Suoni Per Il Popolo: Get free - Soirée d’impro & Soirée Benefit Palestine

Soirée Benefit Palestine

Important nights like this should be part of any festival dedicated to community (honestly, any festival). Suoni per il Popolo has a consistency with aligning the arts, the music, the exchange, with solidarity and beyond consumption values - whatever moves the people moves ideas, hearts and consciousness, which is both the power and responsibility of art and, I dare to say, specially music.

Sala’s restaurant hosted a solidarity market–zines, posters, prints, jewellery and even tattoos could be found - all the funds revert to Edward Said Music Conservatory and the Elham Fund, directly supporting Palestinians in Palestine.

The show upstairs started with a short film–“The Memory” by Mohammad Alas– hosted by Regards Palestinians, shedding a light on the political power of experimental film. It’s a testimony of an elderly woman, not so much in a documental way, but of her memory as the only thing she and all the displaced people have left. People who see their homes destroyed, their culture erased, their families martyrized, their land stolen by the Israeli occupiers. Memory is the only thing left to keep history, and therefore the future, alive.

Emna Mâaref and Jessica Moss’s choir were my good surprises and expectations of the night, added to the opening short film.

Mâaref has a simple set of background sound design and plays the oud. Her approach is emotional and very attuned to the feelings of and with the instrument. It felt like she was telling a story from home with no need to say anything at all.

Closing the first part of the night, Thee Silver Mt. Zion member and co-founder of Black Ox Orkestar, Jessica Moss and her choir chanted and harmonised a “No one is free until all of us are free” in a quite touching performance, embodying the idea of the “concert as a space for reflection and shared experience”.

The night unfolded with a couple of technical issues and setbacks, and it was a little sad to see people gradually leaving the space, especially in a solidarity night. I suppose the time between sets that took artists to set up, the technical issues and long introductions, although necessary, made it difficult to make a crowd not sparse into the social side of a musical event.

The second part still counted with the already familiar duo Moose Terrific, composed by Sam Shalabi and Tamara Filyavich. With North African and Ukrainian influences, they build up exquisite synth motions and polyrhythms. Crunchy, eclectic, extremely colourful and, although seemingly improvised, there seems to be some kind of score from what I could grasp looking at their table.

Gambletron closes the night with noise, DIY electronics and radio transmissions– multiple radios disposed in the space, sometimes moving places with them, creates an extra layer of space and movement, which I find particularly drawing in noise music. Noise music is inherently political–literally making noise, derange the comfort and state of things, aggress and address the violence, react to an unfair world–Gambletron puts this social and political engagement upfront in performance, it’s harsh, pirate and punk, denouncing of power systems. As a jewish artist, silence for them is not an option–harsh noise and “not in my name”.

Get free - Soirée d’impro

Improvising is a room full of possibilities, it’s a space to invite presence, freedom, to reinvent oneself and to relate to one another in a very intimate way–through listening and responding, giving and taking.

The sociological aspect of improvised music is very demonstrative–how do we listen to one another? What is my role in this collective? What contribution can I make? Is there the space for it? What are my weaknesses? What are my strengths? And those of the other? What does freedom mean and to which expense to we practice it individually within a collective dynamic?–it provides us important information on how we relate as humans and the complexities of not only coexisting but making it work together and actually creating something out of it.

What I noticed in most performances this night is that we’re not listening to each other well enough sometimes. We’ve been living in an obsession of doing, doing, doing, and not taking a moment to actually listen to our surroundings. Every performance had good moments and definitely exciting ones, but they mostly fell in the blob of unrecognizable sounds shouting in every direction, perhaps even neglecting the most powerful instrument in improvising–the ear–in my opinion.

At times, playing silently is a lot louder, I feel.

One performance that did the trick for me was the second one with Katherine Bornefeld on the drums, Alex Motta on the bass, ben Grossman on the hardy gurdy and Maya Kuroki on the voice. There was interchange, presence and just enough space to allow reinvention too. The layers and roles were clear and so was the listening. Bornfeld’s steady drumming provided a ground where Grossman could add some textures and allure, where Motta could walk, slide, jump exquisitely, with who Maya Kuroki could play with elasticity, plasticity and range.

The fifth combo with Ben Brown, Alvaro Rojas, Arnold de Boer, Meredith Bates and Sam Shalabi was also a good one, not as clear at times but still well built and captivating, energetic and still mindful. Perhaps the fact that the voice is present, which was the case in both acts, it helps to set some kind of easy dynamic as it is so dominant, inevitably. Specially here where the voice is spoken. Where there are words there is meaning (usually) and our brain is constantly looking for the easiest way to make sense of things.

Improvisation is a great way to let go, to surprise oneself and have fun or contemplation with the unexpected, to try to solve it or not. It is too powerful a tool to understand the playground we’re all in and to exercise self and collective awareness in that community-defined context.

In short, I’m sure we can listen better to one another! And it shows when we do.

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