Duo Michel Godard und Murat Coskun

Michel Godard – Tuba, Serpent, E-Bass
Murat Coşkun –Frame Drums, Percussion

"There is a remarkable equipment on stage: around different sorts of frame drums are arranged a tambourine, a darbuka, a hang, a singing bowl, a thumb piano, various cymbals and a Southamerican percussion instrument called cajon. Next to them are standing, as if they had come from another world, the tuba, the e-bass and the serpent, this serpent-shaped instrument with grip holes and mouthpiece out of the 16th century. To link these seemingly opposed worlds is the task mastered at its best by this duo on stage in the sold out E-Werk. Murat Coşkun and Michel Godard, the percussionist from Freiburg and the French tuba player are brothers in spirit and get along very well with each other. Otherwise, how could they draw such a big bow from old music over world music to jazz?

A duo to remember for a long time."

Origin: Badische Zeitung / Reiner Kobe

press: BZ, 2013

(...) The repertoire of the evening comes from Coskuns actual solo-album, to which Godard added three pieces. Meanwhile, their collaboration made them grow to a stable duo. Basing on steady structures, the dialogues evolve to versatile and improvised pictures. Associations to mellow landscapes, fragrant flowers, wild lopes of horses or shaky raindrops are emerging. Within a wide range of differentiated beats, Coskun not only demonstrates his vast techical knowledge. He also presents us different worlds, from Asia to Orient, from Northafrica to Europe- according to the idea that frame drums have a home in the whole world. Coskun scoops out of these traditions, getting far beyond his Turkish origins. He often enters in dialogue with himself, creates contrasts between bright and dark, and in following the fast rhythmical sequences, he illuminates them with his voice in dependence on Southindian and Arabic syllable language.
Michel Godard follows suit to the percussionist. Because he long ago had established the tuba as an equal melody instrument, his solos are of a great flexibility. His powerful sound unites straightforwardly with the different frame drums. An awareness of blues and multiple styles provides allusions to old music or to Gregorian chants. And when Godard adds circular breathing, minimal structures and multiphonics in a highly virtuous way, his tuba sounds like a didgeridoo, the blowpipe of the Aborigines. Key tones and different overtones gear into each other, garnished with varied accents in tone pitches and loudness.
To this immense playing technique, Murat Coskun opposes his just as well profiled play.

ZMF Gala 2013 - Duo Michel Godard and Murat Coskun