Fanfare Samenakoa featuring street music in an original, amusing and dancing way - far from any cliché!

The story of Fanfare Samenakoa:

Imagine a hot summer night, a beach, a party, many people and among them some musician. The musicians, who knew each other but never played together before, start taking out their instruments and begin to play together out of mere joy for the first time. Like magic the music fits and soon people dance, laugh and amuse themselves while amazing music seeps through the beach.

That night happened in 2003, the year, when the band Fanfare Samenakoa was born. Motivated by this great moment, the group continues to play on the streets amusing the people so much that they start dancing right away.

In 2004, on one of those occasions, cineaste Franck Cassenti discovered the band and was so impressed, that he gave them a charter to animate his festival "Jazz à Porquerolles". The performance was a tremendous success, and in 2005 and 2006 Fanfare Samenakoa gets reinvited to play there. During these three years the fanfare develops its play and its style: they feature street music in an original, amusing and dancing way.

In this years several important encounters open up, which determine the musical career of the Fanfare Samenakoa. First of all the piano player Siegfried Kessler, who heard the band playing at "Jazz à Porquerolles" and was so impressed that he strongly encourages the band to continue their project. Later on famous graphic artist Wozniak, who starts loving the band and offers them the visual illustration. The organization La Campagnie des musiques in Ouïr starts to support the band. Last but not least the band gets support by prominent musicians like Archie Shepp, Monica Passos, or David Murray. Finally, these stepstones of succes for the Fanfare Samenakoa got documented in a film: 'Porquerolles, l'île du jazz' (© Oléo films – Arte France 2006) by Franck Cassenti was broadcasted on Arte in October 2006 and covers the adventurous story of the band since its foundation. Thenceforward many European festivals are appealed by the Fanfare Samenakoa: among those are the festival of Aulnes rouge, the festival of Néoules,the festival of Panier, of the Plateau, Convivencia, the Buskers
festival (Italy) and the Oktoberfest (Germany).

At the same time the Fanfare Samenakoa moves from the streets and festivals to the concert - stage. First in its home region: venues like La Machine à Coudre, Balthazar, Délirium, Intermédiaire, Pelle-Mele, or the Mèson. Ever since their first concert in a new location, they got rebooked and get on the regular schedule. Continuing this successful path, Fanfare Samenakoa started to expand their concert tournaments to further Europe, for example Germany and Austria (Tübingen, Munich, Murnau, Freising, Landshut, Rosenheim, Vienna).

Since 2004 they play an increasing number of concerts with a constantly growing audience. In June 2007, Fanfare Samenakoa organised a get–together of brass bands, novel to its home region. During two evenings, entitled "Fanfare connexion!!!", the Fanfare Samenakoa invited the Hungry March Band from New York and the Express Brass Band from Munich to share stage at local venue Balthazar. "Fanfare connexion!!!" attracted an enormous number of listeners, demonstrating the modern aspect of this kind of ensemble music, which is far away from any cliché. Till this day the Fanfare Samenakoa has produced 4 albums. The latest one, 'SOUK', was released in October 2007and until now sold 3000 times.

Lately, in 2008 the Samenakoa has toured a lot. The first leg was in April to Paris. In the month of May they travelled for their first time to the United States (NYC), where they played a lot of shows in different venues (Jalopy, Drom, Barbés, Rocks Off Boat). In June they organized a sequel to "Fanfare Connexion!!!" called "Fanfare Connexion2!!!" inviting a Bavarian Brass Band named "La Brass Banda". Also in this year a lot of people where attracted by this event. In August they went to play in a festival in Barcelona and in the streets of Rome. In October they will do another tour in Europe passing by Germany, Austria and the Czech Republic.

Since March 2009 they are working on a new album, that will be released in September 2009. For this occasion they will do another "Germany-Austria Tour" in September to promote their new record - you can find the exact dates of their concerts in Germany and Austria just clicking on the microphone above!