Festivals

Itinerant Music Festival

As a result of the accumulated experience in concert and music production the time was ripe for an encounter between EAC and the Intergovernmental Agency of the Frenchspeaking countries (I.A.F.) with a common project for an original festival of Francophone music for the IX^th Summit of the Frenchspeaking countries in Beirut (October 2001): the Itinerant Music Festival, with the I.A.F. as a major financial contributor, was the first of its kind in Lebanon due to its unique programmation & philosophy.

A number of musical bands from Benin, Senegal, Quebec, and Lebanon made more than twelve concerts in various regions of lebanon from Nabatiyeh in the South to Tripoli, capital of the North, and through the Lebanese mountain (Deir El Kamar) and sea-side (Chekka El-Herri, Riviera Hotel): the concerts were mainly open air events, sometimes in special places as the "Gaumont-Palace" relic of the civil war, evolving some other times among the auditors (Gangbé Brass Band); despite a "Force Majeure" case (cancelling of the Prosper Zé band a day before the opening concerts), the festival and its unique concerts went on with sometimes surprising encounters between Orient and Occident, Afrika and Lebanon (Omar Pène and the Super Diamono from Dakar), Techno-pop and traditionnal music etc. Emerging lebanese music was also part of the show with bands like Soap Kills, Secteur B and Karika. (Press communiqués)





		For me, music creation has always been the process of an interaction between the musican and his audience: as a result, I have always stressed on live music before any musician steps into a recording studio - The "Lab", as an example, took us more than six months of rehearsals and live gigs before we got into the studio to record the CD "Mouch Wadeh" (EAC-CD-001, 1998). Other bands produced by Experimental Art Concept also evolved their albums in this way, and it was this process that ended up creatinq what a local English language daily Newspaper called "The New Beirut Sound", a testament to EAC innovation and creativity.	Original Artwork for the concerts of IN-Version Top
		Itinerant Music Festival As a result of the accumulated experience in concert and music production the time was ripe for an encounter between EAC and the Intergovernmental Agency of the Frenchspeaking countries (I.A.F.) with a common project for an original festival of Francophone music for the IX^th Summit of the Frenchspeaking countries in Beirut (October 2001): the Itinerant Music Festival, with the I.A.F. as a major financial contributor, was the first of its kind in Lebanon due to its unique programmation & philosophy. A number of musical bands from Benin, Senegal, Quebec, and Lebanon made more than twelve concerts in various regions of lebanon from Nabatiyeh in the South to Tripoli, capital of the North, and through the Lebanese mountain (Deir El Kamar) and sea-side (Chekka El-Herri, Riviera Hotel): the concerts were mainly open air events, sometimes in special places as the "Gaumont-Palace" relic of the civil war, evolving some other times among the auditors (Gangbé Brass Band); despite a "Force Majeure" case (cancelling of the Prosper Zé band a day before the opening concerts), the festival and its unique concerts went on with sometimes surprising encounters between Orient and Occident, Afrika and Lebanon (Omar Pène and the Super Diamono from Dakar), Techno-pop and traditionnal music etc. Emerging lebanese music was also part of the show with bands like Soap Kills, Secteur B and Karika. (Press communiqués)
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		Traditionnal musicians from Mansoura (Beqaa Valley - Lebanon) The musical workshops for the I.A.F. (2002) are a much more elaborate project of EAC, aiming to reach rural listeners all around lebanon, and to create a cultural dialogue between musicians from the frenchspeaking world and lebanese traditionnal musicians and between country musicians and city musicians (Beirut); the concept of the workshops was worked out by Jacques Deck (I.A.F.) and Amine Beyhom (EAC), with major additions by François Picard, professor of Ethnomusicology at the University of Paris IV - Sorbonne (France): the concluding original concert with compositions by the workshop musicians was to take place at the site of the Roman bathes in Downtown Beirut.
		The workshops effectively took place with extraordinary musicians (click "photos" button ) and a one time major concert the 21th of June in Beirut (excerpts under "audio"): intense preparations for the workshops were necessary with multiple visits to the villages and towns involved in the proces, formal and informal interviews and debriefings with the local musicians and cultural activists as well as with the "visiting" francophone musicians. As an introduction to the workshops, François Picard read about the musical instruments that were to be used (Kora, Balafon, Nay, `Ûd, Qânûn, Kaval, Jaw's Harp, Bagpipes and small pipes, Biniou-Bombarde from Brittany, percussions, clarinets, quarter-tone trumpets, etc.): Francois Picard was also responsible for the overall artistic direction as well as for the musical reahearsals at the Unesco Palace in Beirut. Tran Quang Haï, French-Vietnamese researcher at the Musée de l'Homme (CNRS - Paris) took also part in the workshops with Jaws Harp, vietnamese percussions and diphonic voice.	Nedyalko Nedyalkov (Kaval - Bulgaria) Youen Le Bihan (Bombarde) and Yves Berthou (Biniou)
		Thus is born a unique experience in Lebanon (and in Lebanese-French relations): I wish here to thank my two mentors and friends, Jacques Deck and François Picard, as well as Tran Quan Haï for the clarity and precision of his explanations, and the musicians Nedyalko Nedyalkov (virtuoso of the Kaval - Bulgaria), Lansiné Kouyaté (Balafon - Mali), Yakhouba Sissokho (Kora - Sénégal), and my other two accomplices Yves Berthou et Youen Le Bihan (Biniou-Bombarde et Small-Pipe - Brittany), as well as the Lebanese musicians Jean Madani (Bass) and Ibrahim Jaber (Percussions).
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