Bishkek Concerts and Kyrgyz TV
Michael Ormiston and Candida Valentino : Performance & Collaboration with Kyrgyz Musicians August 2015
Artists International Development Fund – Arts Council of England/British Council
Bishkek Kyrgyzstan’s Capital 29th June to 4th July.
29th June: With the help of felt clothing designer Aidai Asangulova and Nurjamal Asangulova we met Maksat Çakiev, the deputy minister of culture and he agreed to help us with venues in the various places we were scheduled to perform.
30th June : Ilona Sultanova our main organiser arranged a morning TV interview to introduce Candida & Michael publicise the tour, invite musicians and to advertise the first concert at the Bishkek Music Conservatory. Went to Positive Design Studio to create & print tour fliers in Kyrgyz, Russian & English.
1st July : Rehearsed for the concert next day. Printed Questionnaires written in Kyrgz, Russian and English. Collected Tour Flier.
2nd July : Rehearsed in the morning. Afternoon sound check. The concert at the conservatory went so well that Guldzada Riskilova a well known singer spontaneously came up at the end of the concert and we performed an improvisation. Our first collaboration. We were interviewed by a Kyrgyz Newspaper, BBC Kyrgyzstan and a radio station. We Importantly we met Jusup Aisaev & Zalina Kasymova who expressed great interest in collaborating with us.
3rd July : Visited Nurlanbek Nyshanov at his school. Nurlanbek is a master musician, teacher and instrument maker. He kindly offered his space for the collaborations to take place in Bishkek. We were honoured that he spent time showing us some traditional Kyrgyz instruments. The choor end blown flute, the chopo choor or ocarina. It turned out that Michael had bought one from him many years ago when he played at SOAS!. The Temir Komuz, metal Jews-harp and the Jygach Ooz komuz or bamboo Jew-harp. We gave him a gift of a Hmong Jews-harp and in return he gave us a newly crafted Jygach Ooz komuz.
That evening we performed a duo concert at Studio 247, a jazz club downtown. Our first piece was an improvisation dedicated to the late Ornette Coleman. We created a sound journey using our delay and looping devices. Nurlanbek was really interested in getting one so he could multi layer all the instruments he played. Another well known singer Batma Sultanova, who was in the audience asked to collaborate at the end of the concert. An improvisation followed. So we had two top singers and possibly two top musicians to work with.
