SOLORAZAF

Solorazaf was born in Montpellier of Madagascan parents, but left for the Big Island when he was six months old. Although he visited France regularly, he grew up in Madagsacar, in the village of his grandparents, in contact with the traditional music of the Highlands. He began playing the guitar at 12, and turned professional at 17, playing with rock groups which were already including local instruments. At the age of seventeen, he was one of the first studio musicians in the capital city of Antananarivo. At Discomad Studio, the only recording studio on the main Island.¹ In a country where the music is as rich and vital as its flora and fauna,Solorazaf plays guitar, bass and drums on countless recordings for different artists from the various regions across Madagascar. Self-taught, his studio experience and exposure to so many musicians and so much indigenous music not only gives him the tools to become one of the most important practitioners of this music, it allows him to create a wholly personal style steeped in the Malgache tradition. Solo (pronounced 'Sool') was 22 when, in 1978, he chose to settle in France where he has since had a double career as a musician and producer. He first accompanied Graeme Allwright until 1983, then Dizzy Gillespie and Miriam Makeba, created the group Namana (short-lived, but which produced an album), and handled the arrangements and artistic direction of the most recent albums of the author of "Jour de clarté." All this while travelling the world with his own compositions (in Boston, in the US, he was called the "revelation" of the L'Air du temps festival in 1995 and 1996). In 1979, he moved to Paris and quickly established himself as an in-demand accompanist and session player contributing to the music of many great French recording artists in various styles of pop and world music. ¹ From 1998, Solorazaf plays with the quartet “Worlds of Guitar”. The group includes guitar masters Fareed Haque, Romero Lubambo and Aquiles Baez. During this busy period, however, Solorazaf was also the lead guitarist for the legendary Miriam Makeba. Solorazaf travels the globe touring for 15 years with Makeba. The world tours include among others “Live the future” with Makeba and Dizzy Gillespie, “The Three Divas Tour” with Miriam Makeba, Nina Simone and Odetta as well as the “The USA Tour:Tour of Hope” with Hugh Masekela & Miriam Makeba. In 2001, Solorazaf begins touring his “Solo Guitar Performance”. He plays Europe, the USA and Canada. His solo concerts are widely acclaimed in the USA and Europe and according to a lot of world guitar press magazines,he establishes himself as one of the most innovative solo guitar player’s on the World scene. He appears every year at the concert Autour de la Guitare created by Jean-Félix Lalanne in 2001. His solo concerts are widely acclaimed in the USA and Europe and he establishes himself as one of the most innovative solo guitar player’s on the world scene. Solorazaf’s songs are sung in his native tongue Malagassy, or French, sometimes a combination of the two, at times with a bit of English thrown in.² Solorazaf also found time to create a music school called “Guitares Alliées”, (“Allied Guitars”). The school is created in partnership with The Alliance Francaise in the city of Antsirabe (south of Tananarive). The school is a place of theory and practice where the students improve their skills through a variety of instruction and documentation as well as through the help of audio-visual tools that Solorazaf has collected from guitarists-friends throughout the world.