The stage is set and the eight acts of
‘Sur Jahan’ that mesmerised Kolkata
recently are all set to enthral Goa. Sur
Jahan – The World Peace Music Festival,
organised by banglanatak dot com
in association with the Directorate
of Art and Culture, Goa will take
place on February 8, 9 and 10, 2017
at Kala Academy, Campal-Panjim.
The performing acts include the Ale
Moller Quartet and Ellika Solo Rafael
from Sweden, Otava Yo from Russia,
Punjab Qawwali, East West Local and
Tarak Khyapa from India, BraAgas from
the Czech Republic and Virelai from
Denmark.
The band, Virelai, from Denmark,
gets its name from an old French term
meaning ‘the beauty of music, dance
and poetry’. Soren Hammerlund, who
founded the band, believes that the
band is apt for the festival. “The band
stands for music and dance; it goes with
the theme of Sur Jahan, which is world
peace music. We performed at Sur Jahan
in Kolkata last weekend and the audience
were wonderful, warm and open to new
music,” says Soren, who is among just 50
Danish musicians who plays the hurdy
gurdy, a stringed instrument.
Virelai comprises Soren (hurdy gurdy
and mandola), Mia Guldhammer (voice
and percussion, Jacob Lund (davul,
darbouka, frame drums and percussion)
and Martin Seeberg (flutes, shawm, viola
and Jew’s harp). The band plays music
from the middle ages as well as from
Danish folk tradition. “Denmark has
the largest collection of ballads and
our songs are based on themes like
love, historical events, stories that we
can learn from and many fairytales
and creatures from the water and
the sky. We play folk music that is
self composed while the lyrics are
influenced by old Nordic ballads,”
says Mia.
As a medieval band, Virelai is often
seen playing at medieval markets and
Viking markets. They were spotted at
Copenhagen, Denmark at a festival
by Annette Bellaoui, who introduced
them to Sur Jahan. “We admire all the
musicians as they are very inspiring
and we made lovely friends along the
way. We will be performing together
with all the other acts for the opening
of festival and then we will practise for a
grand finale as well,” says Martin. Virelai
will be performing today, February 8,
2017 at 8pm and their workshop will be
on February 9 at 1pm.
BraAgas is a band from Prague,
Czech Republic, comprising Kateřina
Göttlichová (vocal, cister, guitar,
bagpipe, shawn), Bety Josefy (vocal,
drums, percussions), Karla Braunová
(vocal, flutes, shawns, chalumeau,
clarinet), Jan Hrbek (acoustic bass) and
Michaela Krbcová (drums, percussion,
vocal). “BraAgas was formed in 2007 and
we are celebrating our tenth anniversary
this year. Our music is influenced by
medieval songs, from the Mediterranean,
the Balkans and Scandinavia. We have
our own arrangements and each
musician plays as per their ability and
taste and we compose the melody for
the songs. We use old melody lines but
original lyrics that have been passed
down from generation to generation.
The languages we use do not exist
anymore: ‘Ladino’ is derived from
medieval Spanish and was spoken
by the Safari Jews, and ‘Galego’ is
Galician-Portuguese also known as Old
Portuguese or Medieval Galician. We
learn these songs either through sheet
music or recordings of these songs,”
explains Kateřina.
BraAgas has released five albums,
two of which – ‘Tapas’ and ‘Yallah!’ –
won the Anděl Award for World Music
Genre which is the Czech version of the
Grammy Award . “We perform at various
medieval markets across Europe that
is based in cities with a long history.
The markets have a smaller stage and
you can perform three to five times a
day; musicians love the ambience. We
thought of expanding our repertoire to
World Music and the albums did very
well. For our performance in Goa, we will
be playing 13-15 songs including two
medieval Portuguese songs,” adds Jan.
BraAgas will be performing on February
9, 2017 at 6pm and their workshop will
be on February 10 at 10:30am.
