Music lovers, aspiring musicians and local entrepreneurs gathered at Stuart’s Opera House on Friday to enjoy the community music of the Grammy-winning band Tinariwen.
The group combines American blues with traditional music from Mali, Africa, where the members grew up, and developed the music as part of one of the world’s oldest nomadic peoples, the Tuareg.
With hypnotizing guitar parts and rhythmic beats from a dejima and electric bass, the music had the front of the crowd up on its feet and dancing.
The original members of Tinariwen — vocalists and guitarists Ibrahim Ag Alhabib, Abdallah Ag Alhousseyni and Alhassane Ag Touhami — switched off on lead guitar, all bringing their own signature style to the music from classic ’40s blues to full-on Jimi Hendrix psychedelic, all set to the traditions of Tuareg music.
Many fans were returning to see the group a second time after a previous performance a year ago at Stuart’s Opera House, 52 Public Square, Nelsonville.
“I saw them last year, and I didn’t know what to expect when I was coming in, but after the show I was like, this is good because it was the first time I was experiencing music from that part of the continent, even though I’m from Africa,” said Michael Ofori, a senior studying African studies. “This year I’m excited to see what new stuff they have.”
The group played a handful of new songs as well as a number of older tunes spanning the band’s more than 30-year career.
The event was hosted by Stuart’s but put on in conjunction with the Performing Arts Series and African studies department, which set aside 100 tickets for Ohio University students to come out and see the show. All 100 tickets had been reserved by the time of the show Friday.
“My hope would be that students go to be lifelong appreciators of African music,” said Steve Howard, director of African studies. “We like to demonstrate that there are musicians all over the world worth listening to, and we work hard to bring a few of them to the Athens area.”
This show isn’t the first time the Performing Arts Series and Stuart’s have teamed up. In fact, Andrew Holzaepfel, associate director of the Campus Involvement Center, said the relationship and venue size has worked out well to bring smaller crowds together.
“World music is a priority whether it’s on the main series or not. The challenge we’ve had is (that) putting these artists in a 2,000-seat venue (MemAud) doesn’t make sense,” Holzaepfel said. “Tinariwen can sell thousands of tickets in their home country, they can sell thousands of tickets in a metropolitan area, but selling out Stuart’s Opera House last year is kind of the perfect venue for this market.”
@Wilbur_Hoffman
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