Peni Rokotuiba Masirewa, or Ben as he is affectionately known in his home country, the Fiji Islands, is a guitarist and singer. Heavily influenced by his love of progressive music, funk, jazz fusion, blues and RnB, he strives to create music that is both meaningful and pushes the boundaries of his own ability. Regularly, he performs at coffee shops, bars, festivals, fairs and hotels all over the Fiji Islands. In today’s Musical Encounters session, we are going to listen to ‘Smile Again’, one of his original pieces, which he composed in the course of the pandemic and which he performed at the recent Tom Mawi Taylor Guitar Competition 2021. Ben joins us from Suva, the capital of the Fiji Islands, and will discuss his piece, the music scene in Fiji and the role of guitar music in Oceania.
Listening Sessions: Musical Encounters
In a roughly 30-min online Zoom listening session, we meet up to experience and discuss one musical piece or sound at a time. Changing hosts provide an audio or audio-visual recording and inform the audience why this particular recording is meaningful to them. Hosts may trace their own personal encounter with the music/sound, how this musical/sonic source has accompanied them through life, share thoughts about their creative process (in case they have produced it/worked with it) and give contextual information before we have a brief discussion for the rest of the session. Musical Encounters can be utilised to inspire, to broaden one‘s own understanding of what music can be, what the presented material means for oneself and to others. It can also offer a platform to share and present music, which has been produced by the host and can gather multiple perspectives from people who themselves are engaged in various, possibly quite different musical practices.
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