International festival of diwan music opens in Algiers

Great Algerian music works were taken up by the fanfare of "fanfarai" Band which gave show Sunday in Algiers at the opening of the 5th International Cultural Festival of Diwan Music. The festival fourth edition, which took place in Tlemcen as part of the event "Tlemcen, capital of Islamic culture," Algiers audience found again this year his festival which attracted a large number of viewers in the previous editions. In front of a half full theatre, singer Samira Brahmia "happy to take part in the celebrations of the fiftieth anniversary of Algeria independence," opened the show in solo before being joined by Fanfarai musicians who performed in Algeria for the first time. The fanfare musicians performed Rai, andalous, chaabi and Kabyle music, accompanied with several percussions, drawing their inspiration from the national orchestra group Barbesse (ONB) in terms of musical fusion of costumes and stage business. Algiers audience’s reaction to this experience was mixed, some found a "stirring music and bold concept" while others saw a "folklorization for the westerns." On the tunes of the Pan-African cultural festival, the Guinean, master of Kora music, Ba Cissoko, came on stage to perform the griots’ music. A music tradition modernized by some arrangements of folk, groove and funk that gives a "melodious and soothing" result according to viewers.