Jack Vartoogian

World Music Institute: Salif Keita

April 9, 2017

Over the course of Salif Keita’s recent appearance at The Town Hall there was a story whose shape reflected both Keita’s identity and his music. At 7:00 p.m., there was a question-and-answer session with Keita, musician and writer Banning Eyre of www.afropop.org, and translator Isabelle Dupuis. By the end of the evening, audience and performers were inseparably merged; singing and dancing had become one, and Keita had made us all his own. Far from needing any explanation or translation, the music of Salif Keita is entirely universal. [more]

Boubacar Traore

December 16, 2016

For those who could not understand the lyrics of Traore's songs – he sang in Mali's French – each song was an experience of four interconnected musical sounds: the calabash thump and click rhythms, the harmonica, the amplified acoustic guitar, and Traore's voice. The songs' lyrics – love songs, folk tales, celebrations, imprecations – added particular locations and stories to what, all together, was a full, rich exploration of human experience through the lens of the blues, of hard-won wisdom and infinite empathy for joy and anguish, for hope and despair. [more]

Les Fêtes Vénitiennes

April 22, 2016

At turns beautifully silly, dreamy, exquisitely moving and always delightful, "Fêtes" is a sweeping, if daffy, look at life in eighteenth century Venice. Christie and his director Robert Carsen, framed the opera ingeniously by beginning the work in modern day Saint Mark’s Square complete with modern day tourists—mostly members of Ed Wubbe’s Scapino Ballet—with their cellphones, backpacks and obnoxious behavior. [more]

Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of Taiwan: Rice

September 22, 2015

Opening this year’s Next Wave series at the Brooklyn Academy of Music was the Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of Taiwan’s "Rice," a ritualistic ballet conceived and choreographed by Lin Hwai-min. Though not the usual cutting edge, avant-garde event that the words “Next Wave” imply, Cloud Gate did provide an excuse for a gala opening. [more]

Nordic Fiddlers Bloc

April 27, 2015

The Nordic Fiddlers Bloc consists of Olav Luksengard Mjelva from Norway (hardanger and octave fiddles), Kevin Henderson from Shetland (fiddle) and Anders Hall from Sweden (fiddle and viola); the three met informally through mutual friends and colleagues and have been playing together seriously for some five years. Each artist has an extensive and stellar career apart from and in addition to Nordic Fiddlers Bloc. They live their professional lives in overlapping spheres of teaching and composing as well as collaborating, recording and performing with other artists and groups. As the competently English speaking Nordic Fiddlers Bloc, they have developed a congenial performance style that alternates humorously self-deprecating but helpfully informative banter with individual “tunes.” The evening had the feel of both formal concert and calmly funky gig. [more]

Yungchen Lhamo

February 9, 2015

Though Lhamo has absorbed all sorts of Western musical idioms and made them her own, her voice is distinct in its range of octaves and volumes and in its gorgeous ability to make both human and nature sounds that Western singers wouldn't permit themselves to attempt. Lhamo's musical origins are identifiably Tibetan, but the accumulation of her human and artistic experience has made of both her voice and her intentions something entirely her own. [more]