The Reawakening of MEG's Musical Instruments

Jalal Gajo, Isabel Garcia Gomez, Alba Gomez-Ramirez and Madeleine Leclair

On the occasion of Midori Takada's coming to perform a concert in Geneva in November 2017, the MEG organized a visit of the musical instruments collection with the artist. The initiative for this meeting came from Olivier Ducret, curator of the labels Mental Groove Records and WRWTFWW Records.

Midori Takada is a percussionist and composer. For several years, she has been closely interested in the musical traditions of Africa, especially the instrumental polyrhythms, that are a source of inspiration for her.

From this meeting was born the idea of organizing a recording session in Geneva, in which Midori Takada would play on a selection of musical instruments from the MEG' s collections.

This recording session took place on November 25 and 26, 2019 at the Ansermet studio and the MEG’s auditorium, in collaboration with sound engineer Renaud Millet-Lacombe.

The reawakening of MEG's musical instruments

Interview with Midori Takada. November 26, 2019, MEG

Criterias for the selection of musical instruments

This initiative offered a unique opportunity to bring some of the instruments of the collection back to the use for which they had been created, to share them with a wide public and to support a creative project in which such objects were indispensable. However, the vibration of skins or sound boxes carries a structural risk for a musical instrument. This risk had to be taken into consideration so that this project could bring these objects back to life without making them suffer. Prior to Midori Takada's first visit in 2017, Madeleine Leclair (curator of the Ethnomusicology Department) and Isabel Garcia Gomez (conservator) selected instruments whose condition and structure allowed them to be brought back into play. These instruments were then proposed to Midori Takada, who tried them and chose those whose sound best suited the needs of her project.

The Instruments played by Midori Takada

Midori Takada first composed, on a marimba xylophone, a melodic line that served as the basis for the architecture of her piece. She then successively improvised many other parts played on about ten musical instruments. All the parts are superimposed to give rise to a dense polyphony.

Cutting branches for a temporary shelter

Cutting Branches for a Temporary Shelter is the English translation of Nhemamusasa, one of the oldest and most important pieces of Shona music in Zimbabwe. This polyrhythmic piece for two mbira (lamellaphone), rattles and voice became internationally known through the album "The Soul of Mbira", recorded by Paul Berliner. This record had been published in the Explorer Series of Nonesuch Records, the leading label for minimalist or repetitive music, which has published the works of renowned artists such as Philip Glass and Steve Reich.

Cutting branches for a temporary shelter

Interview with Midori Takada. November 26, 2019, MEG