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Terra Nostra - Terres Turquoises - MANIA - Li tans nouveaus -

Terra Nostra

Having explored the Mediterranean and Spanish music, Constantinople returns to America. Following the project Que le Yable les emporte!!! with Bernard Simard in 2005, Constantinople looks into a ''new Mediterranean'': the Gulf of Mexico and the multicultural Caribbean where American Indian, European, Mediterranean and African influences mingle. Terra Nostra!

For the last two years, Constantinople has given nearly twenty concerts in Mexico. Each visit has heightened our fascination for the music and the people of this beautiful country. This fascination led us to gather as much information as possible on the Mexican musical tradition and has been a chance to meet several musicians.

It is during one of these trips that Ziya and me came across the recording archives of Son de Veracruz from the 70's. The first time we heard the record, we instantly fell in love with the music. Later, we learned that this CD is a compilation of the best traditional musicians of the State of Veracruz of the 70's. Thus, it proved to be an excellent introduction for us.

Through our researches on the Son Jarocho, we met 'virtually speaking' José-Angel Gutierrez, one of the bastions of this musical tradition, as well as his wife, Terisita. With them we discussed of our Terra Nostra project and we finally met up these musicians in their village, Lerdo de Tejada, in Veracruz.

An encounter that was both random and heart-warming. Random, for no one had introduced us. I struck up a conversation with José-Angel on the subject of his writings and recorded performances I had heard of him. Heart-warming, because as soon as we began to play together, José-Angel admitted that having played music for almost 40 years, he had been waiting for us almost since the beginning of his career as a musician!

The Terra Nostra project was born from the desire to know the ''Other'' in the New World, to impregnate ourselves with its rich tradition and to belong to this land through its music. For years, José-Angel has gone through the same process in the reverse order, seeking the roots of his music by turning towards Andalusia, the Mediterranean and the Orient. Thus, our collaboration was, so to speak, predestined in the mysterious labyrinths of chance and of the universe.

With Terra Nostra, a journey into the Mexico of the 17th century, Constantinople embarks once again on the quest of digging up deep ties between ancient musical writings and living oral traditions. The heritage and depth of an ''old world'' combined with the effervescence and openness of a ''new world'' give birth to a new form of music, meaning a fusion of monophonic traditions and improvised polyphonies.

Kiya Tabassian

Kiya Tabassian - setar
José-Angel Gutierrez - requinto, voice
Teresita de Jesus Islas - jarana, voice, dance
Ziya Tabassian - tombak, def, dayereh, percussions
Betsy McMillen - viola da gamba
Matthew Wadsworth - baroque guitar

Terres Turquoises

This concert is a tribute to the Turquoise Lands. The land of each and every person, it is the garden of his memories and of his imagination. There, he sows the seeds of his thoughts and hopes, and nourishes them with his beliefs and his principles. It is the physical and metaphysical place where everyone takes root and in turn gives it meaning, vision, aroma, and colour.

Yet turquoise is much more than a colour. It is symbol that unites man in a great region that stretches from the Western Mediterranean to Central Asia and even as far as India.As in the sparking water, the dazzling sky, and the splendid monuments -whether a mosque, synagogue, church, palace or caravansary- the colour turquoise is a primordial element in the visual environment of the entire region.

The Turquoise Lands are formost those creative spaces where, regardless of country, creed or politics, there is a certain commonality of vision that is to be found in many aspects of these people's lives. This territory has created a deep symbiosis as well as a homogenous cultural and social entity that is one of humanity's great legacies.

The present programme features instrumental and vocal music representing a variety of traditions from these Turquoise Lands. Together, with one of the world's foremost specialists of these repertoires, Françoise Atlan, Constantinople will take an original look at the Sephrdic (Judeo-Spanish) romances, Ottoman instrumental music and Arabo-andalousian rich repertoire.

Françoise Atlan - voice

MANIA

My garden is my work. My memory is the garden's soil. All that grows on this earth puts down its roots and splits the soil to voyage elsewhere, making itself one with the universe.

K.T.

Mania is the state of ecstasy, of madness, that an artist needs to get closer to the ineffable, the ineffable, the invisible Other. Freedom from is known and what is remembered - this is what is needed if an artist is to recreate the now.

Kiya et Ziya Tabassian have been working together as musicians for some fifteen years. They are known for their virtuosity and for a musical language that is entirely their own, based on classical Persian music and combining creativity with the renewal of tradition.

While within the Persian tradition, the music of the Tabassian brothers is inspired by medieval as well as contemporary Mediterranean and European music.

Programme :

Moving within and around the spirit of maqâm sahari, which is part of the Ahl-e Haq dervishes tanbour-e kermânchâh repertoire from eastern Iran. Sahari was intended to be played at dawn and at dusk.

The solid meets sound. This piece is as fresh as the first touch, the first contact with the material, the other.

Evoking the dastgâh-e Châhâr-gâh, the beauty and splendour of Samarkand, the city where even the birds sing the Châhâr-gâh.

Based on the chants of Nowrouz (the Iranian New Year, literally ''the new day'', known as Nowrouz-khâni. The feast of Nowrouz has been celebrated for more than 3 000 years, and the all-but-forgottn Nowrouz-khâni, which are among the most ancient of known melodies, have been preserved in northern and northeastern Iran and in the Khorasan region.

Kiya Tabassian : setar
Ziya Tabassian : tombak

Li tans nouveaus

In this concert, Constantinople delves into the music played, sung, and heard by the troubadours and trouveres. These pieces constitute in fact the first surviving medieval examples of song written in the vernacular. The troubadour (trobador), the trouvere (troveor) is one that finds, invents, composes music and words.

Although some of the medieval instrumental and vocal repertoire has come down to us notated in manuscripts of that era, it is clear that this music lived and circulated chiefly thanks to oral tradition. Memory was the main vector of transmission in that age.

As present-day musicians exploring such a repertoire, we sought to take up the same challenge, the challenge of spontaneous creation. The present interpretation (indeed a form of improvisation) is founded on the knowledge acquired and experienced by the musicians: in the case of singing, on an in-depth understanding of the musical literature and language of the Middle Ages; and in the case of instrumental performance practice, on a close acquaintance with what oral tradition has taught us.

Françoise Atlan - voice