The Common Routes of Euro-Mediterranean Music – CREMM project, launched at the very first Babel Sound in 2009, invites professional musicians from different cultures to a short artistic residency to create and eventually perform a novel musical programme on the Babel Sound Festival stage.
This year, the CREMM participants – who have been selected from more than 100 applicants in the open call, and who are meeting each other here for the first time – are working in 3 collaborations from Monday to Friday, writing, arranging and rehearsing music during the daytime, creating their own unique sound and repertoire, which they present in 3 concerts on the last two nights of the Festival.
The CREMM programme provides an exceptional opportunity for these artists to meet and play together with more than a hundred musicians in an international and multicultural environment, extend their musical horizons and professional network, and even form new bands. Several CREMM participants in previous years have started new musical projects together after the residency, and many of them have been invited back to Babel Sound with their new formations, or even just solo, to find new collaborators yet again.
Well-known artists like Manou Gallo, Shlomo Bar, Yasser Haj Youssef, Manuel Hermia, Omri Mor and others from the field of world music, jazz, blues and traditional music have also participated in this programme, sharing the unique experience.
CREMM 2 members:
Sheila Simmenes – voice
Juan Eduardo Fantaguzzi – trumpet
Alexandra Papastergiopoulou – cello, percussion, voice
Roberto Daniel Santamaria Zabala – keyboard, kanun, saz
Kovács Gergő – guitar, voice
Koen Boeijinga – saxophone
Akash Bhatt – tabla, percussion
other musicians joining the collaboration during the residency week