(From left) Regnard, Duplessy, Guo Gan and Puredorj with their respective stringed instruments.
KUCHING: Those attending the Rainforest World Music Festival (RWMF) 2019 will be taken on a musical journey along the Silk Road, with the strings evoking frenzied galloping of horses – reverberating through the silence of the stark nomadic steppes of Mongolia, the fortitude of the imposing Great Wall of China, and the frozen landscapes of the fjords.
Four soloists – Mathias Duplessy, Guo Gan, Naraa Puredorj and Aliocha Regnard – have come together to create for RWMF, a dazzling and emotive display of stories and landscapes spanning East and West.
“The crossing strings of these virtuosos weave a path between the written and oral traditions of East and West as they endeavour to interpret the world differently and forge a way to new and unprecedented sound,” said Sarawak Tourism Board (STB) in a statement yesterday.
Born in Paris, Duplessy studied classical guitar at the age of six and was playing professionally by the time he was 18.
He also picked up many instruments from all over the world, having reinvented and assimilated traditional instruments into a vast musical repertoire in his performances.
As a multi-instrumentalist and composer, Duplessy took his idea of transcultural musical exchange further and created ‘The Violins of the World’.
The musical journey grew with the shared interest by three virtuoso musicians – Guo Gan, known worldwide as the ‘Master of the Chinese Erhu’; Aliocha Regnard on the ‘nyckelharpa’, a stringed instrument of Swedish origin; and Naraa Naranbaatar on the ‘ikh khuur’, a Mongolian fiddle, and is one of the most brilliant performers of the ‘kargyraa’ (undertone singing) and ‘höömii’ (throat singing).
In his many collaborations, Duplessy has contributed to Indian films as a music composer and received two nominations for ‘Best Background Score’ at the Filmfare Awards, and French film ‘Vie Sauvage and L’Oranais’.
In addition, he has produced and recorded over 20 albums with many artists around the world.
An unforgettable performance is that of ‘Crazy Horse’ where Duplessy and his fellow musicians recreated sound effects, transporting audiences to a dramatic horse ride across the Mongolian grasslands.
His latest album ‘Crazy Horse’ is on the ‘USA Top iTunes’, and the video reached eight million views.
They will do two different sets at RWMF 2019 – ‘Marco Polo’ at the Theatre Stage, which is a cross between Western classical music and Asia; and ‘Crazy Horse’ on the Tree Stage with a wild bluesy mix of everything.
The RWMF 2019 will run from July 12 to 14 at Sarawak Cultural Village. It is organised by STB, endorsed by Tourism Malaysia and supported by the Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture, Youth and Sports of Sarawak.
For further information about tickets, festival activities and logistics, go to https://rwmf.net/.