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In previous columns I’ve explored something I called hybridity in Toronto music -- transculturalism as it manifests itself musically, both in the disciplines of composition, improvisation and performance practice, and in the way audiences respond to music reflecting these hybridized values. This column connects the dots between a few Toronto concerts featuring hybrid sounds.

Pedram Khavarzamini is World Music Artist-in-Residence at the U. of T.’s Faculty of Music. Over the last decade or two the GTA has been the beneficiary of a wave of talented, primarily emerging career Iranian musicians. The tombak (principal Iranian goblet drum) virtuoso, teacher and composer, Pedram Khavarzamini, stands prominently among them. Moving to Toronto last year, this accomplished musician and scholar has steadfastly maintained the traditions of tombak technique and repertoire and introduced new audiences to them. He is also known for his innovations in cross-cultural collaboration and musical experimentation. Both the traditional and collaborative sides of Khavarzamini’s work were on ample display in his exciting May 16, 2015 Music Gallery concert, “East Meets Further East,” which he shared with Montréal tabla soloist Shawn Mativetsky. Their drum duo at the end of the night was a memorable marvel of musical respect and communication. It reminded the audience that transcultural challenges can be met and honoured at the highest level.

A pioneer in another – and more hybrid - arena too, Khavarzamini also composes for Persian-centric percussion ensembles. His main outlet is Varashan, a group he directs and composes for. Its performance was yet another musically satisfying feature of the May 2015 Music Gallery concert I attended.

In addition to his eloquent performances set in international halls with leading Persian and international musicians, Khavarzamini has also taken tombak teaching onto the global stage. Offering conducting workshops and individual instruction to scores of students in Iran, Europe and North America, live and via Skype, he has become a leading instructor on his chosen drum and its indigenous musical idioms.

Khavarzamini’s activities as a virtuoso percussionist, composer, teacher and group leader have already attracted the attention of learning centres. His appointment this fall at U of T’s Faculty of Music provides proof of this. Searching for insights into this development in his career, I exchanged several emails and Facebook chats with Khavarzamini in the penultimate weekend of October. He confirmed that his Artist-in-Residence duties will, among others, include “leading masterclasses and the newly formed U. of T. Iranian Music Ensemble,” activities which will involve several dozen music students.

An excellent opportunity to witness the impressive breadth and depth of Khavarzamini’s work can be had at a November 17 free concert at University of Toronto’s Walter Hall, where he will lead the Iranian Music Ensemble and members of Varashan. The Persian instrumentation will include multiple tombaks, the dayereh (medium-sized frame drum with jingles), santoor (hammered dulcimer), kamancheh (bowed lute), tar (plucked lute) and perhaps a vocalist. Then on December 3 the Iranian Music Ensemble directed by Khavarzamini takes part in a World Music Ensembles concert at Walter Hall alongside the Klezmer Ensemble and the Japanese Taiko Ensemble. These biannual public concerts, along with their York University counterparts, have for decades subtly influenced the general Toronto reception of non-mainstream European- and American-centred musics, perhaps even laying the groundwork for the kind of hybrid creations increasingly appearing in a whole range of venues.

David Virelles: Gnosis featuring Román Díaz at the Music Gallery. David Dacks, the Music Gallery’s artistic director, has certainly not shied away from engaging in musical hybridity, as he made clear in an X Avant festival story in The WholeNote last year.

However he remains very aware of the inherent complications of mixing and matching musical genres, especially the ever-prickly notion of authenticity. “If one is attempting to join culture A to culture B in a coherent musical statement, one must be really attuned to power relationships, comparative structures/forms/tuning/language, your own personal experience and other points of connection or difference between musical ingredients one is working with.” He gives a down-home example: “randomly sampled African chants over breakbeats just won’t fly anymore.”

Fortunately we’re mostly in good hands, Dacks adds. “In crazy, diverse Toronto, many musicians are cognizant of these factors, not just academically, but internally. The resulting hybrid musical creations are way more than pastiches, they are declarations of one’s transcultural (going back to last year’s term) life experiences.”

For Dacks the November 27 and 28 concerts, “David Virelles: Gnosis featuring Román Díaz,” at the Music Gallery, co-presented by the Music Gallery, Arraymusic and Lula Music & Arts, are a case in point. For those unfamiliar with Virelles’ music, the billing “futuristic Afro-Cuban chamber music” gives a taste of what one might expect.

Immigrating to Canada from Cuba at 18, pianist and composer Virelles began his musical studies at Toronto’s Humber College and continued them at the University of Toronto. He came under the mentorship of saxophonist Jane Bunnett, long celebrated for her support of both Cuban music and musicians. Virelles has since developed into a cutting-edge jazz innovator. Achieving career success along the way, last year he released his first ECM recording Mboko, in the words of Dacks, “taking Cuban music places it’s never been.”

The 32-year-old Virelles is “capable of tropically intense polyrhythms and irregular but internally logical phrasing, which befits an artist who came to jazz through Thelonious Monk, Andrew Hill, and Bud Powell.” About five years ago Virelles moved to New York to further his career and has since worked with jazz leaders like Henry Threadgill, Andrew Cyrille and many more. Earlier this year he scooped the Downbeat Rising Star – Piano award.

The Music Gallery partnership with both Arraymusic and Lula Music & Arts in presenting Gnosis is part of the story. As Dacks explains: “Gnosis, is a big project (hence a rare two-night stand at The Music Gallery). It’s a chamber piece, requiring some 12 musicians. Rick Sacks … [has committed members] of the Array Ensemble to the group, plus most of the rehearsals will be at their Arrayspace. It’s turned into a big part of their season too.” As for Lula Music & Arts, they’re “a natural promotion partner in this project. Virelles played there frequently [when he was a Toronto resident] and it’s the nerve centre for so much Latin music in Toronto.”

Another significant element in the work is the inclusion of Abakuá drums by Cuban master drummer Román Díaz with four other Cuban drummers. Hermetic and little known even within Cuba, Abakuá is an Afro-Cuban men’s initiatory fraternity, a secret society, with roots extending back to Nigeria and Cameroon. Despite its secret nature, the percussion and vocal dance music of the Abakuá, as well as other music of West African origin, have been found by researchers to have collectively infused and influenced virtually all genres of Cuban vernacular music, including rumba and son.

Dacks notes that Díaz “has been playing with Virelles for quite a while now” drawing on Cuba’s deep African musical heritage as an essential element of the performance. Rather than using Abakuá songs and drumming as a superficial pinch of ethnic spice in a jazz score, they have instead chosen to perform it as it occurs in Afro-Cuban ritual practice (echoing Dacks’ earlier comments about authenticity). “Abakuá drums have never been in a concert hall setting, so this is absolutely a new form of music that Virelles is exploring.”

For Dacks, it’s not “just a ‘local guy makes good’ show, it’s bigger than that. Virelles is already the most experimental pianist of Cuban origin I’ve ever heard, and he has become a major creative force. As such, this is a unique opportunity for the Music Gallery and our partners to help him take the next, ambitious step.”

Quick Picks

Continuing with this month’s theme of musical hybridity, the Aga Khan Museum presents two concerts which can easily be included in that portfolio.

November 28 the Kinan Azmeh City Band mounts the AKM’s auditorium stage with a concert blending jazz, Western classical and Syrian music. Kinan Azmeh, clarinet, Kyle Sanna, guitar, John Hadfield, percussion, and Petros Klampanis, double bass, perform works from their album Elastic City.

December 5 the spotlight shifts to the Indo-Afghan music of the veteran singer Ustad Eltaf Hussain Sarahang. Starting his career as a young court musician – appointed as Royal Musician to the Court of King Zahir Shah of Afghanistan (reigned 1933–73) – Sarahang has enjoyed a career spanning decades as a leading exponent of the hybrid traditions of Indo-Afghan music. 

Andrew Timar is a Toronto musician and music writer. He can be contacted at worldmusic@thewholenote.com.

Christmas, and the liminal juncture between old and new years that follows, is for many of us a prime occasion for gifting and for helping those less fortunate. It’s also a time when daylight hours are at their shortest and even our waking hours are dominated by darkness. As such it’s a time which amply rewards introspection of the personal kind, when we can profitably reflect back on the past year and also look forward, hopefully, to a brighter new one.

At the heart of all this is observance of the winter solstice. The period around the year’s shortest day has been marked in the Northern Hemisphere with rituals of rebirth, celebrated in holidays, festivals and community gatherings, reaching back perhaps to the Neolithic period. Ancient Romans, Persians, Chinese, Theravada Buddhists, Northern European peoples – pagan and neo-pagan – as well as the Zuni of the American Southwest all celebrated the winter solstice. Some still do. Sensitivity to natural cycles seems to be hardwired in our human DNA.

It’s no coincidence that Christians of the Western tradition chose the winter solstice to celebrate the Longest Night (aka Blue Christmas). Falling at the end of the Advent season, these long and cold nights underscore believers’ own struggle with darkness and grief as they face the end of the growing season, and loss of many kinds. Christmas, the joyous celebration of Christ’s birth, was strategically placed within the Roman annual calendar by the early Church to coincide with this period.

