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The people of the Southern part of Malaita, the largest land in the Solomon Islands, are called the ‘Are’are. Until an ethnomusicologist called Hugo Zemp from le Musée de l’Homme in Paris recorded and produced audio from the islands, there was very little of such material available. Zemp collected this audio for a year (March 1969 to March 1970) and more than doubled the material available at the time. A contemporary review of the recordings is available here.
Zemp’s work on the pipes and flutes of ‘Are’are culture is exceptional and his most well-known; a booklet was issued (and updated in 2013) to accompany a VHS cassette, a film of performances made by Zemp, by the Society for Ethnomusicology. This work took decades – from the mid 1970s until the 1990s.
The video offers extracts from these films and shows the remarkable versatility and richness of the music of ‘Are’are culture.
Read more:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ꞋAreꞌare_language
Learn more:
Academic material archives: https://catalog.paradisec.org.au/collections/KN1
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