Mike Herting & BuJazzO - calcutta ending (CD)

In its 25th anniversary year, the German Federal Jazz Orchestra (BuJazzO) is embarking on a West African tour for the first time. The initiator and guest conductor of this musical encounter is Mike Herting, who has been staging transcultural encounters at the highest level for decades in his project "GlobalMusicOrchestra".

Saint-Louis, Dakar, Kaolack, Ziguinchor, Bissau, Ilha de Bubaque are stops on the tour. Here the young German jazz musicians will meet professional African musicians who will accompany them both as teachers and as fellow musicians. These include the outstanding Senegalese kora player and singer Ablaye Cissoko, the balaphonist Djiby Diabate, the singer Gundo and the percussionist Pape Samory Seck. "We are convinced that this will create human and musical contacts on an equal footing, from which all parties will benefit beyond the trip," says project manager Dominik Seidler. Other Africans will continue to expand and strengthen the ensemble - including several Mauritanian musicians, whose country unfortunately could not be included in the Federal Jazz Orchestra's tour schedule due to the security situation.

A jointly developed program consisting of both West African and German compositions will bring both traditions together. Mike Herting has put together and composed a program especially for this. "The combination of European musical concepts with the oral traditions of Africa promises a holistic experience for everyone involved.

The tour is being supported significantly by the Foreign Office and the Goethe Institute, who attach particular importance to the trip. I am delighted that the Foreign Office and the Goethe Institute are supporting BuJazzO's West Africa tour and are thus enabling access to cultural worlds - on both the German and African sides."