World wind band

World Wind Band at the Manoel Theatre, by MaltaMedia News:

Combining traditional wind instruments from various parts of the world in an interesting and unusual way the World Wind Band offers a new musical experience. Dirk Campbell and Jan Hendrickse, joined by bass flute player Nathan Thompson and percussionist Tim Garside will be doing just that for audiences at the Manoel Theatre on Tuesday January 23rd at 7.30pm , in a performance courtesy of the British Council.

As a performing group the World Wind Band presents arrangements of ethnic wind traditions encompassing Asia , Europe , Africa and the Middle East , illustrating the immense range of sonorities produced by these instruments and demonstrating the connections between different traditions as in the case of Europe and Asia which have always exerted a strong influence on each other. The World Wind Band’s repertoire employes numerous wind instruments most of which are excitingly new to our ears: folk flutes such as the bansuri and the sareva – transverse flutes from India and West Africa; reed pipes such as the arghoul and zummara from Egypt and the Levant; and bagpipes such as the zampogna from Calabria/Sicily and the tulum from Turkey..

Visiting lecturer at Goldsmith College London and Bath Spa University, Dirk Campbell has studied traditional wind instruments with Theodoros Kekes in Athens and with Djivan Gasparian in Armenia as well as with musicians from the Kurdish, Iranian, Albanian and Greek communities in London. He absorbed a good deal of tribal music during his childhood years spent in Kenya . He has composed award winning music for television, films and documentaries after having studied composition at the Royal College of Music. The World Wind Band is partly a vehicle for the demonstration of traditional musical skills and partly a vehicle for new combinations; it is also a medium for broader collaborative and educational projects, enjoying enthusiastic receptions wherever it performs.