La Folle Journée de Varsovie: About Clave and the Origins of Rhythm (45)

The 14th edition of the Festival: ORIGINS

29 September 2024 Sunday 15:00 EARTH Hall (Młynarski Hall)

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PERFORMERS:

Jerzy Rogiewicz percussion
Hubert Zemler percussion

What do pop hits, tap dancing, hip-hop, jazz music, reggae and capoeira have in common? – The clave (Spanish for 'key'), a distinctive rhythmic pattern that originated many centuries ago in Sub-Saharan Africa. Travelling from the 15th to 19th century along the slave routes from Africa through the Caribbean, South America and into North America, it became a key element of jazz and a whole range of later styles. The outstanding and versatile percussionists, as well as composers and improvisers, Jerzy Rogiewicz and Hubert Zemler, will guide us on a journey to its origins. We will get to know the structure of clave, its types, learn to perform it together and recognise it in pop music. You should equip yourself with a clave (simple instrument) for this journey. It will be klawe (old-fashioned Polish word for 'swell')!

Szalone Dni Muzyki (La Folle Journée de Varsovie) returns in 2024 with a rich and varied selection of 56 concerts over a period of three days. This year’s festival theme is Origins. And a journey to the origins is a fascinating expedition! We will wander towards nature: to the murmur of gushing water and birdsong, but also to ancient ways of human communication – primordial rhythm or traditional calling and singing. We will look at traditional instruments and folk inspirations in both classical music and jazz. We will reach out to the great works of the classical canon, such as Bach’s Goldberg Variations (no. 51), Mozart’s operas (no. 9), the symphonies of Beethoven and Dvořák (nos. 23, 47), Bartók’s Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion (no. 27), Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue (nos. 32, 53) and Bernstein’s Symphonic Dances from West Side Story (nos. 1, 48, 55). These are “original” works for the cultural formation of modern audiences, and they are an inexhaustible mine of inspiration for subsequent generations, drawing on these sources to the fullest.