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Current Projects
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25th Annual Jewish Music Festival (SF Bay Area), Sephardic salsa and Southeast Asian-Jewish standup. New music rituals and ancient inscriptions. Parades and jam sessions, world premieres and kid’s music. This is a no-holds-barred party that does what America’s premier Jewish music festival has done for 25 years: break down the walls between past and future, between multifaceted possibilities of Jewish culture and audiences at large. 01/26/10 >> go there
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Ashkenaz Festival (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), All roads lead to the Ashkenaz Festival, following the twists and turns of a boldly adaptive, constantly evolving culture. They are highways running from Klezmer hotspots like New York, Berkeley, and Berlin. They are medieval trade routes spanning from the Sephardic heartlands of Spain and Morocco to dusty desert trails of the Middle East. Some are faint, forgotten paths from unsung outposts like Florence, Sarajevo, Kishinev and Rio de Janeiro. Others run from imagined clubs where klezmorim jam with salseros, cantors croon with Afrobeat brass bands, and 80’s “hair” bands belt out Yiddish ditties accompanied by screeching guitars and synthesizers. 07/01/10 >> go there
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Bay Area Festival of Flamenco Arts & Traditions, Like a flock of doves above her head, the delicate hands of Manuela Carrasco are enough to make audiences catch their breath and fall silent. Yet this international star, known in her native Spain as the Queen of Gypsy Flamenco Dance, remains strikingly down to earth, honoring the grassroots that sparked her art and maintaining traditions rarely seen on American stages. 04/23/10 >> go there
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Brass Menažeri, Vranjski San (Porto Franco Records), Bosnian gems mingle with Bollywood bangles, while Rromani (Gypsy) hits mix with super-fly funk. Thanks to dreamed melodies and down-and-dirty bass lines, Brass Menažeri has been packing Mission bars with a heady mix of Balkan perfection and Bay Area eccentricity, of serious chops and serious joy, for years. 06/17/10 >> go there
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Calgary Folk Music Festival, Surreal perfection: A festival where Gil Scott-Heron and Rufus Wainwright, the Decemberists and Kid Koala rub sonic shoulders with beat poets, Siberian singers, and West African hipsters. Where on-the-fly collaborations bring unexpected artists together on one stage. All in a verdant village at the heart of a vibrant city, where the skyline rising over the trees is backed by distant mountains. 02/23/10 >> go there
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Carmen Souza, Protegid (Galileo Music), Carmen Souza’s voice purrs like kernels of corn swirling on a traditional wooden platter one moment and bursts with a perfect blue note the next. It rings like a red-hot solo and sighs like a ship-deck lament. It finds the sweet spot between Birdland and the white sands of Cape Verde, the archipelago far off the coast of West Africa. 03/24/10 >> go there
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Charming Hostess, The Bowls Project (Tzadik), Writhing sea monsters and demon divorces. Magical amulets and secret sexual desires. Black metal and Blind Willie Johnson. The Bowls Project evokes the cosmopolitanism of ancient Babylon with an eerily contemporary weave of war, sex, and supernatural wonder. 06/10/10 >> go there
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Colombian Music Festival (Chicago, IL), Colombia is in the midst of a revolution and it’s ready for the world to listen: to the rawest edge of its experimental urban dance scene, and to its life-affirming Afro-Latin drumbeats handed down over centuries. To the potent voices of youthful innovators ready to stand up and be counted, and to the skillful elder artists who inspire them. To a transformative turning point in the country’s musical history. 06/11/10 >> go there
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Elikeh, Adje! Adje! (Azalea City Recordings), From atop a smoldering, Afro-rock soapbox, rooted in the traditions of his homeland, an African immigrant and activist belts out this rallying cry, warning against state corruption and capitalistic greed. “People are trapped between governments and corporations,” says the Togolese-born Massama Dogo – singer, guitarist, composer, and founder of the band Elikeh. “Africans,” in particular, he continues, “are being used and abused” by these institutions. 03/29/10 >> go there
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Fat Freddy's Drop, Dr. Boondigga & the Big BW, On a distant planet floating in a sea of patched-together spaceships, Dr. Boondigga and the BW, a mad scientist and his sidekick robot, have kidnapped New Zealand’s high-tech soul mercenaries Fat Freddy’s Drop. 09/04/09 >> go there
