Our research fellow/coordinator Jenny Fuhr performs at this year’s UHURU Festival with her Madagascar Roots Quintet.

The Uhuru (“freedom” in Swahili) is a course and concert week on the Weissenstein (Switzerland); Music, dance, nature and community on the mountain pasture – far away from everyday stress.

Erick Manana is one of the most important composers of Madagascar. The internationally-renowned singer and guitarist has lived in France for nearly 30 years and has a reputation for preserving the musical traditions of his home and furthering their development by combining tradition and cosmopolitan influences. A child of Madagascar’s highlands, Erick Manana was influenced mainly by the sounds of the “hira gasy” – the still-vital, national educational and circensic music theatre of rice farmers with its striking accordion, violin and brass band sounds and incomparable vocal harmonies.

These same sounds also enchanted the ears of German ethnomusicologist and classically-trained violinist and flutist Jenny Fuhr. Since then, she has gone on a long musical journey, exploring and researching Malagasy rhythms whilst also living out the Malagasy oral music culture of “lova-tsofina” as a violinist, flutist and singer with Erick Manana. In 2012, together they realised their musical dream by founding the Madagascar Roots Band.

more Information:

Madagascar Roots Quintet

concert

When?
26th July 2015, 9pm

Where?
Uhuru – Festival für Musik und Tanz
4500 Solothurn (Switzerland)