After a well-deserved month of holidays, your general Magazine of information about music is back. In this issue, we want to make a large plan on Boncana Maïga who traversed the whole world for the promotion of the African music. our next delivery will be about Djénéba Seck who‘s back with a new album entitled "Tigné" (the truth). You will have all the truth on Djénèba Seck before her voyage in France where she’s invited by our compatriots for the 22 September 2004. Good reading

BONCANA MAIGA, COMPOSER/ARRANGER
The dream of an African symphony orchestra

"To write an African concerto"! Here is the dream of the maestro Boncana Maïga. An ambition of the one who is considered by the criticisms of music as "one of the best African arrangers or, at least, the most famous. This compatriot was in any case one of the first Africans to study in Cuba, in the Sixties, where he learned in ten years of academy how to write and read music. And that at a time when Africa was almost illiterate on the matter.
It’s this experiment that he wishes to put at the service of Mali and the continent by putting the African music on partition for a symphonic work. "My dream is to create an African symphony orchestra, that means to emphasize the African music in a symphonic way, like a concerto of Mozart. My wish is that people come to seat and to listen to the African music but on a tempo which can last thirty to forty minutes, only on musical development with only African instruments. I know the classical music and I would like to put in practice what I’ve learned during ten years. It is necessary to develop the African music so it can be written and preserved, in an academy or any other place of memory, for the next centuries and the future generations ", explains the maestro.
And the realization of dream is like a duty even a challenge for the famous author/composer and arranger. "I’m among the musicians who had the chance to study music. That offers me certain possibilities in musical writing and another vision of the music. I’m comfortable as smell with salsa, as with reggae or African music ", he justifies in an interview published last week on the site “Afrik.com”.
An idea which concretization will not fail to give another breath to the African music which is in full stagnation. "The African music is stagnating. The cuban music is a mixture of our African rhythms, worked scientifically. We thought that we had that in blood and we rested on our laurels. All that the Cubans make, we have it in Africa. But, the things change. There is, fortunately, in the present generation, many African artists who can read the music. Africa is no more illiterate in this field ", analyzes the wonder who is the base of the current success of artists like Aïcha Koné, Hadja Soumano, Aïcha Kamaldine...
"If one takes example of the Congolese music, which is very symptomatic, I think it is a pity that we don’t have any more this generation of musicians like those of the African Jazz of Tabu Ley and of Franco, who made the Congolese dream and dance. In the present production, I’m embarrassed to see great singers who refuse to sing. They make more "spectacle-music" than song. There are much snare drum and animations. Many animators are stars who cannot sing. But, there are people who like this music. If I do not share this vision of the music, I respect the work of each one ", he says with respect and tolerance.
The realization of this dream not impossible for Boncana Maïga who’s already the initiator of others concepts such as Africando. "I created Africando in 1992. After Cuba, I dropped the salsa down; I wanted to work in the African music. But, I wanted to develop a musical concept based on African musicians who could sing salsa. I wanted to put in the circuit those who sang salsa during the years of independence and who had been drawn aside by other fashion music such as zouk. The idea was to make them sing in their mother tongue to make Cuban music (the salsa is a little too restrictive name) and that I give them the base of arrangements. I just put i practice what I learned in Cuba ".
With his experience, it is easy for Boncana to compare the Cuban salsa to the African one. "There is much Africans who make African salsa which is not appreciated in the United States, except Africando, as I know. Because the Cubans have what is called the hitch in the manner of playing bass compared to the piano. And it’s this hitch that makes the Latin-Americans dance (the Cubans). It is necessary to live in these countries to understand these things. Elsewhere, it is thought that the Cuban music is played with a bell, a piano and then it’s all. But there are rules ".
To the rising generation, the "Old monkey" advises to learn to grimace in their manner and not to imitate before launching out to the assault of the show biz. "It is necessary to be able to live of one’s art when one is 20 years old and to live of one’s art when one is 70 years old. People think that music is a door of exit when one failed in the studies. Music is a trade like medicine or agronomy. And when one’s art is well learned one can live of his trade. That’s what I can give say to each one ". A wise council of an d’un eminent elder in the musical arena.
King Moseto