Category Archives: Events

FlamenKora

FlamenKora Live in New York: A Night of Ancestral Crossings and New‑World Fire

For the first time in New York City, FlamenKora steps onto the stage carrying the breath of three distant homelands—Senegal, Brazil/Spain, and finally New York—woven into one luminous musical current. This is music shaped by migration, memory, and the ancient pathways between continents.

Ali Boulo Santo Cissoko (Senegal) – Kora, Vocals
Roberto Monteiro (Brazil/Spain) – Flamenco Guitar
Volker Goetze (USA/Germany) – Trumpet, Flugelhorn

From Dakar, Paris‑based griot Ali Boulo Santo Cissoko brings the shimmering pulse of the kora and the ancestral voice of the Cissoko lineage, a family whose music has carried stories across centuries. From Brazil by way of Madrid, flamenco virtuoso Roberto Monteiro channels the duende of Andalucía through a South American heart—his guitar a bridge between Iberian fire and the rhythmic soul of the Atlantic. Completing the triangle, German‑born New York trumpeter and composer Volker Goetze summons the open‑sky imagination of jazz, shaped by decades of deep apprenticeship within West Africa’s Mande tradition.

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Cross-Cultural Connection (CCC) Presents “Jazz in the Park”

Text by Glenn Hoagland

Ray BlueOn Sunday, August 11 from 1 PM to 7 PM, jazz saxophonist and MFM member Ray Blue‘s nonprofit Cross-Cultural Connection (CCC) will present its 6th Annual Jazz Festival on the beautiful Peekskill waterfront. Jazz in the Park is a free concert SUPPORTED BY VARIOUS SPONSORS. It is accessible by both Metro North train and car. It is held in Peekskill Riverfront Park, Hudson Ave., Peekskill NY, on the banks of the Hudson River.

Top-level jazz performers at this year’s event include trombonist Clifton Anderson, The Kristina Koller Band, Ray Blue Quintet, and The Carl Allen Band.

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MFM Supports Ongoing Strikes by Writers and Actors Unions!

The Writers Guild of America (WGA) agreement with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) expired on May 1, 2023, and the union struck on May 2.

Screen Actors Guild – American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) agreement with the AMPTP expired June 30, 2023, and they struck on July 14.

AMPTP includes Amazon/MGM, Apple, Disney/ABC/Fox, NBCUniversal, Netflix, Paramount/CBS, Sony, Warner Bros. Discovery (HBO), among others.

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Keyna Wilkins

MFM Member Keyna Wilkins (Australia) US Mini Tour 2023 “Musician with Attitude”

Keyna Wilkins, MFM’s first international member, is a pioneering Australian/British composer-musician. She was one of three finalists for the Australian Art Music Awards for Individual Excellence in 2021 and 2018 (APRA/AMCOS). As an innovative soloist her solo show explores stream-of-consciousness improvisations alongside her composed pieces, often using loop pedal and visual projections and inspired by contemporary human rights issues, astronomical phenomena and philosophy.

She has collaborated with six detained refugees from their prison cells via zoom, victims of Australia’s brutal mandatory refugee detention laws for nine years, on music, poetry and art collaborations. She has performed her solo show around Australia including Phoenix Central Park, MONA, Sydney Women’s International Jazz Festival, Melbourne Digital Concert Hall, Australian Flute Festival and many other venues.

She has released 4 solo albums on piano and flute and 5 ensemble albums. Her works are published by Wirripang and performed internationally. While classically trained in UK, Germany and Sydney Conservatorium, she has branched into jazz, flamenco, live theatre and has studied intuitive conceptual improvisation with Tibetan Buddhist musician Tenzin Cheogyal. www.keynawilkins.com
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