Timar family Christmas

My own family has celebrated Christmas for many generations but in recent decades the focus has increasingly shifted from long-time religious to secular rituals performed by our immediate Toronto family. In our ever-morphing clan new partners are added, names change, babies are born, people move away and some return; they grow up, grow old and yes, our elders ultimately enter the realm of the ancestors.

All dressed up, each year the extended Timar clan gathers at one of our homes to celebrate our seasonal traditions, ancient and new. We feast extravagantly into the night with special rich food and drink that speaks to our multiple ethnic and religious roots, identities and values. Helping refresh family bonds is the spirit of generosity, mutual care and the hospitality that permeates that late December evening.

65 Million Refugee Realities

Things aren’t so rosy however for everyone at this time of year. It’s a particularly sad time for families torn apart geographically, when some are compelled to flee their homelands. So it was too with my family when I was six. We were refugees from post-revolution occupied Hungary. Our first generation is forever grateful to Canada for giving five of us sanctuary, a fertile place to put down roots, make a home, to flourish.

Today, the plight of refugees of many kinds continues to confront every global citizen. Many millions of our fellow humans need aid or asylum at any given time. Celebrated Chinese multimedia artist and activist Ai Weiwei estimates the number at “about 65 million people.”

In October 2017 he opened a vast new installation Good Fences Make Good Neighbours at some 300 sites around New York City, aiming ultimately to draw attention to the world’s refugee crisis. Good Fences criticizes “the global trend of trying to separate us by colour, race, religion, nationality ... against freedom, against humanity,” as Ai said at his October Manhattan press conference.

Reunite the Moneka Family

The mind-boggling numbers of displaced humanity around the world can be overwhelming in the absence of being able to put a human face on suffering. The dilemma of refugees, so passionately articulated by Ai in his art, is reflected in many ways here in Toronto. Not surprisingly, within our musical communities, it shows up particularly keenly among world musicians who have recently made Canada their home.

Early in November I received an email from Jaclyn Tam, manager of concerts and special projects – including New Canadian Global Music Orchestra (NCGMO) – at the Royal Conservatory and TELUS Centre. “I wanted to tell you about a fundraiser I’m organizing on Monday, December 11 at Lula Lounge,” Tam’s email began. JUNO winners and nominee musicians Quique Escamilla, David Buchbinder, Maryem and Ernie Tollar, and many special guests will perform. They’re coming together to support Ahmed Moneka, an incredibly special musician and actor who now calls Toronto home, in his bid to bring his family here. I first met him last year when he auditioned for NCGMO.”

I was immediately gripped. Here was a story with parallels to that of my own family of origin, as well as to ancient semi-mythic narratives of asylum, hopes of peace, reconciliation and gift-giving generosity. I called Tam at her Royal Conservatory office.

“Musician and actor Ahmed Moneka was forced to apply for asylum in Canada in 2015 after his family received death threats for his lead role as a gay Iraqi man in the [short] film The Society,” she told me. (The film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival and showed at TIFF.)

Moneka’s family, of African Sufi descent, was well established in Baghdad’s artist community. His father was a well-known Iraqi actor and comedian, and his sister Isra was one of the founders of the Cinema Department at the University of Basra. His younger sister Tara has an international career as a singer. She has performed on Iraqi TV and at festivals at a young age.

Having faced months of violent threats from the increasingly powerful militias in Iraq, however, the family was forced to flee to Turkey in 2016. Ahmed’s family has been torn apart and they are now “in a critical situation.” Moneka speaks powerfully of their present danger in his fundraising YouTube video. Moneka hopes to reunite his family in Canada “so that they may live together in peace.” All proceeds from the December 11 Lula concert will support his goal.

 “With Ahmed, it’s all personal,” Tam says. “I met him a few times, heard his music, and since there was a personal connection I felt compelled to act. It was simple really: here’s one person I could help reconnect with his family.”

At his NCGMO audition, “Ahmed radiated pure musical joy.” But as Tam explains, by the time the final roster was decided, he had already made a commitment to tour with another band. The NCGMO moved on without him, but he made abiding connections with artistic director David Buchbinder, who has hired Ahmed for other projects.

After hearing Ahmed’s story, Tam felt personally compelled to help. “I don’t have a lot of money to donate,” she says, “but I do have a large network built up over the years and also the producing skills to put together such an event.” So she reached out to Tracey Jenkins at Lula Lounge and to musicians who have worked with Ahmed. “I was touched by the response of Lula and of the musicians and artists. They didn’t hesitate to donate their talents.”

This is our community at work big time (and it promises to be a fine musical evening as well)! Ahmed plays cajón and sings maqam in a wonderful trio called Moskitto Bar, which will play at the fundraiser. (One of his bandmates, Tangi Ropars, is formerly of Lemon Bucket Orkestra.) Additionally, a group dubbed Orchestra of Love has been organized for the fundraiser, bringing together Toronto world music A-listers such as trumpeter David Buchbinder, singers Maryem Tollar and Roula Said, percussionist Naghmeh Farahmand, multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Waleed Abdulhamid and wind player extraordinaire Ernie Tollar.

In addition to pure music, NAMAS will recite poetry to guitar accompaniment and Zeena Sileem, an Iraqi painter, will paint a canvas live during the evening. The completed canvas will be auctioned with proceeds benefitting the Moneka family reunification fund.

All in all, this promises to be a terrific community event guaranteed to put all who come out to support the Moneka family’s desire for reunification in a proper holiday spirit.

New Canadian Global Music Orchestra (NCGMO): update

I promised in my summer 2017 column story about NCGMO that I would follow up on the ensemble’s progress. Since I was speaking with Jaclyn Tam about the Moneka story I asked her for an update on the orchestra as well. As it turns out, the Orchestra had a Banff Centre studio residency in September and October, recording its first album (which is being edited and mixed for concert release on April 7, 2018). Shortly after the Banff residency, in November, the NCGMO performed a showcase at “North America’s World Music Summit,” Mundial Montréal. And on February 24, deeper and no doubt whiter into winter, NCGMO will appear on the Isabel Bader Centre stage in Kingston, in what the Isabel’s listings describe as a concert of “transcultural music which connects and communicates in ways that words, politicians, and spiritual leaders cannot. Together, we all find a common language.”

Lula Music and Arts Centre

In its own words, Lula “nourishes a thriving Canadian world music scene … with a focus on local artists performing music of the Americas.” It fosters the Canadian world music scene “through concerts, festivals, cultural exchanges, education, outreach, audience and professional development.”

Lula’s Dundas West space appears to be in particularly heavy rotation this December. I counted 31 concerts and salsa classes on the site. That averages out to an astounding one scheduled event for each day of the month! In January the action announced so far settles down to eight music events, plus another six booked to date in February. It’s entirely possible more gigs will be booked in the interim, but in any case that is much too many to talk about here. I encourage readers to visit The WholeNote’s listings or Lula’s site calendar for updates.

Aga Khan Museum: concert picks for January and February 2018

Another premier Toronto venue for culturally diverse music performance is the Aga Khan Museum. It continues its programs of concerts and more casual pop-ups.

January 18 the AKM presents “Yemen Blues,” a truly transcultural band delivering “an explosive combination of Yemeni song and poetry, Jewish music, West African groove and funk.” With musicians from New York City, Uruguay and Tel Aviv, leader Ravid Kahalani’s charts set a high musical standard and have roused international audiences.

February 1 “Musical Inventions” by Paolo Angeli featuring Dr. Draw takes the AKM’s auditorium stage.

Angeli, playing a unique 18-string hybrid of guitar, violoncello and drums, performs music rooted in the Sardinian tradition blended with avant-garde aesthetics. He’s joined by electric violinist Dr. Draw.

February 16 the AKM presents “Under the Indian Musical Sky,” with Montréal group Constantinople and Grammy Award-nominated Carnatic venu (flute) virtuoso Shashank Subramanyam. Constantinople’s collaboration with Subramanyam “bridges not only East and West but [also musical] traditions … from across the globe,” much like the group’s namesake city.

Andrew Timar is a Toronto musician and music writer. He can be contacted at worldmusic@thewholenote.com.

Reflecting on this month’s slew of anniversaries, I am marking on my calendar the 100th year of American composer John Cage’s birth, on September 5, and the 20th of his death. What does Cage the multi-faceted avant-garde modernist, the influential composer, music theorist, author, mycologist, poet, lecturer, musician and master of silence have to do with world music, our column’s purview? This is the subject of the present column’s lead story.

English musicologist David Nicholls, in his 1996 essay “Transethnicism and the American Experimental Tradition,” argues that the influence of musical transethnicism — a branch of experimental music allowing for mixing recognizable music genres often from differing cultures — on Cage’s compositions, is less overt than in the work of some his colleagues such as Lou Harrison, tending to be “ideological ... rather than the musical sounds or techniques.” For much of Cage’s career that may be the case; however there is a significant Cage work composed for a Toronto world music group in the last decade of his long and prolific career that may suggest differently.

My interest in Cage’s music is highly personal: it began in my last years of high school, mediated by shiny new LPs. During my undergrad years at York University this vinyl-based curiosity developed into an active interest. I studied and played his music under the tutelage of Cage’s students and colleagues such as composition professor James Tenney. In the 1970s and 1980s Cage’s avant-garde celebrity was growing and there seemed to be ample opportunity to see him here in person. New Music Concerts brought him to Toronto repeatedly. I also attended a performance of the touring Merce Cunningham Dance Company at the Royal Alexandra Theatre, a company he was associated with for five decades as musician, composer and music director.

