Windhund Soundbridge/Klangbrücke
In 2001 the Tonga.Online project has established the first community-based Internet and Computer Centre in Binga district, one of the remotest areas of Zimbabwe. The Mulonga.Net Festival in September 2004 has celebrated the opening of two more IT centres in Siachilaba and Siansundu with an encounter of the Tonga Ngoma Buntibe groups Simonga from Siachilaba and its counterpart Maliko from Chief Sinazongwe´s area across the waters of the Zambezi River in Zambia.
Referring to the projects Internet platform www.mulonga.net the MULONGA.NET FESTIVAL has endeavoured to link up with the ARS ELECTRONICA FESTIVAL in Linz via Internet and Radio Emap.FM.
Karl Ritter in Siachilaba and Otto Lechner at the Klangpark along the Danube river in Linz managed to build a soundbridge /Klangbrücke which was echoing Tonga Ngoma Buntibe and Windhund music across the continents. And the Mulonga.Net station at HMH Gallery Kunstereignisse in Linz - where Klaus Hollinetz, Michael Pilz, Werner Puntigam and Thomas Schneider presented and reflected on their audio visual encounters with Tonga music - provided for virtual access to the Tonga community in remote Africa.
Already in May 2004 Otto Lechner & Windhund musicians welcomed Thomas Mapfumo & The Blacks Unlimited at the Porgy & Bess Jazzclub in Vienna and presented another reflection on Tonga Buntibe music involving a brass section of special guests.
Despite their harsh living conditions the Tonga people have always adhered to their cultural heritage and ways of communicating oral traditions that are generations old. Their unique Ngoma Buntibe Music is a kind of binary or digital music in its own sense since one musician is mastering one note only by contributing a short blow on an antelope horn to an incredible storm of sound and stamping movements.
Links:
--> CD: Windhund - Soundbridge/Klangbrücke
--> Audio Short Cuts
--> www.windhundrecords.com
--> www.mulonga.net
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