Reflektor Angélique Kidjo
She is surely Africa’s most impressive and influential singer. Angélique Kidjo returns to the Elbphilharmonie with a four-day »Reflektor« Festival and a predominantly female programme
If you’ve heard her once, you’ll always recognise her voice, even three miles upwind – she’s more than loud enough. Angélique Kidjo was born and raised in the former French colony Benin in western Africa, and is probably the most influential singer from that continent. With five Grammys, she tops the shamefully short list of African musicians who have been awarded that prize. She has been one of the true stars of world music for more than 30 years, and she has been standing up for the interests of her continent, and of African women in particular, for just as long. So it’s only logical that she now – after numerous triumphant performances in the Elbphilharmonie – uses the carte blanche of her four-day »Reflektor« Festival here to present a predominantly female programme.
In Dobet Gnahoré, Somi, Lura and Oum, she has invited a whole host of the best young African female singers to Hamburg. Kidjo herself presents »Queen of Sheba«, a new project featuring music by the French-Lebanese trumpeter Ibrahim Maalouf thematising the encounter between the legendary Queen of Sheba and King Solomon.
»Les mots d’amour« is a programme of songs Kidjo has developed with the French concert pianist Alexandre Tharaud. And for the grand finale, she is joined in the Grand Hall by most of the female artists featured in the festival under the name »African Women All-Stars«.
Supported by the Stiftung Elbphilharmonie
