Come together right now… over music

Before the third Buffer Fringe Arts Festival kicks off – bringing with it an amalgamation of art projects from an array of people from different backgrounds – the Home for Cooperation will give us a little taste of what is to come on Wednesday with a pre-festival concert.

The concert, or jazz jam as those organising it have called it, will give us all the chance to see what happens when Norwegian musicians get together with local artists from both communities.

The Norwegian part of the musical evening will be provided by the renowned band Duetrost. The three young musicians who make up the band, Hakon Aase on violin and voice, Fredrik Karwoswski on acoustic guitar, and Knaerten Simonsen on drums and percussion, are all graduates from the Norwegian Academy of Music.

The band, who will be on the Nicosia stage courtesy of the Embassy of Norway in Cyprus, will jam with local musicians Lefteris Moumtzis and Nihat Agdac. Together the five musicians will combine their unique styles.

Moumtzis is a composer and producer. Apart from his many solo releases and various collaborations, he is also the founder of the independent record label Louvana Records and the artistic director of Fengaros Music Festival, Music Village Fengaros and Lefkosia Loop Festival.

Agdac, who graduated from the Royal Academy of Music in London, started playing the violin at the age of 11 and moved to Ankara for further studies when he was 13. He joined the Presidential Symphony Orchestra in Turkey after his graduation. He was also a member of the European Union Youth Orchestra, Orchestra Purpur and Verbier Festival Orchestra and had guest appearances with the City of Birmingham Symphony and London Symphony Orchestras.

The aim of the concert is to set an artistic example of intercultural collaboration and celebrate the inauguration of this year’s Buffer Fringe Festival.

Buffer Fringe Pre-Festival Concert
Performance by the Norwegian band Duetrost and local artists Lefteris Moumtzis and Nihat Agdac. November 9. Home for Cooperation, Nicosia. 8pm-9.30pm. Tel: 22-445740

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.