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Canberra Today 16°/18° | Friday, March 29, 2024 | Digital Edition | Crossword & Sudoku

Hot rhythms for a cool festival

MUSICIAN Nicky Bomba is an expert on Caribbean rhythms designed to warm people up in the snow.

Nowadays, the former conductor of the Melbourne Ska Orchestra lives in Freeburgh, at the base of Mount Hotham in the Victorian Alps, and over the June long weekend, he’ll be heading across the border with his tropical six-piece band Bustamento to be part of the 4th Perisher Snowy Mountains of Music festival, billed as the only music Festival in Australia in the snow.

“I live in two worlds, the Pacific islands and the mountains,” Bomba tells “CityNews”.

“We bring a little bit of the islands to the cold.”

But wherever he is, Bomba likes to be close to nature. The recent recipient of a Music Fellowship Award from the Australia Council, in performance, his aims are to “lift the vibrations… I like to see happy, smiling faces”.

He put that down to his Maltese ancestry and read a survey on the relative benefits of affluence versus happiness, which concluded that the happiest people in the world are the Maltese.

He believes it, relating how every weekend in his boyhood there would be a musical get-together at his dad’s place.

There won’t be anything heavy from Bustamento, influenced as it is by the backbeat of calypso, mento, early reggae and ska styles.

Some of their songs are favourites such as “Coconut Woman” and “Mañana”, and it’s the highly acoustic Jamaican mento sound that gives the name to the band, comprised of Bomba on vocals, guitars and percussion; Barry Deenick, double bass and vocals; Paul Coyle, trumpet and vocals; George Servanis, percussion and vocals; Michael Caruana, piano and Peter Mitchell, saxophone.

Bomba’s mental picture is of acoustic music around a pool in front of coconut palms, “keeping it simple, but keeping the attitude right”, he says. “Think palms, pools and pina coladas.”

The weekend Snowy Mountains festival, directed by Illawarra’s David de Santi, has established itself as one of the most unusual in the region. This year’s event will see more than 100 concerts across eight on-snow venues, with a kids’ stage and a competitive spoken-word program.

Highlights are NZ reggae-soul performers The Black Seeds, more soul in Brendan Gallagher, folk/rock and new-agers Penny and the Mystics, Paul Mbenna and the Okapi Guitar Band, CJ Shaw and the Blow Ins, and Canberra’s own Fred Smith.

Bustamento will play at Smiggins Hotel, June 9.

Bookings and information at www.snowymountainsofmusic.com.au

PHOTO: Tropical, six-piece band Bustamento… heading for the Perisher Snowy Mountains of Music Festival.

 

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Helen Musa

Helen Musa

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