After centuries of Europe exporting its musical heritage all over the world, the Eurocentric map is gradually being crumpled up. For example, the idea of music as an autonomous product of the mind is a European one and does not always hold up in other contexts. The Nigerian composer Ayò Olúrántí describes that music with classical Western instruments is played in churches or at traditional celebrations in Nigeria due to a lack of concert halls. The social component comes more to the fore here and music is transformed from being a work into an activity – whether you practice it, play it, listen to it or dance to it. How would this work in Freiburg? Here, Ghanaian musician, performer, and fashion designer STELOOLIVE will turn his ear to the sounds of the city in the spring, record them and develop a piece with Ensemble Recherche.

What does Germany sound like from a West African listening perspective? What happens when this time it‘s not „we“ who look at „the others,“ but when the line of sight is reversed and contact with the eye and ear is established? The concert in the Jazzhaus revolves around such questions and presents, in addition to STELOOLIVE, five other musical viewpoints from Africa. One of them comes from Bongani Ndodana-Breen, co-curator of the project „Postcolonial Recherche“ and one of the most important composers of contemporary music in South Africa. Monthati Zenzile Masebe, like Ndodana-Breen also from South Africa, works with music archives, indigenous and classical instruments and with digital technology. Ayò Olúrántí incorporates the principles of Dùndún music of the Yorùbá in Nigeria into his compositions.

With works by 
Njabolo Phungula, Monthati Masebe, Ayó Olúrántí, Bongani Ndodana-Breen, Tebogo Monnakgotla

ENSEMBLE RECHERCHE

Bongani Ndodana-Breen, co-curator
STELOOLIVE, Sound-Artist, DJ

In cooperation with the Goethe-Institut

The concert will be recorded by Deutschlandfunk.