Lulu presents African Chamber Music

African chamber music – Kurai Mubaiwa, Kofi Gbolonyo and Curtis Andrews will be performing at the Phoenix Auditorium on March 9. Photos courtesy Ruby Singh

Alexander Varty

Lulu Performing Arts Society

Curtis Andrews, the globetrotting adventurer behind the African Chamber Music project, has an ambitious goal: to “decolonize the string quartet” by upending stereotypes of African music while letting African performers take the lead.

There have been similar attempts before, the Newfoundland-born Andrews allows. “But with this one, the aim is not to put traditional music in a new light, or make it palatable to a different audience,” he explains. “We’re trying to keep that music as it is, and using the strings more to highlight and accentuate the inherent aspects of it.”

“African music has stereotypes of what it is: it’s loud, it’s drumming, it’s complicated rhythms, it’s a lot of dance, a lot of energy,” he continues. “But there’s a whole other side of expression that’s very contemplative, with words and songs that are profound and have deep philosophical meaning.

So my collaborators, Kofi Gbolonyo and Kurai Mubaiwa, chose songs that lend themselves to that context, because we’re going to be in a sit-down environment. It’s not a dance party, or anything like that!”

Andrews adds that part of the process of decolonization can come through an understanding of how the development of European art music was fuelled and financed by the slave trade, coupled to the undervaluing of Africa’s lively and varied sonic traditions. If listeners apply that perspective to African Chamber Music’s March 9th concert, they should find it easier to hear how nuance is expressed in Gbolonyo’s West African songs and Mubaiwa’s Zimbabwean mbira melodies.

As an example, Andrews and Gbolonyo both cite “Gbomasumasu,” a Ghanaian song that is both a deeply individual statement and a commentary on the joys of community.

“It’s sung from the point of view of an eagle,” Andrews explains. “So the bird is saying, basically, that it wishes it wasn’t a solitary bird; it wishes that could fly in numbers the way that other birds do.

And what that metaphor is touching on in a larger sense, a deeper sense, is that to have large numbers or to be in a majority—whether it’s in a family or a neighbourhood or a culture or an ethnic group—you generally benefit more.”

“‘United we stand, divided we fall,’ pretty much,” Gbolonyo concurs, adding that while it’s taken him some time to find a musical community on the west coast of Canada, his work with Andrews, Mubaiwa, and string players Meredith Bates, Josh Zubot, Sarah Kwok, and Finn Manniche is beginning to feel like home in an especially beautiful way.

Lulu Performing Arts Society is pleased to present African Chamber Music on Saturday, March 9th, 7:30pm at the Phoenix Auditorium. Advance adult tickets are $25, door $30, student tickets $10; available online at luluperformingarts.ca and at Nova Art & Craft Boutique.