Canadian composer Udo Kasemets, an early Cage follower and adaptor, had performed Cage’s Suite for Toy Piano in 1963. Kasemets subsequently brought Cage and Marcel Duchamp to Toronto to perform at the Ryerson Theatre in 1968. By 1981, along with composer Miguel Frasconi, I felt well enough acquainted with Cage’s work to tackle an interview with him, published in Musicworks. My creative intersection with Cage and his work culminated in 1986/87. It was during that exciting time that I witnessed, firsthand, the genesis of Cage’s Haikai, participating in extensive rehearsals of the score and in the premiere performance.

Haikai was composed not for a new music group of Western concert instruments, but for the gamelan ensemble of the Toronto-based Evergreen Club, founded in 1983 by Canadian composer Jon Siddall. The group consisted of eight professional musicians who collectively played a particular type of gamelan called degung, indigenous to the West Javanese region of Indonesia. The Evergreen Club was Canada’s first performing gamelan and by the mid-1980s the group was beginning to make a name commissioning dozens of new works, performing them about town and recording them for broadcast on the CBC.

In 1986 John Cage was approached by Siddall, EC’s artistic director, to come visit its gamelan degung, Si Pawit, a name which in the Sundanese language of West Java means “honourable foundation.” James Tenney (still at York University) was already writing a piece for prepared piano and gamelan degung for an upcoming EC concert. Tenney was a former Cage student and Siddall took advantage of that personal connection to call Cage to inform him of his plan to combine Cage’s 1940 invention, the prepared piano, with gamelan. During Cage’s next lecture trip to Ontario, he visited the Beach neighbourhood of Queen St. E. where Siddall and his Si Pawit resided. I was to take part in Cage’s brief visit, and was on my way down Leslie St., but was unfortunately stuck in a minor gas-station fender bender. The following, therefore, is my, alas, second-hand account of John Cage’s only visit to Si Pawit, which I share with you for the first time, courtesy of my long-time friend and colleague Jon Siddall who served as Cage’s sole host and gamelan degung guide in my absence.

On arrival, Cage set to work exploring the individual characteristic sounds of the Si Pawit instruments with his own hands. In the Cageian spirit of playful experiment he turned the rows of gongs of two of the instruments, bonang and jengglong, upside-down and played their rims with mallets. The resulting unpredictable sounds so delighted him that he scored upended gongs, bowed and coaxed with mallets of graduated hardness, at the heart of his new work. His imagination wandered one step further: he wondered about spinning the gongs on the floor on their knobbed centres! Siddall knew then that Cage “was hooked.” Cage however stopped himself from taking that particular radical action, thinking out loud that it might not be beneficial for the instruments.

Cage worked on Haikai (1986) during a busy time in his career. He had begun work on his first opera project, Europeras 1 & 2, and I find it remarkable that he made the time to prepare a new work for a young, as yet little proven, gamelan group in Toronto. Perhaps it was Evergreen Club’s dedication to numerous rehearsals to finesse new compositions that secured Cage’s dedication to the project. In three weeks the beautifully hand written score — even the organic looking staff was drawn by Cage’s pen — was completed and sent. The work is dedicated “for Si Pawit, gamelan degung of the Evergreen Club.” This collegial dedication reveals Cage’s focus on the individual characteristics of this particular gamelan (Si Pawit), and also honours the performing group, the musicians who bring the score to life.

The commission didn’t go unnoticed by the local media. Toronto Star music critic William Littler, in his preview article “Ensemble to Debut Asian-influenced Cage Work,” takes a bemused, if friendly, stance. “There, in a second-floor Richmond St. studio the other night, sat eight men in stocking feet, squatting before a collection of bronze gongs and xylophones, wooden drums and a single flute ...”

For all of its innovation — the gongchimes turned upside down, bowed gong rims and what the score calls “Korean unison” (essentially chords of unmeasured entry, dynamic and duration) — the score reflects in its open spirit aspects of idiomatic gamelan practice with considerable sensitivity. This is a surprisingly canny achievement for a composer who had not formally studied any sort of gamelan instrumentation or had musical practice in it. Haikai does however bear the earmarks of two of the structural forms Cage adopted from Asian literary sources and repeatedly used in his compositional method: the I Ching, and haiku, the Japanese poetic form. The poetic haiku structure typically consists of the syllable count 5:7:5 spread over three lines. Cage adapted this structure in Haikai, through hand gestures indicating silences, notated in the score in the conventional manner, by fermata.

In Evergreen Club gamelan’s April 5, 1987, premiere performance at Toronto’s Premiere Dance Theatre, it is precisely during these fermata-marked moments in Haikai, when the performers are attentively “resting” yet actively listening, that the real Cageian magic emerges. It is only then that the customary invisible wall between performers and audience, and the physical one between the concert hall and the sounds of the outside world, become permeable, and are able to intermingle. The delighted group director Siddall acknowledged, “It is different from anything we have ever performed ... For me, it’s like nature, like a walk in the forest, where there is randomness but a sense of organization as well.”

The following morning, the music critic Ronald Hambleton of the Toronto Star was intrigued, if less delighted, writing in an ironic tone, “They used to praise the poet Coleridge, who could bore his friends by talking non-stop for hours, for his occasional ‘brilliant flashes of silence.’ But John Cage, the innovative 75-year old American composer, has a gift for prolonged silences broken by a few brilliant flashes of musical sound. He stretched that gift to a full 25 minutes of what he called ‘events’ in the eight parts of his Haikai ... ”

From today’s vantage point, what do we make of the legacy of this 26 year old work? For one thing, it marks a rare moment when the career modernist John Cage connected with a new/world music group, one of his few works dedicated to Canadian performers. For another, Haikai turns out to be Cage’s only composition for gamelan. Radios, turntables, electronics, conches, cacti and paper aside, in much of his extensive oeuvre Cage primarily composed for Western musical instruments and ensembles. In Haikai, however, he made a significant exception, expressly scoring for an Indonesian gamelan degung. The work stands up as an effective work for the gamelan instruments it was written for as well as accurately reflecting core mature Cageian philosophical notions.

As for the Evergreen Club (called the Evergreen Club Contemporary Gamelan since 2000), it has not forgotten Haikai, Cage’s gift. This season, ECCG is celebrating not only its unique connection to John Cage on his 100th, but also surviving 30 years ourselves! ECCG is programming three concerts of works later this season, featuring works by Cage, Harrison, Tenney and Canadians including Gordon Monahan, to be performed by the emerging Toronto-based percussion ensemble TorQ along with ECCG’s gamelan.

Ashkenaz: Speaking of 30th anniversaries, mazel tov to Finjan, the Winnipeg klezmer revival pioneers! The well-known band plays in the Ashkenaz Festival, Harbourfront Centre, Saturday September 1 at 8pm on the Westjet stage. Ashkenaz, in this year’s programming, focuses on the diversity of Jewish music, art and artists from around the world, straddling the Labour Day weekend, a time which sparks atavistic fears of the end of summer! So visit Harbourfront and enjoy some of the best diasporic music this season before the summer fades altogether into a faint pleasant memory.

I can only list a few highlights here, so I will focus on music new to me. September 1: Veretski Pass, a trio from California, offers Carpathian, Romanian, Polish and Ottoman styles, mixed with dances from Moldavia and Bessarabia, Hutzul wedding music from Ruthenia, and Rebetic melodies from Smyrna, all woven together with original compositions; and Opa!, a hot post-Soviet “world music party band,” flavouring its vodka with klezmer, reggae, ska and funk, rocks out the night. September 2: the eight-member group Shashmaqam performing classical and folk music of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and the liturgical repertoire of the Bukharan Jews; Abayudaya, representing the musical traditions of Uganda’s Jewish community; and Israeli Shye Ben Tzur whose music is pithily billed as “East Indian Jewish Qawwali.” The festival wraps on Monday September 3 with a performance by Mexico City’s Klezmerson, interpreting Jewish klezmer music from its Mexican viewpoint. Please visit The WholeNote listings and the Ashkenaz Festival’s own well-appointed website for details.

Two more: Moving on, Sunday September 9, the Music Gallery hosts a concert called Afro-European Soundscapes, featuring Werner Puntigam, Matchume Zango, Evelyn Mukwedeya and Memory Makuri. The latter two Zimbabwean musicians have performed with the stars Thomas Mapfumo, Stella Chiweshe, and many regional bands. Part of the Music Gallery’s New World Series, this concert is co-presented with Toronto’s Batuki Music Society. It is billed as “an interactive encounter between South and East African inspirations, European tonalities and electronic transformations accompanied by visual commentary.”

On Saturday September 22, the Brotherhood Concert Series presents two choruses, the Ukrainian Bandurist Chorus (Detroit), and the Hoosli Ukrainian Male Chorus (Winnipeg) at the Ryerson Theatre. These Ukrainian male choruses, North America’s finest, have as an integral part of their sound an orchestra of banduras, the zither-lute which is often called “the voice of Ukraine.”

