For the first time they are coming to East Africa in a tour sponsored by Goethe-Institut/German Cultural Center. The German-Lebanese jazz group, MASAA, will perform at Kigali Serena Hotel today alongside Inshongore, one of the most powerful representatives of Rwanda’s polyphonic chanting.The free concert starts at 7pm. The director of Goethe-Institut, Dr. Peter Stephan, encourages the public to come and enjoy the group’s great live performances.MASAA arrived in Kigali from Addis Ababa yesterday afternoon. Their tour started from Ethiopia and the second venue is Kigali, followed by Harare (Zimbabwe) and Maputo (Mocambique). Cultural interactionThe birth of the jazz group MASAA is one of the recent success stories from the German-Lebanese music scene. It happened in the East German city of Dresden, famous for its opera, the castle and the monumental Church of our Lady that three students from the conservatoire came across each other in the lecture halls of their school. Trumpeter Marcus came from the Northern German city of Schwerin, Demian, the drummer from the Rhineland and Dresden born pianist Clemens, who was still living at his parents’ house. Curious to know how it would sound when they joined for a rehearsal they met in one of the thirty rehearsal rooms at the conservatoire. The artistic result was terrific. And as it turned out in the following months, true friendship also created harmony between the three.MASAA became the young up-and-coming band that took the German jazz scene by storm in 2012. Within a year, MASAA won two jazz prizes and played two sold-out concerts at the renowned Berlin Jazz fest. Their music ranges from contemporary jazz and world music to pop, combining these musical elements with Middle Eastern sounds and Arabic poetry.