Touchwood
Cape Town based afro-gypsy-Folk act TouchWood will embark on a Spanish Music Festival tour in mid July courtesy of SAMRO and Casa Africa. Touch- Wood emerged joint winners of the Johannesburg VisaVis competition and were offered a contract to tour spain by Casa Africa, a group of Spanish music festival producers.
TouchWood were selected to represent Cape Town at the Johannesburg competition from over 100 bands and competed against 11 other bands over the span of the competition.
The multi-instrumentalist four piece band Touchwood, surprised the jury with a fresh and contemporary approach, to what seemed 70’s folk introducing Southern African rhythms and interesting array of instruments including the cello as a bass, the ukulele, violin and Marimba. “Spanish adjudicators were impressed by the diversity and professionalism of all the bands but Touchwood stood out with their clear and simple approach to traditional western folk music which is experiencing resurgence in Europe.”
The Vis a Vis Project now in its fourth edition, promotes greater knowledge of African music in Spain through direct exchange between the producers of the Spanish festivals and African musicians. The Spanish Ambassador in South Africa, Juan Sell, who attended the Project’s concerts, explained that Casa África’s project had been received with enthusiasm by the South Africans, as they have seen Spain’s real interest in African culture, in this case for its emerging music talent.
Tour dates will include appearances at prestigious festivals like Pirineos Sur, Etnosur, La Mar de Músicas, Mumes Tenerife, the Heineken Jazz&Mas Festival of the Canary Islands, amongst others.
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