Small World Music: We have become so used to Small World Music’s Fall Festival ushering in the new season with an ambitious array of global talent that it is hard to believe this year marks the 11th iteration of the event. Consisting of ten concerts in six different venues, the 2012 Fall Festival launches September 20 at Lula Lounge with two groups: The Battle of Santiago mashes Afro-Cuban rhythms, rock guitar, dub bass and a sax and flute duo into what they call Afro-Cuban Post-Rock; and dance-party band Rambunctious, whose lineup is described as “Nine horns + one drummer = dance party” follows. Be prepared to dance!

The next day Fanfare Ciocarlia, a 12-piece Roma brass band takes The Hoxton stage. Beginning as a Romanian wedding band they have played over 1000 concerts in 50 countries, featuring an audience-winning formula of high velocity, high energy precision playing, enhanced by close miking and intense PA volumes, and wild virtuosic solos. Toronto’s Lemon Bucket Orkestra, our own “Balkan Klezmer Gypsy Party-Punk Super Band” opens.

September 22, Small World presents a daylong free “festival within the festival” at Dundas Square. Just a few of the acts: Jayme Stone, Bageshree Vaze, Aline Morales, Kendra Ray, Maracatu Mar Aberto, Lemon Bucket Orkestra and The Battle of Santiago.

September 23, the venue is the more intimate Glenn Gould Studio with a concert featuring Toronto’s Azalea Ray, only student of ghazal maestro Fareeda Khanum. Armed with North Indian classical vocal training, she performs in several Hindustani music genres. But it is her renditions of poetry-rich ghazal songs in her trademark rich alto that I am most looking forward to.

September 25 at the Lula Lounge the Lisbon quartet Deolinda delivers Portuguese fado music with a contemporary twist. They neither wear all black, use a Portuguese guitar, nor indulge exclusively in the untranslatable core ethos of “saudade.” In fact their often humorous and socially challenging songs and performances have been radically described as “happy.” There’s a concept!

Space permits even less detail on the rest: September 26, still at Lula, Toronto’s Jorge Miguel Flamenco Ensemble offers “Spanish Flamenco guitar with a Canadian accent.” The following day the young cimbalom soloist Yura Rafaliuk performs Ukrainian folk music, along with the ubiquitous Lemon Bucket Orkestra. Javier Estrada, among Mexico’s most in-demand electronic dance music producers, brings his “pre-Hispanic dubstep” to the Wrong Bar on September 27. Toronto-based Vesal Ensemble showcases their repertoire of Persian classical as well as Kurdish, Lori and Azeri ethnic music at the Glenn Gould Studio on September 28. And September 30 at the Lula Lounge the Small World Festival closes with rousing party music provided by Toronto’s practitioners of two Northeastern Brazilian song and dance genres: community group Maracatu Mar Aberto offers maracatu, a powerful living tradition of drum, shaker and bell rhythm laced with a through-line of song; and Maria Bonita & the Band perform forró, with its mix of vocals, accordion, fiddle, guitar, flute and percussion.

(I attended a party last night at which just a few members of Maracatu Mar Aberto played. While a friend there told me their powerfully loud drum sounds immediately corrected his previously upset stomach, I believe my ears are still ringing.)

Andrew Timar is a Toronto musician and music writer. He can be contacted at worldmusic@thewholenote.com.

Before we get to this month’s concerts, I’d like to wade in on the world music component of Canada’s music industry awards, the JUNOs. Held from March 26 to April 1 in Ottawa, this year’s JUNOs have 41 award categories encompassing nominations of the top-selling singers and musicians you would expect such as Arcade Fire, Avril Lavigne, Drake, Justin Bieber, Michael Bublé and Nickelback.

The “World Music Album” category nominations reflect more modest album sales, but no less artistic ambition and achievement. Among the distinguished performers represented is previous JUNO award-winner Kiran Ahluwalia. Her latest album Aam Zameen: Common Ground fuses her own ghazal and Punjabi folk-song approach with the music of the African masters of Malian “desert blues.” Montreal based artist Socalled has had a shorter career, yet his latest music, impossible to pigeon-hole, is no less ambitious in its transnationality. His musical mission appears to cross all sorts of musical and media boundaries, all the while embracing a kibitzing attitude toward sound collage inspired by pop, funk, klezmer and rap. Another nominee is the Brazilian-born singer, percussionist and composer Aline Morales, represented by her debut solo album Flores, Tambores e Amores. Her music assays Brazilian song styles such as samba, forró and 1960s tropicalia, and forges them into her own voice with traces of Italian film soundtracks, avant-garde poetry, African percussion and vintage synths.

Now to the month’s live offerings: examining world music in a living historical context on March 1, the Royal Conservatory’s String and World Series at Koerner Hall presents the multi-Grammy Award-nominated viola da gambist, Jordi Savall, directing two groups, Hespérion XXI and the Tembembe Ensamble Continuo. The Catalan virtuoso of the viola da gamba, “an instrument so refined that it takes us to the very brink of silence,” Savall has been among the world’s major figures in early music since the 1970s. He is partly responsible for bringing the viola da gamba back onto the world stage. While his typical repertory ranges from the mediaeval to the baroque period, Savall’s approach to interpreting this “dead” historical repertoire has always been informed by the performance practices of living oral music traditions of Europe, the Arab world and now the “New” world.

Appointed European Union ambassador for intercultural dialogue in 2008, Savall is passionate about asserting the common roots of human expression. The Koerner Hall concert is titled “Folias Antiguas & Criollas: From the Ancient to the New World.” It features Spanish and Mexican baroque music as well as performances from the living Mexican Huasteca and Jarocho music traditions: Savall explores the creole music created from their confluence. You can catch the programme March 2 at the Perimeter Institute in Waterloo if you miss it at Toronto’s Koerner Hall.

No less challenging to the music landscape status quo is the March 5 CD launch concert, “Bridges: Jewish and Arabic Music in Dialogue” at the Al Green Theatre, Miles Nadal jcc. Headlining are Lenka Lichtenberg, the Jewish singer with an international career, and Middle Eastern-Canadian singer, dancer, actor and qanun player Roula Said. For over 20 years the inspiring Said has been one of Toronto’s leading lights in the belly dance, Arabic and fusion music scenes. While Lichtenberg was born and raised in Prague, she completed her university music education in Canada. Her current music reflects her Yiddish roots and her ongoing study of the Jewish cantorial tradition; in her extensive touring, she pursues a career as a singer-songwriter. Together, their aim with “Bridges” is to establish an inspiring dialogue between Jewish and Arabic cultures grounded on musical commonalities. They are supported in their quest by an outstanding backup band composed of a Toronto world musician “A-team,” including John Gzowski on oud, guitars and bouzouki, Kinneret Sagee on clarinet and Ernie Tollar on sax, flutes and clarinet. The rhythm section consists of bassist Chris Gartner, percussionist Alan Hetherington and Ravi Naimpally on tabla and dumbek, all of whom performed with convincing élan on Lichtenberg’s sparkling last album Fray, markedly influenced by Toronto’s interactive world music scene.

On March 2 the Toronto-born chanteuse Alejandra Ribera performs at the Glenn Gould Studio. Her dramatic singing and genre-hopping eclectic repertoire draws on both her Argentinean and British heritage, and particularly mirrors the grit and magic of Ribera’s everyday urban Canadian reality with its darkly lyrical themes.

The Amadeus Choir, directed by Lydia Adams, presents “A Celtic Celebration,” March 3, at Toronto’s Jubilee United Church. The 115-voice veteran choir is joined by Stratford’s five-piece, pan-Celtic fusion band Rant Maggie Rant, led by multi-instrumentalist Mark Fletcher. The Highland dancers also on the bill will undoubtedly further animate the concert.

The Royal Conservatory’s World Series presents two outstanding singers early in March. On March 7, in a multi-media presentation, the Latin Grammy award winning Lila Downs will perform her dramatic and highly unique reinvention of traditional Mexican music and original compositions fused with blues, jazz, soul, African root and even klezmer music.

And on March 10, it’s another Grammy Award winner’s turn: the powerful-voiced Angélique Kidjo performing her brand of Afro-funk fusion with an infectious joie de vivre. Dubbed “Africa’s premier diva” by TIME magazine, the West African born Kidjo has been an active member of the international world music scene for over 20 years. Her list of illustrious collaborators including Bono, Carlos Santana, Peter Gabriel, Alicia Keys and Branford Marsalis, gives an idea of the force of her personality and the significant impact of her vocal accomplishments.

On Thursday March 15, at 7:30pm, Nagata Shachu, Toronto’s professional Japanese taiko drumming and music group, presents the premiere of Tatsujin Gei (Master Artists) at the Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre in Toronto. Three master performers from Japan — Kodo Drummers’ Yoshikazu and Yoko Fujimoto, and the Okinawan dance master Mitsue Kinjo — will join forces with Nagata Shachu directed by Kyoshi Nagata. (This rare chance to see some of Japan’s top exponents of taiko, song and dance in Toronto missed our listings deadline so you won’t find further details here in the magazine. Call the Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre at 416-441-2345 for details.)

