Mizike – An Afropean musical journey
with Jali Fily Cissokho (kora)
8pm Saturday 9th June 2012, Pegasus, Magdalen Road, Oxford
Mizike takes you on a fascinating voyage through deserts and forests, villages and cities, celebrating the songs of our ancestors, friends, families and of some of today’s finest musicians. The singers have a passion for the beguiling, rich and complex sounds of polyphonic and polyrhythmic singing, often passed down from tribal communities across Africa, as well as powerful praise songs and anthems from South Africa, mostly arranged or composed and taught by the talented Anita Daulne who led the choir for its first 4 years. Tonight they bring new sounds and surprises to the Pegasus Theatre as well as some old favourites.
Mizike will be joined by special guest, virtuoso kora player and praise singer (griot), Jali Fily Cissokho who comes from Ziguinchor in the beautiful lush region of Casamance, Southern Senegal.
Fily is a Mandinkan griot. The Mandinka, a social group of approximately 4 million, live in and around Senegal, Mali and the Gambia. The griots are professional hereditary musicians who once advised and entertained the emperors and kings of Mali. These oral historians have for over 4,000 years handed down the knowledge, culture and history of the Mande people. Griots are seen as spiritual people. Griot, meaning blood (djeli), being the blood that runs through the corporeal body – the essential omniscient part of life – were thought to be all-seeing and all-knowing in the eyes of society. When you ask Fily how he became such an exponent of his music he replies “It’s in my blood.”
Tickets £10/ £8 (concessions available)
proceeds from tonight’s performance will be used to develop Mizike’s activities beyond 2012
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