Lorizin Lanmizik (Origins of the Music) is a collaborative project I began with my friend and mentor, ethnomusicologist Norbert Salomon. It explores a cultural history through musical tradition and aims to compare findings from my research on the ship routes that brought ancestors to the Seychelles, with Norbert’s research on the Creole musical and spiritual culture.

Norbert and I met in the Seychelles Archives in 2014, when I was at the start of my research journey and he was close to retiring from the Department of Culture after a long career making strides in the understanding and protection of Creole musical and Spiritual heritage.

Norbert was a huge inspiration, and as my research on ship routes developed alongside a deep appreciation for his work, we realised that by combining our research we could perhaps better understand how our musical and spiritual traditions came to be and how they developed from those in the places I was learning ancestors had arrived from.

Norbert became a dear friend and a mentor to me as I began to dive deeper into musical history, Creole spirituality and learning to play traditional Creole instruments such as the ravanne or sega/moutya drum, the triangle and the maravanne/kayamb. We began working together on Lorizin Lanmizik in 2022, imagining an eventual short book.

Tragically Norbert passed away unexpectedly at the beginning of 2024, leaving me grieving my friend, teacher, inspiration and partner in this project which was only in its beginning stages.

Without Norbert here it’s not possible to finish the work as we envisioned, but after some time reflecting and conversations with Norbert’s family, as well as other friends who have shared insight with me, I’ve decided to keep working on the project and complete what I can of it.