Big Bang Festival 2025

We were delighted to be invited to deliver a workshop as part of the Big Bang Festival of Rhythm again this year. As many of you will know, Masamba Samba School owes its existence to the very first Big Bang Festival which took place at the City Arts Centre back in 1994. The inaurgural event featured Irish, African and Samba percussion, and as samba proved so popular, the City Arts Centre decided to set up a series of teambuilding workshops with multi-instrumentalist and community musician Colin Blakey. These workshops were a huge success and the workshop group gradually coalesced into Masamba.

Brian Fleming, Fernando Basqueroto, Nico Sewe and Simeon Smith, leading the final workshop performance at the Big Bang Festival of Rhythm 2025, National Concert Hall, Dublin.

A lot of water has passed under the bridge since those heady days, but it is great to see that there is still an interest in learning about the rhythms of the world! This year, we focused on the roots of samba reggae with a diverse and enthusiastic group of over 30 budding musicians. At the end, we teamed up with a group of African drummers, who had been working under the tutalage of Nice Sewe and Brian Fleming (the festival organiser). It was loud, it was exciting, and the two cultures worked together seamlessly, as would be expected. Better again, some of the participants from the Big Bang workshops came to rehearsals the following Wednesday, so we must be doing something right;-)

The following excellent images are by Raymond Hegarty and are used by kind permission.

Many thanks to Dublin City Council Arts Office, the Dublin Culture Company and the National Concert Hall for supporting the Big Bang Festival of Rhythm.