
1031 CL Amsterdam
The Netherlands
Rhiannon Giddens is an American artist of folk and traditional music, played on fiddle and banjo; Francesco Turrisi is an Italian pianist and percussionist well versed in jazz, early music and Mediterranean music; at first blush, their worlds don’t overlap.
But at a chance musical meet-up in Ireland they found that her 19th century American minstrel banjo tunes and his traditional Sicilian Tamburello (tambourine) rhythms fit very naturally together.They soon discovered the reason for that – their respective roots coexisted in the past. Pictures of early minstrel bands all represent banjo and tambourine (called tambo) together, where in many cases the tambo is held in the same manner of Southern Italian tamburello traditions today.
The massive effect that West African music and dance has had upon American culture is by now well known; but centuries before, European music was being transformed by Arabic and North African modes, instruments, and rhythms.Working together they trace this musical globalism by reimagining the encounter of the banjo and the frame drum, and other instruments, through their journey from Africa, the Middle East, through southern Europe and England, and over to the Americas…
Remy van Kesteren was admitted to the conversatoire of Utrecht at the age of ten and graduated in 2010 with honours. He continued his education at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris, where he studied with the famous harpist Isabelle Moretti. In 2012, he received his master’s diploma with honours at the conservatoire of Amsterdam. Van Kesteren has won various prizes.
His many wins have led to concerts all around the world, from Europe to the United States, Japan and Africa. When he was sixteen he debuted at the Concertgebouw Amsterdam with Het Nederlands Kamerorkest. A year before that, he both played on the occasion of the baptism of Princess Amalia and performed in Carnegie Hall, New York.
When he was 25, Remy took his music in another direction. He wanted to compose his own music, which led to Tomorrow Eyes (2016), the first album for which Remy composed music himself.
Jawa Manla (1996) is a Syrian oud player. “I was born in Aleppo, and I grew up in Damascus, Syria. I started playing music at the age of eleven. I chose the oud instrument because my father used to play it every day at home when I was young. Gradually, I fell in love with it and now I feel an unlimited feeling of freedom while playing it.”
Jawa studied music at Sulhi Al Wadi music institute. In 2012, she continued her music study at ‘Beit El Oud’ Arabic Oud Hous institute in Egypt, under the supervision of Naseer Shamma. In 2014, Jawa received private lessons from Nacati Celik in Istanbul.
Since June 2015, Jawa has been based in the Netherlands, where she performed with many great Dutch and international musicians. A year later, Jawa was accepted in Codarts University of the Arts, for a Bachelor of Music in the world music department.