The world music band in concert next September 14th at Southbank Centre with the new album “Mitimaes”
Emanuela muzzi
Latin rhythms and modern beats: the original fusion of sound which made Quimantu one of the most appreciated ensembles of word music.
With over 30 instruments playing traditional and contemporary music from Latin America, Europe and Africa, this band will bring to the Southbank Centre London (at Queen Elizabeth Hall next September 14th 7.45 pm) its multicultural sound fusing folk and classical music.
What’s the secret of their success?
This ensemble during over twenty years activity worked on the original connections between ethnic and contemporary music from around the world finally creating that exciting ‘global sound’ they are well known for in all UK.
The repertoire is unique and comes from ancient melodies of Andean and Celtic airs to the rhythms of Cuban Son and Northumbrian dances. Nonetheless the talented head of the team is the Chilean musician and composer Mauricio Venegas-Astorga who created the group in 1981.
Hence their collaboration with leading musicians belonging to every genre: from Chile and Latin American to Western Classical to Indian Classical and African including traditional English Folk.
The versatile band is inspired by a desire to discover the music of the past and found out the sound of the future; among their works, the music for a number of feature films, most recently Dave Arnold’s score for Bond movie “Quantum of Solace” and also much of the ethnic instrumentation for the 80’s group “Incantation” and some pieces with Ennio Morricone for “The Mission” (film by Roland Joffé 1986) we can hear Quimantu in “Ladybird”, “Hostage”, “The Honorary Consul” and “Priest”.
Now they are going to meet the audience for a new experience entitled “Mitimaes”, their forthcoming album, the actual issue of the London’s performance. “Mitimaes” is a key word, a meaningful term from ancient language of Incas (the Quechua dialect) which means “resettlement”.
This performance then will be a way to bring our sensitive memory back to the pre-Columbian America where the ‘mitimaes’ were originally those groups of families taken from their communities by the Incas State and transferred to the newly conquered towns.
A concert then, celebrating communities, ancient and modern life itself, re-setting deep connections with the pre-colonization past and the ‘ancestors’ left back far away.
The group has also strict connections with Italy where on December of this year will be touring to perform the ‘Misa De Los Mineros’, a religious mass in Spanish dedicated to miners, a way to bring music near to the soul of poorest: “Vengo de un país que nació dentro de mí ola azul que va desnudando al sol mi raíz”, is the first line of the Quimantu’s original folk mass. For more information on the concert www.southbankcentre.co.uk and 0844 847 9910.
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