A Study in Harmony - Star, 18 July 2008

This review by Ann Marie Chandy, praises AkashA and mentions its effect on the audience!

A study in harmony

By ANN MARIE CHANDY

The Rainforest World Music Festival 2008 proved once again that if you were looking for good music, this is where you would find it. The learning experience was a bonus.

Grappling with the term “world music” and what it actually means, I headed off to Santubong, Sarawak last weekend for the 11th edition of the Rainforest World Music Festival (RWMF2008) in search of an answer. The festival was to be an eye opener of sorts for me. Expecting what I’ve come to understand as one of Sarawak’s finest attractions – great music, days of fun in the sun, scenic views of the lush rainforest and delectable tuak – I was instead treated to something quite different.

Unfortunately, the RWMF2008 has not retained much of its low-key charm – some years ago, no one even knew where Santubong was – now it is a hub of activity. The Sarawak Cultural Village, which hosts the annual festival, was filled to the brim this year with over 22,500 people turning up over the three-day fiesta. And I don’t use the word “fiesta” lightly: think of corporate sponsor banners splashed indiscriminately, think of a funfair of foodstalls, (faux) tattoo booths, massage tents and hey, you could even get a caricature of yourself drawn for RM30!

In many ways, the lack of state sponsorship (if you hadn’t read about it yet, this year the RWMF2008, which is organised by the Sarawak Tourism Board, had its usual stipend of RM500,000 slashed to RM70,000) has bred a slew of unsightly props to an otherwise rather charming festival.

First, a quick description of the RWMF2008. In three days, festival-goers were given the opportunity to attend workshops – there were 27 in total and featured a varied selection of instruments, people and cultures; attend three nightly concerts which lasted about five hours and featured at least seven bands each; there were also two fringe festivals held simultaneously (for the first time ever), a crafts bazaar and a Folk Art Forum; not to mention the village’s own cultural attractions. Suffice it to say, there was lots to keep one busy at the SCV.

The New Rope String Band from Britain successfully combines music and mayhem.

Whither world music?

But was the music on show at the RWMF2008 worthwhile? Was it what one would call “world music”? It seemed to me, while I was right smack in between the sweaty huddling mass of bodies under the stars at the foot of Mount Santubong on Saturday night (that would be the night it didn’t rain), that people didn’t really mind, as long as they were fed a series of tunes that they could dance, sway, chant or clap to. In fact, the crowd was very decent and appreciative of all the music showcased even when it was the more complex (but less accessible) music from Greece and Palestine.

(This general acceptance to the music, however, did not include the weather-beaten, sceptical bunch of media “veterans” – many of whom have been to the festival for at least five years in a row – and have more discerning tastes that need to be pandered to.)

Festival first-timer Cornelia Rost, who works for Hessischer Rundfunk, a radio station in Frankfurt, says she enjoyed the festival immensely and was awed by the “freshness” of the Malaysian culture.

“I saw Kan’id from Malaysia yesterday and I was just so impressed with these young people’s initiative and the musical richness they had to offer,” she says. “I have seen some original styles and some really authentic music on display here.”

Yakande from Gambia and Guinea at the Rainforest World Music Festival 2008 in Santubong, Sarawak.

Rost is stumped when asked to define “world music” and says that if one were to ask 10 people for a definition, one would get 10 different answers.

“I think it’s a wide panorama with ethnic and classical on the one end, and pop on the other; and in between you have experimental, fusion, jazz and regional music,” Rost attempts an answer. “I like the way some bands try to make the music more modern. But if something loses its identity then that’s not good.”

Kate Brown, a New Zealander who has been living in Vietnam for seven years, was also at the festival for the first time. “I thought it was fabulous, it was just great to see so many performers all in the one venue,” says Brown, an elementary school music teacher, who at the RWMF2008 ran from one venue to the next so she could catch as many workshops as possible. (Three workshops are held simultaneously every day at different venues, a five-minute walk apart).

Brown feels that the definition of “world music” is in some ways a personal thing. “I think it is music that has some sort of traditional roots. But everything adapts and evolves. I think if a song manages to keep a certain type of music or musical instrument alive, then that would be termed world music.”

For Sheldon Blackman, one of the performers of The Love Circle from Trinidad & Tobago, the RWMF2008 passed with flying colours when it came to meeting the definition of “world music”.

“Being able to have an exchange of ideas with other musicians from different parts of the world at the workshops, that for me is what a world music festival should be,” said Blackman who heads off next month to take part in the Mela Festival in Norway, and the Bickerstock Music Festival in Bickerstaffe, Ormskirk, Britain.

Nickens Nkoso and the Kasai Masai band of Congo enthralling the crowd with their African rhythms.

The Daly express

Irishman Ross Daly of the Ross Daly Quartet, who has made Greece his home for the last three decades or more, was a little harder to please. While he enjoys performing at world music festivals and will perform for as long as he can, Daly feels that very often performers are forced to showcase their virtuosity, because that’s what the audience wants.

“Unfortunately, what impresses the listener is someone who can play faster and show off difficult skills,” he says. “And in the process, tradition is damaged. To a large audience traditional music may be boring, but to the man who understands the music, it can be very beautiful.”

Daly describes world music as a term coined by jazz musician Don Cherry to describe a newfound openness to other cultures during the 1970s, 80s and 90s.

