RFI Musique: Who came up with the idea of forming the Madagascar All Stars?
Régis Gizavo: Well, actually, it all started with a Madagascan travel agency in Paris. The staff there came up with the idea of organizing a concert with singers and musicians from different regions of the island to promote Madagascar to tourists. Anyway, the five of us ended up getting together, but we didn't have much time to prepare. So we decided the simplest thing would be if everyone performed their own songs. We're all musicians as well as singers so we accompanied one another on stage like a real band.

What made you want to carry on with the project after the promotional concert?
That first concert was a real catalyst for us. We're all over forty now and starting to ask ourselves a lot of questions. It's like we've all travelled halfway down our road, we've all got several albums behind us - and we basically realised that if we want to do something together, it's now or never! Afterwards it'll be too late. We all really enjoyed playing together live on stage. It was great fun. We forgot we were called Régis Gizavo, Marius Fenoamby and so on... We were just out there on stage playing together and promoting a positive image of our country. After the show we all stayed in touch and, although everyone was really busy working with other groups, we all made an effort to get together again. We tried things out in the studio without any stress. And as everyone was happy with the result, we said "OK, why don't we all go off to Madagascar now and do something concrete?"

How did you go about recording things over there?
Emmanuel Gallet, the sound engineer I work with, brought over a whole lot of microphones and pre-amps that we used in conjunction with the equipment already in place at the Mars Studio, in  Antananarivo. That studio has fantastic acoustics. We managed to get all the takes finished in just ten days, working from 10 in the morning to 7 at night. We all have fond memories of our time there, what with the heat, the relaxed atmosphere and all the artists who dropped in to see us.

How did you decide which role everyone would play in the group?
I have one and a half songs on the album; Dama and Marius have got three! Basically, we agreed to leave our egos out of things and choose the songs that fitted in best with the overall spirit of the album. The album's about promoting the amazing biodiversity which is one of our island's greatest treasures. Everyone played the game and dropped their usual habits in order to fit in with the group. I think we can feel proud of the music on the album, but also of the success of our collaboration, the fact that we managed to work together with a real sense of solidarity and respect. Each of us was conscious of the fact that we're ambassadors for Madagascar and if all five of us join together to do that it's obviously more effective. But with five of us working together we had to learn how to speak as one voice - and that's not always easy!

Do you think you run the risk of offending other Madagascan artists by calling yourselves the Madagascar All Stars?
Well, we're obviously not the only music stars in Madagascar! But we had to start off with a core group and find a generic name. Believe me, the Madagascar All Stars have an open line-up and I'm hoping that other Madagascan singers and musicians will join us to make a second album at some point. We'd like to do an album of covers of Madagascan classics because that's what we're all about, promoting the traditional values of our homeland!

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 Listen to an extract from Hidôla zaho niany

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