Argentina singer to launch second album
Argentinian musician Ines Basombrio during a performance at the Alliance Francaise in Nairobi. PHOTO | MARGARETTA wa GACHERU
What you need to know:
They’d paint not to sideline her showcase of original songs, but rather to serve as a sort of visual backdrop allowing the public to witness their expressive responses to her impassioned, sensitive songs.
The visual artists have varied from show to show, with only Nduma consistently coming to create his colourful impressionist portraits of the feelings her soulful music elicited in him.
Other artists who have shared the stage with Ines since March include Maral Bolouri, Onyus Martin, Bebeto Odhiambo, and the German painter Adrian Dahms. They have been with her either at the Village Market or at the Lion’s Eye Clinic in Loresho.
Latin American singer-songwriter Ines Basombrio will launch her second CD entitled Sand Skin (Piel de Arena in Spanish) tonight at Nairobi’s Alliance Francaise where she will be accompanied by Kenya’s Eddy Gray on guitar and Tetu Shani on percussion.
This will not be the first time the Argentinian musician has performed live in Nairobi. She has only been in the country for a year and-a-half, yet she has already given several mixed media musical performances in which local visual artists painted in a spontaneous, improvised style, almost like jazz musicians. They were inspired by her lyrical compositions, the lilt of her voice and the Latin rhythms.
It was actually the painter Adrian Nduma who proposed the idea of artists coming to accompany her performance, not with guitars, drums or even voices, but with their paint brushes and multiple colours of acrylic paints.
They’d paint not to sideline her showcase of original songs, but rather to serve as a sort of visual backdrop allowing the public to witness their expressive responses to her impassioned, sensitive songs.
The visual artists have varied from show to show, with only Nduma consistently coming to create his colourful impressionist portraits of the feelings her soulful music elicited in him.
OWN COMPOSITION
Other artists who have shared the stage with Ines since March include Maral Bolouri, Onyus Martin, Bebeto Odhiambo, and the German painter Adrian Dahms. They have been with her either at the Village Market or at the Lion’s Eye Clinic in Loresho.
The artworks that they produced will be on stage from 5:30pm tonight at Alliance, but she will only be accompanied by Eddy and Tetu.
The 48-year-old mother of four will be singing the same night as her 18-year-old daughter, Clara Satzke, who will be on stage at Safaricom’s Michael Joseph Centre.
“I want to launch Sand Skin and then dash over to see my daughter perform. I perform mainly my own compositions, while my daughter sings popular tunes,” said the former music teacher.
“I didn’t start composing until I was 35,” Ines confessed. “Before that I was too timid, but in a way, my teaching children to feel fearless and free to express themselves musically also liberated me to do the same myself,” she added.
Ines is a trained guitarist, pianist and vocalist, having had music teachers in various parts of the world, from Argentina where she was born, raised and studied music at the Conservatory in Buenos Aires to Germany where she and her family lived for nearly nine years, then back to South America, to Uruguay and now to Kenya.
Ines’ first CD, Muscules del Alma (in Spanish) or “Muscles of the Soul” is all in Spanish and all about the strength of woman. This second CD Sand Skin (Piel de Arena) is a combination of Spanish, Swahili and English songs
Her next performance will be at the Heinrich Boell Foundation on November 6. She will again be with visual artists since she’ll be a star attraction at the Launch of the Kenya Arts Diary 2016.
