Ann O'Aro

The Ann O'Aro concert has been moved to a new venue, Linhart Hall. No ticket exchange is necessary – we have booked tickets for you in Linhart Hall stalls (front rows). 
The allocated seating applies for the Linhart Hall tickets purchased after 24 January.


Ann O'Aro, vocals, piano; Bino Waro, percussion, voice; Teddy Doris, trombone, vocals; Brice Nauroy, electronics

Réunion, an island in the Indian Ocean, is usually spoken of in relation to great musicians and their new albums, and in the context of maloya, a music genre of Réunion, usually sung in Creole, and with origins in the music of African and Malagasy slaves. This century’s leading proponent of the maloya is Danyel Waro, whom we saw live at the 2005 Druga Godba Festival. Ann O'Aro is one of the youngest but also most special maloya artists, both in terms of instrumentation and lyrics, addressing taboo subjects related primarily to girls growing up in violent families.  

Ann O'Aro was born Anne-Gaëlle Hoarau in Réunion in 1990. Fleeing an abusive childhood home (her incestuous and abusive father later committed suicide), she left the island for four years after finishing school and spent time in Paris and Quebec. Returning home, she was discovered by Philippe Conrath, founder of the label Cobalt and of the African festival Africolor in Paris, as well as one of the greatest authorities on world music and jazz who was a music journalist for the French daily Libération in the seventies. O'Aro's self-titled debut album and her second album, Langoz, were released on Conrath's label Cobalt. With his help, Ann gained international visibility. 

A musician since childhood, playing piano, organ and flute, O'Aro later began writing works of autobiographical poetry in Réunion Creole, specializing in the oral poetry of Réunion known as fonnker (a renowned exponent of which is Danyel Waro, with whom she has toured France and Réunion several times, and whose son Bino plays in her band). Her music radiates striking vulnerability and unshakable self-confidence. Despite her youth, Ann has an extremely charismatic stage presence. Accompanied by her band’s instrumentation, the traditional percussion instruments, trombone and electronics, her voice is breathtaking in its clarity and force, so uniquely beautiful that even songbirds fall silent as she begins to sing.

In 2019, O'Aro published a bilingual French-Réunion Creole collection of poetic dialogues, titled Saplë lo shien - Cantique de la meute. The Ljubljana concert is dedicated to Ann’s third album, to be released this coming spring.

O otoku Reunion v Indijskem oceanu ponavadi slišimo, ko od tam pridejo novice o odličnih glasbenikih in glasbenicah ter njihovih novih albumih pa tudi ko govorimo o tradicionalni glasbeni zvrsti maloya, ki je nastala pod vplivom malgaških in indijskih korenin ter se poje v reunionski kreolščini. Njen najprepoznavnejši glas tega stoletja je oče moderne maloye Danyel Waro, ki smo ga doslej edinkrat spoznali pri nas na Drugi godbi leta 2005. Ann O'aro je med najmlajšimi, a tudi najbolj posebnimi izvajalci te glasbe, tako po inštrumentalni plati kot po besedilih, v katerih odpira tabu teme, vezane predvsem na odraščanje mladih žensk v nasilnih družinah.  

Ann O'aro se je rodila kot Anne-Gaëlle Hoarau na Reunionu leta 1990. Zaradi incesta in nasilnega očeta (ta je pozneje storil samomor) je po končani šoli za štiri leta zapustila otok in nekaj časa preživela v Parizu in Quebecu. Ko se je vrnila domov, jo je odkril Philippe Conrath, ustanovitelj festivala Africolor v Parizu ter eden največjih poznavalcev glasb sveta in jazza, ki je že v sedemdesetih delal kot glasbeni novinar pri francoskem dnevniku Libération. Pri svoji založbi Cobalt je izdal tako njen prvenec kot tudi drugi album Langoz in z njegovo pomočjo je Ann O'aro postala priznana mednarodna umetnica.

Ann O'aro, ki je že v zgodnji mladosti igrala na klavir, orgle in flavto, se v svojem umetniškem izrazu opira na tradicijo reunionske oralne poezije fonkker, ki je značilna tudi za Danyela Waroja. Z njim je tudi večkrat nastopala, v njenem bendu pa igra tudi Danyelov sin Bino. Njena glasba izžareva srhljivo ranljivost in neomajno samozavest. Njena odrska prezenca je kljub mladosti nadvse karizmatična ter ob glasbeni spremljavi tradicionalnih tolkal, pozavne in elektronike tako nenavadno lepa, da ob njenem zvenu obmolknejo tudi najbolj glasne ptice pevke.