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Fishtank Ensemble, Woman In Sin, 2010 Tour, Parked next door to a sandwich truck sits a hand-built, mule drawn “Gypsy wagon,” like an apparition from a bygone era, in the driveway of a contemporary hillside home in Hollywood, California. 01/15/10 >> go there
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Gaida, Levantine Indulgence (Palmyra Recordings), For Gaida, morning in Damascus meant melodies: waking to the sound of her father’s radio while he shaved, the predawn intertwining calls to prayer bursting from mosques across the world’s longest-inhabited city. Strains of Umm Kulthum and Fairouz rose from radios and stores as horses clopped and cars purred by. The age-old harmonized with the modern. 02/08/10 >> go there
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Galeet Dardashti, The Naming, This is the story of why the brilliant Queen of Sheba shaved her legs, how the stunning Vashti laid down the line for her drunken husband, and how a mysterious witch spoke King Saul’s doom and then served him a nice dinner. The Naming, the upcoming release from singer and composer Galeet Dardashti, draws on the Persian classical music and Middle Eastern Jewish singing deep in her bones to transform the ghostly outlines of Biblical women into full-blown flesh-and-blood personalities. 02/06/09 >> go there
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International Body Music Festival: Lincoln Center (NYC), From the tundra to the tropics, people can’t resist the urge to snap, clap, step, holler, and sing artful music. This universal resonator—our bodies—and its myriad global sounds ignite audiences of the International Body Music Festival in Concert at Lincoln Center. 10/09/08 >> go there
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Khaira Arby, Timbuktu Tarab (Clermont Music), For women, singing can be the road to personal power. When their voice is as strong as Malian vocalist Khaira Arby’s, that power can move mountains, change minds, and win battles. 06/10/10 >> go there
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Michèle Choinière, La Violette (michelechoiniere.com), Along the borderlands between the U.S. and Canada, a lone songbird sings with a voice clear, rich, and distinctly French. Her name is Michèle Choinière, and nestled in the northwestern Vermont woods, she continues a once thriving Franco-American oral tradition that recalls the bright cheer of kitchen parties, the wry pleasures of courtship, and the sway of a waltz. 06/15/10 >> go there
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Pierre de Gaillande, Bad Reputation, Bell House Concert (Brooklyn), Jailbait princesses and phonograph pornographers. Anarchists, atheists, and amputees. Humble farmhands who dig their own graves, and holy womanizers out to save the unlovable. Welcome to the wild world of Georges Brassens, as translated on the new album Bad Reputation and channeled by Pierre de Gaillande.
04/16/10 >> go there
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Plena Libre, 2010 Summer Tour, Emerging over the chatter of a packed house at New York’s Lincoln Center, the warm tone and subtle rhythms of a hand-held frame drum quiets the crowd as it beckons to an assembly of drummers to join. Layering in one by one, soon the polyrhythmic textures of three panderos (frame drums) interweave and converse, echoing as percussionists materialize from behind the audience and march towards the stage. Atop this tapestry of rhythm, a melodious voice calls out, and a chorus of singers responds, providing the final elements of a music known as plena. 12/18/09 >> go there
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Rahim AlHaj, Little Earth (Ur Music) , In the dry mountains of New Mexico, an Iraqi oud (lute) master raises homing pigeons. Persecuted for a single potent song, he fled his native land, only to be deprived of his beloved instruments at the border. Yet like the birds he cares for, he has homed in a new nest, where quarter tones can be urged from accordions, rock stars and classical violinists can play Iraqi maqam, and Middle Eastern lullabies echo in Pueblo Indian words. 05/11/10 >> go there
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Rocky Dawuni, Hymns for the Rebel Soul (Aquarian Records), Rocky Dawuni walks the talk. Fist held high and dreadlocks flowing, the Ghanaian reggae artist is a rebel among rebels, tackling serious social issues with uplifting ballads and reggae rockers. All while working to challenge everything from infectious diseases to clean water to poverty across the rural communities of his homeland. 03/05/10 >> go there
