The World Music Institute will open its 2008/09 world music concert season in New York City with Kanda Bongo Man, who is known as "The King of Congolese Soukous." The concert will take place Friday, September  19, 2008 at 8:00 PM.
 
 Vocalist and bandleader Kanda Bongo Man, one of the giants in modern African pop, is a pioneer and superstar of modern Congolese soukous- joyful and uplifting dance music that combines African traditional melodies with African-rooted rhythms. He has been at the heart of the Parisian soukous scene since the 1980s, and popularized kwassa kwassa, the infectious Congolese dance style where the hips move back and forth while the hands move to follow the hips, throughout the world. His ensemble includes two dancers.

Peter Norton Symphony Space
 Broadway at 95th Street, NYC
 Tickets $30; students with college ID $18
 Box office 212-864-5400
 Info/tickets 212-545-7536 / www.worldmusicinstitute.org

Sabrina Malheiros

New Morning (Far Out Recordings, 2008)

Brazilian singer-songwriter Sabrina Malheiros is back with another gem, a CD titled New Morning. Malheriros attracted a lot of attention with her previous CD, Equilibria. With New Morning, Malheriros combines the best of the past and the future. Her musical arrangements take you back to the fun disco and samba-soul years of the 1970s, with well crafted horn and string arrangements, irresistible rhythms and captivating melodies. Nevertheless, Sabrina Malheiros is a product of her generation and she adds new elements to her music such as a variety of electronic music known to the club goers as "house," as well as incursions into jazz and bossa.

For this recording, Malheriros called a dream team of Brazilian musicians, including  Jose Roberto Bertrami, Ivan Conti, Zé Carlos, Idriss Boudrioua and Paulinho Braga as well as legendary Brazilian arranger and composer Arthur Verocai.

Sabrina Malheiros comes from a reputable musical family. Her father is Alex Malheiros, the bassist of legendary jazz band Azimuth and you can tell Sabrina spent many of years listening to a wide variety of great music. Equilibria is so far one of the best Brazilian releases of the year.

Buy the CD:

• In North America: New Morning
• In Europe: New Morning

The Ministry of Culture of Vietnam is collaborating with international agencies to develop a national action plan to safeguard nha nhac music.
 
 Local and international experts gathered in the former imperial city of Hue last Friday for a workshop to discuss the action plan. At the two-day workshop were representatives of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism’s Cultural Heritage Department, UNESCO, the Japanese embassy, and court music artists and practitioners.
 
 The safeguard plan aims to strengthen transmission of the music, create a group of young and skilled musicians and performers, and document reminiscences from the nha nhac community.

The plan takes into consideration all of the required elements emphasized in the 2003 Convention for the Safeguard of Intangible Cultural Heritage. The project is supported by UNESCO through the UNESCO-Japan Fund in Trust for Intangible Cultural Heritage programs.

According to UNESCO, Nha Nhac, meaning “elegant music”, refers to a broad range of musical and dance styles performed at the Vietnamese royal court from the fifteenth to the mid-twentieth century. Nha Nhac was generally featured at the opening and closing of ceremonies associated with anniversaries, religious holidays, coronations, funerals and official receptions.

Among the numerous musical genres that developed in Vietnam, only Nha Nhac can claim a nationwide scope and strong links with the traditions of other East Asian countries. Nha Nhac performances formerly featured numerous singers, dancers and musicians dressed in sumptuous costumes. Large-scale orchestras included a prominent drum section and many other types of percussion instruments as well as a variety of wind and string instruments. All performers had to maintain a high level of concentration since they were expected to follow each step of the ritual meticulously.

Photo courtesy of Thua Thien Hue Center for Tourism, Trade and Investment Promotion

New York (NY), USA - The master musicians of the Orchestra of Tangier will present a program of vocal and instrumental suites from medieval Andalusia in New York, Boston, Washington D.C. and Atlanta, during a U.S. September tour.
 
 Performing sung poems of love, pleasure, wines and nature, Tangier Ensemble will tour four cities in the U.S., starting on September 24 in Washington, D.C. The concerts in D.C. and Atlanta will mark the first appearance of a leading Arab-Andalusian music ensemble from Morocco in these two cities. The musicians will then visit Boston and New York.

Wed. Sept. 24 Washington, D.C. F. Scott Fitzgerald Theatre at Rockville Civic Center Park

Thurs. Sept. 25 Atlanta, Ga. Rich Theatre at Woodruff Arts Center

Sat. Sept. 27 Boston, Mass. First Church in Cambridge

Sun. Sept. 28 New York, N.Y. Merkin Concert Hall

In the Arab world, Andalusian music refers to "art music" as opposed to traditional and popular music. Arab-Andalusian music is believed to have originated in Moor-ruled southern Spain in the 9th century, and these musical and poetic traditions based on ancient poems have been preserved and developed in North Africa by descendants of Muslim and Jewish populations who left Andalusia during the Christian Reconquista.

The Andalusian repertoire consists of vocal and instrumental suites called Nawbat, or Nubas. As Morocco was never ruled by the Ottoman Empire, its Andalusian music has the least influence of Middle Eastern musical styles, especially when compared to Algeria and Tunisia.

Tangier Ensemble is a small formation derived from Orchestra of Tangier. Led by the legendary master Ahmed Zaitouni, the orchestra toured the U.S. in September, 2007, before enthusiastic audiences. The visiting ensemble consists of five virtuosi on lute, violin, rebab (2-stringed hand-held bass) and tambourine with celebrated tenor Mohammed Arabi-Serghini on viola and vocals.

The ensemble members have received international recognition for the last two decades for their recordings of Arab-Andalusian music for European labels, extensive tours in Europe and the Arab world, and collaboration with Spanish musicians.

MENA Music will launch "Andalusian Music Festival of New York" in February, 2009, and the current tour is a festival preview, introducing Arab-Andalusian music to American concert-goers in N.Y., Boston, D.C. and Atlanta.

MENA Music  was established in 2006 in New York City by Ms. Kazko Kawai in an effort to enhance mutual understanding between the U.S. and the Arab world through music in the post 9/11 world. The organization is committed to bringing the best musicians from the Middle East (ME) and North Africa (NA) to North America to develop audiences for music from these regions. To date, MENA Music has produced several concerts to introduce North African music to the American people, which includes two Arab-Andalusian orchestral debuts in the U.S. and live performances by leading Moroccan Arab-Andalusian musicians broadcast for the first time in the U.S. on national television and NPR.

More information at: http://www.menamusic.org