GLOBAL SOUNDSCAPES FESTIVAL: Hands On!
Celebrating intercultural percussion music
June 6-11, 2017
Vancouver, BC

The Vancouver Inter-Cultural Orchestra (VICO) is proud to announce the 2017 edition of its annual Global Soundscapes Festival, taking place from June 6-11 at The Revue Stage on Granville Island. The focus this year: the beat of the drum. The VICO will host special guest soloists from China, Iran and Montreal, alongside a who's who of BC-based percussionists and other musicians from Vancouver's vibrant world music scene, for six days of concerts, workshops and other events.

The 2017 edition of the festival (subtitled “Hands On”) will focus on percussion instruments from China, Indonesia, Korea, Iran and India.The beat of a drum is primal and in many ways universal, but the range of distinctive instruments and techniques that have developed all over the world offers fertile ground for innovation and cross-cultural learning in the VICO context. This year’s Global Soundscapes Festival: Hands On! promises a rich smorgasboard of sounds and rhythms, and many unique opportunities for connection across borders, continents, cultures and centuries.

WEDNESDAY June 7, 2017
Revue Stage, Granville Island

Percussion Double Bill #1
7:30 pm: Komagata Maru
Komagata Maru is a 60-minute performance of original music, contextualized by projected archival photographs, reflecting on the Komagata Maru Incident of 1914, in which 376 potential immigrants from India were turned away from Canada. "A gorgeous exploration of South Asian–inflected jazz, marked by the warmth and drive, respectively, of [Dhillon]’s bansuri flute and tabla. (...) Komagatu Maru is an aesthetic triumph, a taut and sustained sonic meditation that successfully avoids the polemical" - The Georgia Straight

Performed by composer Neelamjit Dhillon (saxophone, bansuri, tabla) with Chris Gestrin (piano), Steve Holy (bass) & Dan Gaucher (drums)

and

9:30 pm: Curtis Andrews & VanAfrica
VanAfrica is a musical journey across Africa, through the traditional music and dance of at least six different ethnic groups and four countries. The group is made up of some of Vancouver’s most exciting practitioners of African performing arts, including: N’nato Camara (Guinea), Kurai Mubaiwa (Zimbabwe), Kocasalle Dioubate (Guinea), Kesseke Yeo (Cote d’Ivoire), Pasi Gunguwo (Zimbabwe) and Curtis Andrews. Be prepared for intense dancing and drumming as well as intimate songs on rarely heard instruments such as the bolon, gongoma and mbira.

Tickets: $25 for both concerts, or $15 for a single concert
http://vicohandsondoublebill1.bpt.me/
or at the door