This month, two of our universities showcase the wide-ranging world music activities of their music students and faculty. I’ve found these concerts are a particularly good way to sample a musical tradition new to me: they’re relaxed, the youthful participants are charged with the enthusiasm of new converts — plus they’re free.

On March 15, from noon to 8pm, York University’s Department of Music presents day one of its “World Music Festival.” Performances by the World Music Chorus, Celtic, Ghanaian, Cuban, Klezmer ensembles and the Escola de Samba will fill the halls and rooms of the Accolade East Building with global sounds. The festival continues all next day with Caribbean, Chinese, Korean Drum, Balkan Music, Flamenco and Middle Eastern ensembles. Then on March 19, York’s World@Noon series presents the triple platinum, Israeli singer-songwriter Idan Raichel at the Tribute Communities Recital Hall, Accolade East Building. His “Idan Raichel Project” is distinguished by its fusion of Hebrew lyrics, Middle Eastern and Ethiopian music and electronica.

The University of Toronto Faculty of Music presents its own World Music ensembles in concert March 16 and 21 at the MacMillan Theatre, Edward Johnson Building. On March 28, at Walter Hall, the exemplary Vocal Jazz Ensemble is directed in concert by the inspired extended vocalist, conductor and teacher Christine Duncan. They will perform with their guest, Darbazi, our region’s first and most accomplished Georgian polyphonic choir.

There was a time in the early 1990s when the guitar duo Strunz & Farah virtually defined the emerging world music market. Their very successful albums won Billboard’s World Music Album of the Year and a Grammy nomination. With an eclectic sound that has been described as world fusion, their music is a mediated reflection of their cultural roots, including Afro-Caribbean, Latin American folk, flamenco and Middle Eastern music, wrapping it all up in jazz-based improvisation. They’re back on the road appearing in venues across Southern Ontario this month. Starting at Hugh’s Room in Toronto, March 14, they then appear at the Capitol Theatre in Port Hope, the Molsen Canadian Studio at Hamilton Place, London’s Aeolian Hall and at Market Hall in Peterborough, on March 15, 16, 17 and 18, respectively.

Finally, rounding out the month, on March 31 the Royal Conservatory presents “Intercultural Journeys,” echoing the intercultural and peace-bridging function of music proposed by some of the other concerts noted this month. Israeli cellist Udi Bar-David leads a group consisting of Lebanese violinist Hanna Khoury and Palestinian percussionist Hafez Ali, digging into repertoire merging European and Arabic classical musics. Their guests, Syrian singer Youssef Kassab, cantor Beny Maissner and Toronto qanun master George Sawa, will add yet more inclusive notes to this cross-cultural concert.

Andrew Timar is a Toronto musician and music writer.  He can be contacted at worldmusic@thewholenote.com.

In 1979, Toronto became the first municipality in Canada to formally proclaim Black History Month. BHM affords citizens a special opportunity to recognize the past and present contributions that African Canadians make to the life of Toronto in such areas as education, medicine, public service, politics – and the arts, including music. Adding weight to this recognition, the United Nations has declared 2011 the “UN Year for People of African Descent.”

Celebrations kick off with the 15th annual Kuumba festival at the Harbourfront Centre for two weekends, February 5-6 and 12-13. Among the many notable events exploring Black and Caribbean culture, here are my musical picks. Amadou Kienou, who comes from a family of renowned traditional praise singers from Burkina Faso, performs on February 6. Kienou’s repertoire consists of Mandingue songs and dances that he has adapted, accompanied by the djembe (a West African drum). The same day, the group Pablo Terry y Sol de Cuba brings its Cuban-drenched sound to the Lakeside Terrace. Terry honed his musical skills working with outstanding Cuban musicians such as Celia Cruz, Omara Portuondo and Compay Segundo of the Buena Vista Social Club. The following weekend, on February 13, the Kuumba Gospel Fest 2011 features a who’s who of local gospel music talent. In addition there is a wealth of other events at Kuumba– many free– programmed in the family-friendly manner we have become accustomed to at Harbourfront.

Chinese New Year also falls in February this year. In honour of the incoming Year of the Rabbit, the Canadian Sinfonietta presents a Chinese themed concert on February 12 at the Glenn Gould Studio. The well-known erhu (Chinese fiddle) virtuoso George Gao will be featured with the Sinfonietta in an unusual program of works composed by contemporary Chinese composers.

On February 17 the group Kinobe and Soul Beat Africa brings the music of East Africa to the Living Arts Centre, Mississauga. Rooted in Ugandan music, Soul Beat Africa’s music is a synthesis of African roots and world music, of traditional and modern instrumentation. The group is led by veteran multi-instrumentalist and singer-songwriter, Kinobe. In a forward-thinking educational tie-in, the Living Arts Centre is presenting two workshops on February 18, introducing traditional African instruments kora, kalimba, adungu, endongo, ngoni and various drums to elementary school children. More presenters ought to do the same!

Still in Mississauga, the Chamber Music Society of Mississauga presents the brilliant musicians of the Shiraz Ensemble in a programme of Persian classical music on February 19 at The Unitarian Congregation of Mississauga.

The Nathaniel Dett Chorale, Canada’s professional ensemble dedicated to the dissemination of Afrocentric choral music, presents Voices of the Diaspora … Haitian Voices on February 23 and 26. Conducted by Brainerd Blyden-Taylor, the program will highlight the poetic and musical traditions of Haiti, in particular Creole language and spirituality. The concert will feature the works of composer Sydney Guillaume, including two premieres – Ayiti and Diplomaci.

World musicians have often focused on the energy, synergy and excitement generated by cultural mixology. A good example can be heard February 26 at the Mod Club, with the premiere Toronto performance, presented by the Ashkenaz Foundation, of Yemen Blues, a new Israeli-based world music group enjoying quite a buzz. Founded a few years ago by the Yemenite vocalist Ravid Kahalani, this nine-piece international ensemble presents an energy-packed 21st century musical brew of Yemenite-Jewish song and poetry, American jazz, blues and funk, and West African grooves. Some Yemen Blues concerts have been reported to erupt into spontaneously ecstatic dance-fuelled celebrations.

Music and dance often go hand-in-hand. When the partnership works, there is a mysterious symbiosis, as in a good marriage. European Renaissance and Baroque composers knew this well, and the practice continues in the waltz time music of Johann Strauss every bit as much as in the hiphop-infused music of today.

That being said, it is rare to find anywhere a single person equally fluent in both music and dance. We have a homegrown practitioner of this exceptional dual mastery in Toronto’s Peter Chin. The Jamaican-born Chin has been called, “one of the finest contemporary choreographers working in Canada.” While he is best known for his award-winning choreography and dance performances, Chin is an accomplished life-long musician, singer, and a composer with a unique voice. His music has been performed by groups such as Gamelan Toronto, Array Music, Jeng Yi Korean percussion ensemble, St Michael’s Choir School and the Evergreen Club Contemporary Gamelan. The CanAsian International Dance Festival is presenting a new program by Peter Chin titled Olden New Golden Blue on February 24 and 26 at the Fleck Dance Theatre, Harbourfront. Five young Cambodian dancers will interpret choreography and music featuring big, deep social and artistic themes. I won’t miss it.

Another project of note merging music and dance is The Toronto Consort’s Marco Polo Project. Over 38 seasons, the Toronto Consort has crystallised into one of our city’s musical jewels, recognized internationally for its top-flight performances of European medieval, renaissance and early baroque repertoire. On February 18 and 19 at Trinity-St. Paul’s Centre, however, with the aid of guest artists skilled at working within a South Asian cultural heritage, their program seeks to answer the rhetorical question “what tunes would Marco Polo have had on his iPod?” Joining the Consort in this exploration is choreographer Lata Pada and members of her company Sampradaya Dance Creations. Singer/composer Suba Sankaran and tabla player Ed Hanley of the Indo-fusion ensemble Autorickshaw are also aboard for this expedition, as Consort and guests weave an imaginary tapestry of the sort of music 14th century explorer Marco Polo might have encountered on his travels. Performers and audience alike will undoubtedly have fun with this concept.

York University’s Department of Music is presenting several free concerts highlighting its world music instructors in programs jauntily titled World at Noon. All concerts are at the Martin Family Lounge, 219 Accolade East Building. On February 3 the Gareth Burgess Steelpan Ensemble performs jazz standards, R & B arrangements and original compositions. Leading local Japanese music masters Linda Caplan (koto) and Gerard Yun (shakuhachi) perform traditional and contemporary Japanese music February 17. And the Irene Markoff Ensemble, highly accomplished musicians all, performs traditional Balkan music on March 3.

Bookending Black History Month, on March 6, the Royal Conservatory’s Koerner Hall is the venue for Acoustic Africa, presented in partnership with Small World Music, a musical journey led by five top African string instrumentalists and singers. The instruments include traditional monochords, kamele n’goni (Malian lute), as well as the modern guitar and violin. The group is co-directed by international stars of African pop music. No stranger to Toronto stages, the legendary Zimbabwean singer, composer and bandleader Oliver Mtukudzi is the innovator of an undeniably contagious musical style. His music has been inspired by the intricate melodies and rhythms of the mbira (thumb piano), and incorporates South African mbaqanga, the energetic Zimbabwean pop style jit, and traditional kateke drumming. Co-headliner Afel Bocoum is a Malian guitarist, singer, composer and protégé of the late Malian guitar innovator Ali Farka Touré. (I still recall with pleasure and a smile the memorable concert Farka Touré gave a couple of decades ago at Harbourfront.)

