from Holland to Colombia with LOVE

edje (69)in #musicdiscovery • 6 years ago (edited)

A few months ago, I was introduced to the Dutch Maite Hontelé, immediately drawn to her somewhat unusual story. The Netherlands, where Maite is from, is pretty good for musicians. But still; Maite chose to build her career somewhere else; in Colombia!

Back in 2003, when playing the first time overseas, Maite got such an amazing response, it got her full interest. In the years to come, she decided to relocate and not only focus on her career, but also to experience the unexpected vibe of a lot of happiness. She explained in an interview:

Since there was always violence in this country over the past 100 years, people cherish the moment they live in. Music plays a big role in that. Everywhere on the streets you’ll find music, people really live for their tunes. Therefore they welcome me, a foreigner who understands their music, very warmly. I really feel part of society here.

She creates Salsa magic with her Trumpet!

_{image: partly copyright latinjazznet (source 1) & clipartpng (source 2) & yours truly}

Check this out; The Happy Planet Index. Colombia is scoring pretty well with 3rd overall rank out of 140 and wellbeing 30th out of 140 (source). The Netherlands is not doing that much better; generally we are ranked pretty high in several happy nation indexes; Happy Plant says: 18th overall, and 5th on wellbeing (source).

All of this did put Colombia on my list of countries I like to get some experience of. I certainly hope I'll be able to make a visit. And how cool would it be when I can get to a performance of Maite!

For now, I'll have to do with music on her own website, Spotify, YouTube and Soundcloud. Fortunately we have the internet :)

Check out track 8, she adds the trumpet part to one of the songs of Ten Sharp, a band I was listening to quite a lot, back in the days; a Super cool version!