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Salif Keita, La Différence (Emarcy Music) 2010 North American Tour, The descendant of warrior princes, the son of two black African parents, Afro-pop pioneer Salif Keita was born “white.” Inheriting albinism, a lack of skin pigmentation, Keita instantly stood out among other Africans and stood out as a spokesperson for tolerance in all forms. 04/26/10 >> go there
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Sones de México Ensemble, Fiesta Mexicana, What do a crawfish, a cowboy mouse, and a 100-year-old woman have in common? They are all characters in Fiesta Mexicana: Mexican Songs & Stories for Niños & Niñas and their Papás & Mamás (release April 24, 2010), the latest recording by Sones de Mexico Ensemble. The same band that three years ago ventured into uncharted waters with Mexican folk retoolings of Led Zeppelin’s “Four Sticks” and J.S. Bach’s “Brandenburg 3-2” for their GRAMMY™ and Latin GRAMMY™ nominated album Esta Tierra Es Tuya (This Land Is Your Land) now digs deep into Mexican folklore. 12/11/09 >> go there
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Stern Grove Festival, San Francisco, CA, A soul diva tosses aside her mic and lets her passionate voice roll over the audience as a hawk looks on. A stray sunbeam breaks through looming clouds and dashes across a renowned Indian master’s tablas as he strikes up the beat. A jubilant crowd of thousands dances to electronica-laced tango, swaying as one and leaping joyfully on stage. Butterflies and dragonflies flit past acclaimed symphonies, opera companies, and ballet dancers. 05/20/10 >> go there
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Sunset Concerts 2010, Skirball Cultural Center (Los Angeles), The open expanse of the Skirball Cultural Center’s courtyard looks peaceful nestled under the Santa Monica Mountains, but in summer, it bursts with the raucous and joyful noise of the best of the world’s musicians: Hungarian gypsies bang milk cans and Kenyan bards wield handmade fiddles, while nonagenarian Yiddish-singing piano bar veterans and soulful Cajuns, hip salsa activists, and trans-cultural divas rub shoulders with dancing neighbors of all generations, backgrounds, and lifestyles. 04/16/10 >> go there
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TD Sunfest 2010 (London, Ontario), In the seasonal blaze of summer festivals, London, Ontario’s TD Sunfest shines like no other. Admission-free, the festival offers attendees a four-day, multi-sensory passport to discover new international music, applied arts, and cuisine in a family-friendly crowd as diverse as a United Nations barbeque. 06/01/10 >> go there
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The Saw Doctors, August 2010 Tour, It takes a special kind of mind to leap from Ireland’s recent smoking ban to ancestral bones and urban sprawl in the space of a single folk anthem, and to get the entire bar singing at the top of their lungs at the same time. But leave it to Tuam County Galway’s The Saw Doctors and their inviting, guitar-rich, punk-infused rockabilly songs that mix pub roots with the astute Springsteen-like observation and an effortlessly popular appeal. 04/02/10 >> go there
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The WAITIKI 7, New Sounds of Exotica (Pass Out Records), Take one part diverse players with intense focus and killer chops, and one part neglected mid-century multi-ethnic hybrid music with origins on America’s harmonious island paradise. Add a dash of Technicolor tropical dreamscape, a twist of wild birdcalls, and stir soulfully. WAITIKI 7 serves up this polychrome cocktail, taking a new serious spin on exotica, the musical genre that leaped from Hawai'i’s fashionable bars and clubs to mainstream living rooms in post-War America. 03/26/10 >> go there
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Tinariwen, Imidiwan: Companions (World Village) 2010 Tour, The guitar hero, the tumultuous bard, the fierce philosopher, the young firebrand: Friends in the wilderness, who turned from comrades in arms in a bloody desert rebellion into dedicated artists, and finally into global messengers for the people of the Sahara. This is Tinariwen, the desert rebel rockers who transformed the hypnotic music of their homeland into a gritty new breed of electric blues and made die-hard fans of music heavies from Robert Plant to Bono. 08/06/09 >> go there
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Wingless Angels with Keith Richards (Mindless Records), Keith Richards first encountered this music in the early 1970s on Jamaica’s northern shore, where African diaspora traditions live on. On the beach near Steer Town, one of the first Rastafarian communities in Jamaica, Richards struck up a friendship with Justin Hinds, a central figure in reggae history. Hinds was joined by local fishermen and divers, by friends, neighbors, and relatives who shared his musical and spiritual vision. They made the unprecedented move of bringing their sacred drums to Richards’ home and later into the studio. 04/20/10 >> go there
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