Andrew Timar is a Toronto musician and music writer. He can be reached at worldmusic@thewholenote.com.

The spirit of an extended modal family is reflected in Labyrinth Musical Workshop Ontario’s inaugural season’s remarkably ambitious lineup featuring 11 masters of Greek, Turkish, Bulgarian, Iranian, Azerbaijani, Arabic, Kurdish and Afghani music traditions. Historically these musical cultures interacted for centuries in their ever-shifting places of origin. In 2018 Toronto it’s possible to see such fruitful musical interactions reflecting the demographic reality on the ground.

Each faculty member will conduct week-long workshops and then perform in four concerts in Toronto throughout May and into June.

Labyrinth Ontario is a made-in-Toronto modal music school founded by an Iranian-Canadian musician, but with roots in an unlikely place (a Mediterranean island), and perhaps an even more unlikely founding father (the English-born Ross Daly who boasts Irish ancestry). Let’s go explore.

Labyrinth Musical Workshop, Crete

Labyrinth Musical Workshop began in 1982 as the brainchild of the Cretan world musician and educator of Irish descent Ross Daly. His first series of Labyrinth workshops took place in 1997 in Athens, Greece.

Daly – a specialist on the music of the Cretan lyra (fiddle) and of the Ottoman court, a participant in intercultural composition before world music became a commercial term, and a composer – originally wanted to establish a space for a creative group of friends. His overall aim was to explore “various modal musical traditions from around the world, as well as of the potential for creative interaction between them.”

In 2002, a permanent base for Labyrinth was established in a restored manor house in the village of Houdetsi on the island of Crete, Greece. There Daly has fine-tuned his workshop model of concentrated weekly music lessons focusing “primarily on the modal musical traditions of the Balkans, Middle East, Central Asia, India, North Africa,” as well as presenting concerts by “outstanding teachers/musicians, the prime representatives of these traditions.”

While leading international musicians and students travel twice a year to Labyrinth’s Cretan village environment, in the last two years Daly’s notion of teaching global modal musical traditions has really caught fire. It has spread across Europe and now jumped the Atlantic to Canada. In 2016 Labyrinth Catalunya was established in Barcelona, and in 2017, Labyrinth Italia in Santa Sofia. This year Labyrinth Cyprus launched, with three modal music seminars which were held April 10 to 15, 2018 in Nicosia, capped with a concert.

Labyrinth Musical Workshop Ontario: Backstory

That brings us to the most recent iteration of the concept, Labyrinth Ontario Musical Workshop in Toronto. And it may be the most ambitious of the Daly-inspired spinoffs, animated by a series of 11 workshops running over four weeks, plus four concerts.

Labyrinth Ontario was on my radar back in September 2017 when I offered a preview in my World Music column, observing that it “focuses on the education of a new generation of musicians – and also audiences.”

Two Toronto-based musicians are at the heart of the project. Virtuoso tar (Persian lute) player and teacher Araz Salek serves as its artistic director and keyboardist and sound designer Jonathan Adjemian as its admin director. Having begun his music career in Iran, Salek has been active as a tar player and leader in Toronto for over a decade in both Persian classical music ensembles as well as in eclectic music circles, such the Persian-flamenco fusion group Persamenco. He performs often in other settings too, in Toronto and on tour internationally, experimenting with new transcultural groupings and various crossroads of classical, experimental and improvised music, seeking out creative musicians in all those areas.

Starting an unorthodox music education and concert series is certainly a risky endeavour, but Salek’s street cred in this arena positions him strongly to kickstart Labyrinth’s presence in Toronto. For example, he has served as an instructor at Daly’s Labyrinth Musical Workshop in Crete and since 2012 has been a core member, with Daly, Pedram Khavarzamini and Kelly Thoma, of the Toronto-Crete quartet This Tale of Ours – a group continuing to be a source of inspiration for Salek. They are all workshop leaders in Labyrinth Ontario’s inaugural season.

I followed the story to the 918 Bathurst Centre. There, on the evening of September 15, 2017, Labyrinth Ontario held its launch and fundraising concert. The event had a warm, mixed-community feel, underscored by the ethnically diverse music and foods on offer covering Persian, Southeastern European, Turkish, Kurdish and Middle Eastern ground. That diversity was reflected in Labyrinth Ontario’s board of directors introduced at the event: Poorya Ferdowsi, Pouria Lotfi, Alia Hamdan O’Brien, Irene Markoff and Rob Simms.

Silk Road and the Spirit of the Extended Modal Family

Simms, associate professor of music at York University, recently posted an essay on Labyrinth Ontario’s website placing its project into a much larger frame. He begins by pointing out that while as recently as 40 years ago “Toronto was thoroughly white-bread, WASP dominated,” today it is “regularly cited as one of the most culturally diverse cities in the world. While this is a wonderful fact and opportunity for those of us who live in the city, it is even more remarkable how recent this came to be.” He continues that while world history “features many previous hotbeds of cultural contact … none of these come close to the complete global integration we now inhabit and that forms the fabric of daily lives” in major global cosmopolitan centres.

Simms then invokes the example of the network of trade routes known as the Silk Road which provide us with “an incredible continuity of musical expression stretching from North Africa, Southern and Eastern Europe, clear across to Central Asia and Western China. This massively extended musical family shares similar social contexts for performance, aesthetics, philosophy, performance practice, instrumentation and musical structures – rhythmic cycles, forms and melodic modes (scales with particular behaviours or personalities).”

Among the various systems of melodic modes which grew up along the Silk Road, one of the most common is the maqam, literally “station, place” in Arabic. “While the underlying musical foundation was shared … a rich array of varying musical traditions flowered, cross-pollinated and withered through the centuries into our own time. Most of the musicians stayed in their particular sonic and social worlds … Until the late 20th century” – which is when Ross Daly enters Simms’ essay. Simms nominates Daly as one of the “early pioneers of exploring the larger maqam family.” Attracted to the lyra tradition of Crete where he has lived for over 40 years, Daly has “established a unique and highly successful series of workshops that brings together master teachers of myriad maqam traditions and keen students from around the world.”

One of the keys to the success of Daly’s Labyrinth Workshops is that they are at the same time informal and highly social yet also intensive and serious in musical focus. In this mix Simms sees the “spirit of the extended modal family tradition throughout history,” echoing Daly’s own ethos: “Labyrinth is more than a musical workshop, it is a way of life through music.”

Labyrinth Ontario’s First Season: Workshops, Concerts and Discussions

Labyrinth Ontario’s first season workshop faculty includes an international roster of leading instrumentalists, singers and composers in their respective genres. They are: Ross Daly (Greece) on modal music composition, Kelly Thoma (Greece) on Cretan lyra, Ali Akbar Moradi (Iran) on Kurdish tanbur, plus American-based Imamyar Hasanov on Azeri kamancha, Tzvetanka Varimezova on Bulgarian singing, and Quraishi on Afghan rabab.

Toronto-area expert practitioners George Sawa on Arabic music theory and qanun, Araz Salek on tar, Bassam Bishara on oud, Pedram Khavarzamini on tombak and Ahmet Ihvani on Turkish bağlama/saz complete this year’s teaching faculty. Interested readers can find bios of each instructor and the dates of instruction on Labyrinth Ontario’s informative website: www.labyrinthontario.com/labyrinth-2018-workshops.

In addition to the workshops, faculty will give a concert each week, and TBA-moderated panel discussions will be open to the public.

The first concert on May 12 features This Tale of Ours, a quartet with members hailing from Canada and Greece, though certainly not musically limited by those nationalities. (The group’s membership – Daly, Thoma, Khavarzamini and Salek – bridges the parent Labyrinth with its newly minted Toronto offspring.) Look to The WholeNote listings and the Labyrinth Ontario website for details on this and the other three concerts.

Each month in this column I chart a few of (what appear to me at the time as) the high points of master musicians from around the world appearing in Toronto and region in concerts, festivals and one-off workshops. From my vantage point it seems Labyrinth Ontario takes this situation to yet another level, focusing our attention intensively – and at an uncompromisingly high artistic level – on a few fascinating and related modal musical cultures.

Borrowing a phrase from Simms’ essay I’m prompted to ask whether Toronto is indeed the “perfect location to carry this amazing, vibrant Eurasian cultural treasure [offered by Labyrinth Ontario] to wherever it is heading in the 21st century.”

It’s too early to give a definitive answer: we’re still weeks away from the final workshop and concert. But the fact that this ambitious project was founded by a person who has emerged from outside Canada’s established cultural elite circles should be a source of pride in the direction we as a community are moving. I will continue to cover Labyrinth Ontario’s progress as it seeks to explore sites of our own Toronto brand of “post-global” music.

Andrew Timar is a Toronto musician and music writer. He can be contacted at worldmusic@thewholenote.com.

