musiques actuelles
Printemps Musical
A world of culture Luxembourg’s annual Printemps Musical festival focuses on worldwide culture – from African to South American artists, this spring stages in the city will be awash with different musical styles.
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The elegant Angélique Kidjo returns to Luxembourg this month. L’élégante Angélique Kidjo revient à Luxembourg ce mois-ci.
TEXTES Jane Link
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ABRËLL’14 CITY Agenda LUXEMBOURG
n 2014 the Printemps Musical festival celebrates its 32nd anniversary. Organised by the Luxembourg City Tourist Office, the festival – held at den Atelier, the Conservatoire and the Centre Culturel de Rencontre Abbaye de Neumünster – features an array of 11 world-class artists performing right through to the first days of June. Born into a family with musical roots in Burkina Faso, Mamadou Diabaté is renowned for his unmatched pure African rhythm and beats. After several awards and the release of nine albums, Diabaté, like many artists on the line-up for this year’s festival, channels his hometown and his African roots both explicitly and sublimely through authentically West African styles mixed with blues influences. He is supported on his current tour by Percussion Mania. French recording artist Thomas Fersen recently released his ninth album titled Thomas Fersen & the Ginger Accident. Bringing aspects of everyday life to his music through catchy riffs and double entendres, Fersen is likely to leave a memorable, lasting image on the audience – his performance will act as a mediator of normality and daily motifs within the fest of the exotic diversity that is the festival’s focus. Fersen’s show features a melting pot of different genres, a conglomerate of styles ranging from slips of country rock to a sprinkle of Jamaican vibes. Eccentric artists Iyeoka Okoawo and Angélique Kidjo bring a mix of soulful voices intertwined with poetic lyrics of their root cultures, a true channelling of their African motherland. Tradition is pivotal to these two artists, specifically to Angélique Kidjo, who performs in four different languages and returns to Luxembourg just a couple of months after performing the world premier of Philip Glass’s