›Liberation Orchestra of Inverted Traditions‹

The cooperation between members of Ensemble Modern and the Deggo Band from Senegal goes back several years: initiated by the Goethe-Institute in Dakar, it had its successful premiere in 2019 at the ›AfriCourage‹ Festival in The Gambia. Not without reason – some of the Senegalese musicians involved are among the elite of the West African music scene, with international touring experience, for example with the singer Baaba Maal or as part of the project ›Ndagga Rhythm Force‹. The Sabar drummer Bada Seck and his nephew Serine Mamoune Seck are members of the Jeri-Jeri clan and also of the traditional caste of musicians, the Griots, who pass on knowledge orally from generation to generation. The energetic group from Senegal’s capital Dakar also includes Modou Mbaye at the talking drum tama, the drummer Mangone Ndiaye Dieng and the keyboarder Ibou Mbaye. The latter emphasizes: »What is attractive about this musical collaboration is experiencing our own music anew.« In 2021, the flutist Dietmar Wiesner and the violinist Jagdish Mistry travelled to Dakar to lay the foundations for another round of collaboration with musicians there. »Some of the improvising we did there was pretty wild«, says Wiesner with a laugh, »but we also started to establish certain structural foundations«. In addition, they developed interactions in smaller groups, for example a duet in which Jagdish Mistry’s violin meets the bright rattle of the tama. The project kept developing further, with a widely acclaimed performance at Darmstadt’s Centralstation in 2023. Together, the five West African musicians and eight Ensemble Modern members create a multi-faceted panorama of delicate sonic colours, striking solo accents, polyrhythmic grooves and percussive intensification. The encounter has opened up spaces for improvisation and spontaneous dialogues. The programme will now be performed at the Cologne Philharmonie on May 1, 2026.