It’s still May as I write this, yet in that disconcerting way Mother Nature has in Southern Ontario, hot sticky weather’s already suddenly, shockingly arrived. “Why settle for mere spring when you can have summer?” she seems to be asking rhetorically. It almost feels like an ironic taunt coming after that miserably long winter we just endured. But as surely as the arrival of the humidex, BBQs, picnics, heatwaves and dog days – summer’s here to tarry awhile.

One of the first signs of the official arrival of our outdoor music season is the Luminato Festival. Now in its eighth year, it runs Friday, June 6 through Sunday, June 15. Luminato bills itself as “Toronto‘s international multi-arts festival” which for ten days each June transforms Toronto’s “theatres, parks and public spaces with hundreds of events celebrating theatre, dance, music, literature, food, visual arts, magic, film.” Festival artistic director Jorn Weisbrodt and his team’s ambitious aim is to reflect “Toronto as a crossroads of ideas, cultures and traditions.”

In order to navigate through the dozens of concerts scheduled and to get a firm handle on the urban geography of the downtown David Pecaut Square, I spoke with veteran world music programmer Derek Andrews, Luminato’s music curator. “There are two stages at what we call the Festival Hub, the large Pecaut Stage, and new this year: the smaller Slaight Stage.” In addition, the featured site installation this year will lend a suitably tropical feel to Pecaut Square. Luminato has commissioned Cuba‘s Los Carpinteros to design an ingenious surfside-themed environment titled Cardboard Beach stocked with loungers, umbrellas and lifeguard stations.

“One of our themes this year is a celebration of the performing arts of the Americas with a focus on the Caribbean and Latin America, in anticipation of Toronto’s 2015 Pan American Games,” added Andrews. “Audiences will be able to experience a tropical Toronto, with samples of samba, cumbia, reggae and other funky party music. We have also taken the Festival Hub up a notch with three ticketed attractions, The Roots, TV On The Radio and Ziggy Marley.” I’ll train my spotlight on a few of the world music concerts by both local and international musicians. For more, please see our listings and the well-appointed Luminato website.

The Pan American tropical leitmotif is front and centre on June 6. It’s a triple bill opening with Interactivo, the star Cuban music collective layering jazz, funk, soul and rap atop bed tracks of Afro-Cuban rhythms, melodies and harmonies. Singer-songwriter Emeline Michel “the Queen of Haitian Creole song” highlights the island nation’s rara and compass musical genres. JUNO-Award-winning proponent of nouveau flamenco Jesse Cook shares the late evening stage with the Toronto-based Amanda Martinez, with whom he shares an affinity of influences including flamenco, Mexican and South African music.

June 10 four First Nations’ acts grace The Hub in the exciting program “Northern Lights and Music.” Nick Sherman opens the night at 6pm on the Slaight Stage. His songs, deeply rooted in his Northwestern Ontario experiences, are characterised by an “uneasy, yet always fluid transition between unabashed joy and sorrow.” The JUNO-Award-winning five-piece Toronto band Digging Roots follows, co-led by musical partners Raven Kanatakta and ShoShona Kish. Their genre-blending music has been dubbed “Indie roots,” “global blues” and “Aboriginal alternative.” Best I think to hear them live as they access and layer even more vernacular musical styles including hip-hop and reggae with a very good chance of bluesy undertones.

Buffy Sainte-Marie then takes the Pecaut Stage. Certainly among Canada’s most compelling female singer-songwriters, Sainte-Marie’s impressive career spans some two dozen albums. And her Cree heritage is never far from her voice. Wielding her impressive melodic gifts, incisive lyrics and grippingly expressive vocals, she’s perhaps best known for assaying the glories and tribulations of indigenous people across the Americas. While unflinchingly “speaking truth to power” Sainte-Marie is however never afraid to rock out.

Capping the evening the brilliantly innovative Inuk vocalist Tanya Tagaq and her band perform live music to American filmmaker Robert J. Flaherty’s classic silent film Nanook of the North (1922). While widely considered a groundbreaking documentary film it has in recent decades been contested, viewed as being contaminated by directed dramatic scenes in the “salvage ethnography” genre. Tagaq is celebrated for her concerts with Björk and the Kronos Quartet. On this project she digs into her own Nunavut childhood and subsequent musical creations, along with music by Canadian composer Derek Charke, to challenge and reclaim aspects of Flaherty’s feature film, animating the film’s directed silent set pieces with emotive soundscapes.

Toronto Music Garden: I’ve spent many pleasant summer evenings over the years listening and even on occasion playing at Harbourfront Centre’s cool and colourful Toronto Music Garden. The garden was co-designed in 1999 by cellist Yo-Yo Ma and landscape architect Julie Moir Messervy to reflect Bach’s Suite No.1 for Cello. No doubt about it, though the imaginatively curated (by Tamara Bernstein) free summer-long concert series held there is on an intimate scale, it’s nevertheless a music festival. It is certainly one of Toronto’s perennial musical treasures. This garden by the lake resounds with culturally diverse concerts most Thursdays and Sundays in the summer. Here’s a sampling.

The season opener on July 3 is titled “Kahnekaronnion” (The Waters). Singing in English and Mohawk, the Akwesasne Women Singers share their songs honouring Hodenausaunee women’s experiences, wisdom and humour. The group is joined by Odawa composer and flutist Barbara Croall performing her compositions on traditional cedar flute.

July 6 marks the Toronto debut of the Vancouver based trio Lalun in “Dreams from Andalusia and the Silk Road.” Featuring the eclectic musicality of Liron Man (hang drum, flamenco guitar), Lan Tung (erhu and vocals) and Jonathan Bernard (percussion), Lalun merges their musical voices in an exploration of Spanish, Chinese and other cultural landscapes.

Vocalist Bageshree Vaze and Vineet Vyas (tabla) return to the Music Garden on July 24. In “Music from the Gardens of India” they present Hindustani classical songs with garden themes, including depictions of the iconic love story of Krishna and Radha in the garden of Vrindavan.

August 14 Jayme Stone’s group takes the space under the imposing overarching willow tree. His “Lomax Project” celebrates the work of famed folklorist Alan Lomax (1915-2002) by reviving, recycling and re-imagining the traditional music he recorded and analyzed. Jayme Stone (banjo, voice) is joined by Eli West (voice, guitar, bouzouki), Margaret Glaspy (voice, guitar), Brittany Haas (fiddle, voice) and Greg Garrison (bass).

“Hanabi: Musical Fireworks in the Garden” on August 21 presents garden regulars Nagata Shachu, Toronto’s leading taiko ensemble, in a program inspired by the Japanese word for fireworks. Hanabi combines the kanji characters for “flower” and “fire.” Judging from the sonic power of their drums Nagata Shachu will probably only require a minimal PA.

August 24 the Sarv Ensemble takes the audience on “Seyr-o Safar: A Musical Journey Across Iran.” Joined by virtuoso percussionist Pedram Khavarzamini, the group performs a wide range of folk and classical Persian music in their own arrangements.

Closing the season on September 4 the U.S.-based Veretski Pass Trio, among the world’s most celebrated klezmer ensembles, presents “Jewish Music from the Carpathian Bow.” Their rare repertoire centres on pre-World War II Jewish music from Carpathian Ruthenia, Bessarabia, Ukraine and Romania as well as from the former Ottoman Empire. It’s arranged for accordion, violin, cimbalom, double bass plus other regional traditional instruments, and performed in their compelling virtuoso-raw village style.

TD Sunfest 2014: London, Ontario’s TD Sunfest 2014 celebrates its 20th anniversary as “Canada’s premier free-admission festival of the global arts” from July 3 to July 6. I used to frequent the festival when it was a more modest affair, charmed by its small-town feel. Today TD Sunfest turns downtown London’s Victoria Park into a culturally diverse party where over “35 outstanding world music and jazz groups representing almost every region of the planet entertain on five stages.”

This summer’s headliners include Cuban dance band stars Los Van Van, the “ferocious folk foursome from Manchester, UK” 4Square, and Comas (Ireland/Belgium/USA), a band which bills itself as “a unique blend of traditional Irish music.” Also featured is the Swedish "folk 'appella" quartet Kongero. These four women coax traditional Swedish music out of its rural past, performing it with precision, emotion and humour. Paul White of Soundonsound cheekily quipped that they’re “living proof that Autotune didn’t need to be invented.”

With more than 275 exhibitors and food vendors at TD Sunfest you come for the music and sun, but tarry for the international food, clothes, crafts and camaraderie you find there.

Afrofest 2014: Music Africa presents Afrofest 2014 at Woodbine Park on July 5 and 6, starting at 1pm on both days.

At time of writing the Afrofest programming had not been finalized, but African and Canadian musicians will perform alongside a Children’s Village and African-centric food, artifact and clothing vendors. Visit the Music Africa website for more detailed program information.

May all you wonderful readers have a fun and safe summer filled with comforting as well as challenging sounds from around the world. See you all in the fall.

Andrew Timar is a Toronto musician and music writer. He can be contacted at worldmusic@thewholenote.com.

It’s no secret: right now, among our various cultural sectors troubling signs can readily be found. Stresses, fissures and cracks, intergenerational change and systemic failures – some chronicled elsewhere in this issue – feel as though they are starting to be as common as the wildfires that scourged the globe this past summer.

