Fiji fusion music

from w
An article in today's Fiji Times about an attempt to create fusion music in Fiiji - that is using both lali (Fjian) and tabla and harmonium (Indian) was in a presentation in Nadi. The writer said this is quite new. Actually it's been done before several times including a concert many years ago at Grammar School in Suva when a boy played the lali as a girl danced in the traditonal Indian way. I have it on tape. Beautiful as they gradually adapted the rhythm and hand movements to the beats.  Good luck to the teachers at the Namaka campus for their music program.
Here's today's story.

Music integration

Felix Chaudhary
Thursday, October 16, 2014

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Dr Soma Ghosh performs during the food festival at FNU Namaka, Nadi. Picture: BALJEET SINGH

IN what could only be described as rhythmically impossible — students and tutors from the Fiji National University dared to defy the musical norm by fusing traditional Hindi and iTaukei instruments in an attempt to create a new genre of music.

The music fusion concert was part of the inaugural International Food Festival which continues this week at the Namaka campus.

Renowned Indian classical singer Dr Soma Ghosh dazzled the audience with her command of the iTaukei language by singing a song composed by local faculty members.

Dr Ghosh — protege of legendary Indian musician the late Bismillah Khan — is working with FNU's music school to create a new sound by combining Indian instruments such as the tabla and harmonium with iTaukei instruments such as the lali.