After five days of intensive training that began on Monday, the Bandy Baraka Big Band has completed a workshop dedicated to arrangement and orchestration for Big Band, alongside Carl Hammond. Participants concluded yesterday five days of immersion in writing and arrangement for Big Band with Carl Hammond. The Bandy Baraka Big Band (BBBB) completed yesterday a five-day workshop organized at the Havozo Centre of SAF FJKM, a training that marks a new milestone in the development of orchestral jazz in Madagascar. Led in collaboration with Carl Hammond, an artist and conductor of the American-Chilean Big Band, this workshop brought together around fifteen participants, nearly 90% of whom are young musicians from jazz, gospel and classical music backgrounds.
"The workshop will focus on arrangement and orchestration for a Big Band formation," explains Mahefa Rakotoarisoa, president of the Bandy Baraka Big Band. Over five days, participants alternated between theoretical teaching and practical exercises in harmonization, orchestration and transcription. They notably worked on adapting the standard Beautiful Love into a Big Band version. In the medium term, each participant will also propose an arrangement of a Malagasy song intended for this formation.
Essential Knowledge
"These five days of training allowed the participating arrangers to acquire, both theoretically and practically, the essential knowledge for creating an arrangement for Big Band," emphasizes Mahefa Rakotoarisoa. Carl Hammond's visit to Madagascar holds particular significance. After discovering the work of the Bandy Baraka Big Band, the conductor himself decided to come and meet Malagasy musicians. The group then expanded this initiative to other musicians to encourage exchanges and sharing of experiences around musical writing.
Born in the United States in the 1930s, during the swing era, the Big Band is a large jazz orchestral formation generally composed of 16 to 20 musicians divided between saxophone, trumpet, trombone and rhythm sections. Renowned for the richness of its arrangements, it today occupies an important place not only in jazz, but also in contemporary music, film scores and musicals. Created in 2014 on the initiative of saxophonist Seta Ramaroson, the Bandy Baraka Big Band now brings together around twenty passionate musicians. In addition to its jazz repertoire, the ensemble also revisits works from Madagascar's musical heritage by adapting them to Big Band format, thus affirming its desire to bring together the sounds of jazz with the musical riches of Madagascar.