Building bridges, connecting peoples, bringing people together and reconciling them through music. It seems to be a theme that runs as a red thread through Lunalia 2018. With "The Gateway to the East", the Festival van Vlaanderen, Mechelen, once again provides one of the top concerts in this series. Marco Beasley and Constantinople bring two worlds together in an enchanting concert.
Constantinople: the Canadian ensemble has specialized in different styles over the last 20 years. With "Gateway to the East" they venture into music from the Ottoman court, based on a 17th-century manuscript by Polish orientalist Ali Ufki, or, in Polish Wojciech Bobowski. This manuscript, like this concert, unites European and Ottoman music and in this way connects two worlds that seem far apart but musically appear to blend seamlessly together.
Constantinople and Marco Beasley alternate with each other. One moment restrained, then again full of passion. Songs in Italian, Farsi and Neapolitan: both the mastery of the singer and the group come to the fore. Sometimes the instruments seem to accompany the singing, then again the singing seems subordinate to the musicality of the Oriental instruments. Marco Beasley narrates, sings, captivates. Rousing rhythms seem to evoke the sounds of a host of belly-dancing beauties hopping by with tiny bells on their ankles. Universal love songs are alternated with incantations and mystical spells, sadness and happiness, love and suffering, again connecting here as well.
Together with Marco Beasley and Constantinople we walk through this concert lost in thought and the differences between East and West seem to fade away. That all these songs come from a single manuscript is difficult to believe given the variety and diversity. Such concerts ensure that the mastery of different cultures, genres and backgrounds are united into a tasteful whole that smooths over the differences in order to focus on what binds us all.
- WHAT: The Gateway to the East - as part of Lunalia
- WHO: Constantinople & Marco Beasley
- WHERE: Sint-Romboutskathedraal, Mechelen
- WHEN: Monday 30 April 2018