Concert review: Anoushka Shankar forging the link – separated by a thousand years – between Spanish and Indian music…

Date: April 6 – 8, 2012
Venue: City Winery (NY)
Concert review by Dawoud Kringle

The idea of blending two different cultural influences in art or music is not new. In fact, the idea has been going on for centuries. It is only now that it is so noticeable, due to the process being accelerated by communication and other technology.
A recent intriguing step in this path is the CD and tour by Anoushka Shankar; daughter of illustrious sitarist and musical ambassador Ravi Shankar. No stranger to multicultural experiments, Shankar has brought about an intriguing blend of Indian raga and Spanish flamenco. According to historical evidence, flamenco’s distant roots are in 9th century India. Punjabi “untouchables” fled persecution and wandered the Middle East and Asia; eventually settling in Europe. There has been, however, little speculation of the common roots of the theory of this music.

 

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Concert review: Mohammad-Reza Lotfi – the virtuoso tar and setar player came after almost ten years of absence from New York City!!!

Date: April 15, 2012
Venue: Symphony Space (NY)
Concert review by Aida Shahghasemi   
Mohammad-Reza Lotfi, the virtuoso tar and setar player came to the Symphony Space stage on W. 96th street after almost ten years of absence from New York City. As he regularly does, Lotfi walked on with his white cotton shirt and pants and gracefully carried himself to the point of readiness, legs crossed, tar in hand,  looking up at another world for the initial inspiration. On his side, he had his loyal tombak player, Mohammad Ghavihelm.

Courtesy of World Music Institut
Courtesy of World Music Institut

Lotfi began his career over forty years ago. He was born in 1947, in Gorgan, a northern province of Iran. Encouraged by a musical family, he delved deep into playing tar and soon he was the student of some of Iran’s biggest traditional music masters such as Aliakbar Shahnazi, Habibollah Salehi, Hossein Dehlavi, Abdollah Davami, Sa’id Hormozi, and Nourali Boroumand. His studies carried him to Western classical music conservatories, where conducting, composing, and orchestral membership became additional areas of study and fascination. Lotfi rose out of a fertile cultural and musical era in Iran. The seventies holds memories of influential individuals such as Dr. Dariush Safvat and initiations such as the Center for Preservation and Propagation of Iranian Music, from which some of the most prominent Persian Classical musicians of today prospered. These include Mohammad-Reza Lotfi, Hossein Alizadeh, Parisa, Hossein Omoumi, Naser Farhangfar, Dariush Tala’i, Majid Kiani, and Mahmoud Farahmand.

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Event recommendation: Escape Route curated by Jesse Cesario at the Port Authority.

Text by Jim Hoey
It’s always exciting to see artists on the streets of New York operating in one way or another, oblivious to all distractions, tuning all the dissonances of the city out as they stand focused and charged with their creation. It happens in Central Park all the time, a wide bush blossoms in the Spring or a bird lands on a rock and an artist with his easel sets up and begins drawing, and slowly a crowd gathers to enjoy the image evolving from life. Or in Williamsburg somewhere, you’ve got 2 painters in overalls reaching, dangling, off of stepladders, brushing an advertisement on the side of a red-brick wall, thick paint waves going up in multi-hued patterns as the day drifts by on a hazy summer afternoon.

Recently I came across Jesse Cesario in the same way, (curator for the Camera Club of NYC and Fashion Center BID), on 39th and Broadway, doing something (illicit, possibly), putting some flyers or stickers on a newspaper box, covering up the AmNew York, or Village Voice, or Gotham Writers pages with his own images of fashion and style around the Garment District.

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Recommended Event: 2012 Festival International de Louisiane (USA)

Text by Sohrab Saadat Ladjevardi

Where: Lafayette, Louisana
Date: April 25 – 29, 2012

The Festival International de Louisiane is an annual  free to the public music and arts festival held in Lafayette, Louisiana celebrating the French heritage of the region. Drawing about 300,000 attendees. The festival was first held in 1987 and has become very popular, attracting musicians, artists, and craftsmen from around the world.

This year’s  highlights are: Cheikh Lô, Slavic Soul Party!, Khaira Arby, Seun Kuti & Eqypt 80, Gary Clark Jr., Bombino, Beats Antique, Radio Radio, Téada, and of course Lafayette’s Cajun and Zydeco music.

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Concert review: Simon Shaheen – The Call, Songs of Arab Pride, Dignity and Liberation!

Date: April 10, 2012
Location: CUNY Graduate Center/ Live@365 World Music Series, presented by Elebash, curated by Isabel Soffer
Reviewed by Brian Prunka
Simon Shaheen is well-known among Arabic music enthusiasts as one of the most gifted living performers on the oud, the fretless near-eastern antecedent to the lute and as a superb violinist.  For several decades he has worked tirelessly to increase awareness and understanding among Western musicians and audiences of the rich Arabic musical tradition, and encouraged Arab musicians to embrace their musical heritage. I became aware of Simon in the late 1990s when I first began learning the oud, and learned of the annual Arabic Music Retreat that he directs each summer.  Simon and his colleagues, such as Ali Jihad Racy and Bassam Saba, introduced to me and countless others the remarkable depth and richness of the Arabic Tradition.  While my opinions on this performance may not be wholly objective, I hope that my intimate familiarity with the playing styles of the musicians will compensate to some degree for that deficiency.

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