“You must remember that the term ‘world music’ was coined by the Western World, which traditionally has been very arrogant towards other cultures. They only started to realise very late that other cultures had things of value too.”

Daly says he prefers to call it “world musicS” if only for the sake of accenting the diversity the genre has to offer.

“Unfortunately it is bound to be exploited, as is being done,” he adds about the state of world music today. “They (the recording business) will try and create a marketable product out of it. They will make a homogenous, rather tasteless soup for everyone. This is just the nature of the business. However, this is countered to the interests of culture.”

Humble and soft-spoken, Daly – who speaks English, French, Greek and Turkish – is a fascinating person to talk to and has a treasure trove of tall tales, theories and knowledge to impart to anyone who has time to listen. His music – which he is loath to call world music – is based on a modal musical tradition and is transcendental and spiritual in nature.

A master multi-instrumentalist, Daly performed on the Cretan lyra and tarhu at the RWMF2008, and remained true to his stand, not compromising on quality.

“Of course I had to choose more upbeat numbers from our repertoire that would be readily accessible; so it would not have been very representative of what we actually do,” he admits, adding that “there’s no way around that. The Ross Daly Quartet normally performs in a small concert hall of 500 people. But at a big gathering like this you have to play loud music with not much subtlety to it – it is just the nature of the circumstances.

“Having said that, our performances were not qualitatively lower in any way.”

Malaysia Boleh!

One of the things I was most pleased with at the RWMF2008 was the performances and professionalism of Malaysian groups AkashA and Kan’id. Both outfits carried themselves well in the public eye and gave entertaining performances and workshops. In fact, AkashA impressed the organisers so much, the band will probably be invited again next year, as programme/stage manager Randy Raine-Reusch announced at a press conference on the final day of the festival. AkashA’s music is a blend of classical Indian and Western music. Audiences were thrilled with band member Kumar Karthigesu’s sitar-playing skills, especially when he played rock-sounding riffs. Having been trained in Indian classical music since childhood, this band was able to use their skills innovatively, without losing the essence of what they had long studied, and all the while managed to keep the audience happy.

Kan’id, on the other hand, is made up of youths between the ages of 13 and 18, most of them still in school and only dabbling in music as a pastime. Their eagerness to learn and perform, enthusiasm about their rich cultural heritage (the youth are of Kelabit descent) and ability to speak coherently about their music and heritage was a joy to see. After all, it’s not every day one meets a 16-year-old who can play the sape in front of a huge audience, is game to be interviewed by the international media and then unassumingly jumps back into the crowd and enjoys the rest of the festival with a bunch of teenage pals.

Hiroshi Motofuji and his taiko drums were a big hit.

People power

So at the end of the festival, I decided I wasn’t going to let a term like “world music” throw me off course. Sure there were things that bothered me – like the huge corporate sponsorship deals, the overpriced beer, the jaded journalists, the rain, the slush, the mud, the queues to get into buses, and the lousy chicken rice – but all said, the RWMF2008 was a great place to be at.

Great for the musicians because of the abundant opportunities – to interact with other like-minded individuals, to perform together, to showcase their music, to share tales and ideas, to argue about what should be and what shouldn’t be, to have breakfast together, to jam into the wee hours of the morning and share a tuak or 10.

Likewise, festival-goers were afforded chances of a lifetime – to see instruments they had never seen before and may never see again (heard of a khomok, anyone?), to learn from musicians who had come from halfway across the world and to see 16 entertaining acts all in three days. And some of the music was truly endearing and beautiful – watching Adel Salameh breath life into his oud or Styaki Banerjee (of Indian outfit Oikyaotaan) coax tales out of his dotara were alone worth the price of the ticket, I thought.

And then there were the people. From everywhere – Poland, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, the Caribbean, Portugal, Algeria, Palestine, Greece, Malaysia, India – according to the organisers, statistics show the audiences came from 36 different countries.

My favourite part of the show, I’ve decided, was the New Rope String Band ... who had very little to do with world music I’m pretty sure, but like I said, I’m not going to let that spoil my RWMF2008 experience. These three Englishmen are a theatrical group more than anything – they make music out of plastic tubes, play the accordion while underwater and do rather silly things on stage with fiddles. Their stage show is interesting – a lot more fun to watch in a smaller venue than on the big stage. But what I especially liked and learned about them is that they are very ordinary people; interested in things like where to get the best laksa in town and how to catch mudskippers; they’re ready to give you a crash course in dancing, and are eager to share pictures of their children (Pete Challoner’s son is the spitting image of him, btw). I would never have known these things if not for the wonderfully warm atmosphere at the festival which almost nudges you into getting up close and personal with ... everyone.

Pete shared a tale with me about his friend Joe Scurfield who was the founding member of the Old Rope String Band and who had written a tune for their planned first trip to Malaysia in 2003. Sadly just before that, Joe was killed in an unfortunate accident and the band never came here ... until now. During their performances at the RWMF2008, the New Rope String Band performed that song to grand applause.

This is kind of how the song goes (and remember, the New Rope String band brings it down in three-part harmony):

Kita suka berada di sini, Kita suka berada di Sarawak, Kita suka berada di sini, Terima kasih banyak, banyak, banyak.

A simple tune but a fitting tribute indeed to Joe, the band, the organisers of the RWMF2008 and everyone who has graced the festival in one way or another.