and spiritual heritage of several worlds and of an entire civilization.

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