Here, patrolling The WholeNote world music beat, most months bring a consistent flow of concerts to preview. There’s always too much going on in the GTA to include more than just a sampling in this column for my trusting WholeNote readers. In the extent of its exclusions, this December-January column is no exception.

However, as my deadline rushed ever closer, it initially seemed that something unusual was taking place, namely a large hole in the January World View concert listings. Just as I thought I would have to leave out the first month of 2016 entirely, an announcement surfaced for a late January concert of newly discovered Yiddish music from WWII – with a most intriguing backstory. While that concert is well into 2016 (Happy Lunar New Year, dear reader?!), it is as good a place to start as any.

Lost Yiddish Songs of the USSR: January 27, Svetlana Dvoretsky/Show One Productions present “Yiddish Glory: The Lost Songs of Life and Fate” at the Richmond Hill Centre for the Performing Arts. A mixed ensemble of outstanding Russian, Jewish and Canadian musicians premiere Yiddish songs discovered in Ukraine. Their creation, collection, banning and recent discovery tell a story of resistance and reclamation, describing a wide historical and musicological sweep.

Our compelling story begins during the turbulent late days of World War II when leading Soviet linguists and ethnomusicologists including the eminent Moisei Beregovsky collected and notated the songs of Jewish refugees, Jewish soldiers in the Red Army and Holocaust survivors in Ukraine. Their extensive collection documented these survivors’ defiance of the Third Reich in song. Our narrative takes a dark turn when in 1949 the Soviet government arrested Beregovsky and his colleagues, confiscating and hiding the documents. Researchers had long considered them lost.

We pick up the story a few years ago, in the holdings of the Ukrainian National Library in Kiev. Enter Anna Shternshis, associate professor of Yiddish and Diaspora Studies at the University of Toronto. When she opened the sealed boxes she found a trove of thousands of hand-notated Yiddish songs which had lain unheard for nearly 70 years, until now.

Shternshis worked closely with Psoy Korolenko, the Russian poet, philologist, “avant-bard” singer/songwriter and renowned klezmer performer, to produce performing versions of these songs. Selections will receive their world premiere in “Yiddish Glory: The Lost Songs of Life and Fate” performed by Korolenko, the virtuoso Russian trio Loyko, plus Canadian vocalists including the JUNO Award-winning singer Sophie Milman. Accordionist extraordinaire Alexander Sevastian, award-winning trumpeter David Buchbinder and clarinetist/conductor Shalom Bard round out the international cast. A recording of this music is being produced by Shternshis and Dan Rosenberg.

Going Home Star. February 5 and 6 another musically powered story of suffering, resistance and the ultimate reassertion of personal and cultural identity is being performed, this time at the Sony Centre for the Performing Arts. The critically acclaimed ballet Going Home Star – Truth and Reconciliation has a story by Joseph Boyden, score by Christos Hatzis and choreography by Mark Godden. It explores the all-Canadian story of loss, resistance and reconciliation: that of the Indian residential school system, its survivors and their families.

The ballet’s richly textured, cumulatively powerful music is not just the work of the Canadian veteran composer Hatzis, enthusiastically performed by the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, but also enfolds important contributions of indigenous voices whose communities have been directly and profoundly affected by the Indian residential schools and their aftermath. They include Cree actor Tina Keeper, the boundary-breaking Inuk vocalist Tanya Tagaq, who won last year’s Polaris Prize, pow-wow stars Northern Cree Singers, as well as songs by Steve Wood (Mistikwaskihk Napesis).

I’ve had a chance to listen to the impressive, recently released 2-CD recording of Going Home Star – Truth and Reconciliation. It comes chockablock with Hatzis’ signature inclusions of music in multiple vernacular music genres, as well as acoustic and electronic soundscapes diffused from the studi0-produced digital audio track, in addition to the symphonic core. I found the contribution of North American indigenous voices, however, to be the key to the work’s ethical and aesthetic fabric. These voices are essential texts in the story centred on the suffering imposed on children in Canada’s infamous Indian residential schools. While the narrative contains much pain, loss and suffering, the ballet ends with the possibility of personal and intercultural redemption and reconciliation. It’s an important story for all of us to understand. Witnessing this production is, in my estimation, a fitting way to start a new year.

Quick Picks

 Dec 1 Tanya Tagaq and her band share the stage with Owen Pallett and the guided improvising Element Choir directed by Christine Duncan, at Massey Hall.

 Dec 1 The Toronto-based group Ventanas, featuring Tamar Ilana (vocals, dance) and guest Justin Gray (double bass, bass veena), presents an evening with flamenco, Balkan and Sephardic music at Lula Lounge.

 Dec 2 “Roots of India, Grown in Canada” performed by the all-Canadian pop, folk and Indo-fusion group Autorickshaw at the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre, Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts.

 Dec 3 University of Toronto Faculty of Music presents its World Music Ensembles including the Klezmer Ensemble, Japanese Drumming Ensemble and world music artist-in-residence Pedram Khavarzamini at Walter Hall, Edward Johnson Building.

 Dec 5 “Routes of Andalucia,” at Koerner Hall, features David Buchbinder, trumpet. He leads a group with divas Roula Said and Tamar Ilana plus their “crew of cross-cultural

musicians on a journey into the magic musical realm of ancient Andalucia … where Arabic, Jewish and Gypsy cultures connect.”

 Dec 5 The Aga Khan Museum presents the leading proponent of Indo-Afghan classical vocal music, Ustad Eltaf Hussain Sarahang.

 Dec 12 The Aga Khan Museum presents “Under the Sun,” a concert of “internationally-inflected” jazz performed by musicians from Palestine, Afghanistan and Toronto. Musicians include Jamey Haddad, percussion; Ali Amr, qanun; Salar Nader, tabla; Michael Ward-Bergeman, accordion and Billy Drewes, saxophone.

 Dec 11, 12, 13 The Toronto Consort performs “Christmas at the Monastery of Santa Cruz” at Trinity-St. Paul's Centre in a program of villancicos and Brazilian-influenced dances found in the Monastery’s archives. Žak Ozmo plays the lute and guest directs.

 Dec18 Flutist Ron Korb and Celtic harpist Sharlene Wallace perform a program of Celtic and Christmas favourites, capped by original globally inflected compositions at Pickering Village United Church, Ajax. December 19 they repeat the program at the Maple Grove United Church, Oakville.

 Dec 27 Gary Morgan and PanAmericana! take the Lula Lounge stage with a Latin jazz orchestra in a Christmas-themed concert. Musicians Hilario Duran, Mark Kelso, Paco Luviano, Rick Lazar and Juan Carlos Medrano are featured.

 Feb 5 West coast blues and raga guitarist, singer-songwriter Harry Manx appears in the “Folk Under the Clock” series at the Market Hall Performing Arts Centre in Peterborough.

Andrew Timar is a Toronto musician and music writer. He can be contacted at worldmusic@thewholenote.com.

For almost a decade, Toronto’s Lula Lounge, on Dundas St. West, has been a hub of musical activity, most notably as an informal dining lounge and bar that has served up some of the best in World music over the years. On October 8, Lula’s co-founder and Artistic Director José Ortega was presented the 2010 Roy Thomson Hall Award of Recognition, one of several Toronto Arts Foundation Awards presented at the annual Mayor’s Arts Awards Lunch. The Roy Thomson Award is intended “to recognize creative, performing, administrative, volunteer or philanthropic contributions to Toronto’s musical life.” And who better than Ortega to receive this award – in addition to being Lula’s artistic director, he also overseas its outreach and educational programmes, and has volunteered his expertise in programming to music festivals throughout the city. And he’s also an internationally known visual artist who has donated works to various projects. I asked Ortega to talk a bit about the Lula Lounge, his own artistic life, and the award.

In addition to being co-founder and artistic director of the Lula Lounge, you are also a visual artist. Can you talk a bit about your background in art? I grew up in New Jersey and studied at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. I’ve worked as a commercial illustrator since 1986, doing book covers, posters, postage stamps, packaging, and public art projects for a variety of clients including NYC’s Metro Transit Authority, Macy’s, Absolut, the U.S. Postal Service and the Buckingham Hotel in Manhattan. Since moving to Toronto, I’ve done a lot of design work related to the city’s Latin jazz and salsa scenes: projects like CD covers for David Buchbinder, Hilario Durán and Alexis Baro, as well as many poster designs for Lula. Over the years, my work has been included in group exhibitions both here and in the U.S., and last summer I had a solo show in Seoul, Korea. Over the past four years, I’ve contributed mural designs to our local BIA for large murals in the Dundas West area.

How and when did you come to create what we now know as the Lula Lounge, and who were some of the very first performers? We opened Lula is 2002. At the time, we were working as part of a not-for profit organization called Open City that organized weekend-long community arts festivals. These events had outgrown the private, warehouse space at 2 Federal that we were using. My business partner (José Neives) and I decided to take the plunge and buy a formal venue space. We felt that there was a void in Toronto’s live music scene that we hoped we could fill. It seemed to us that Toronto artists working outside of the mainstreams of North American music needed a high calibre performance space that they could launch new projects in.

Our very first performer was Cuban singer Isaac Delgado. The first local acts included many Canadian artists who have since made names for themselves on the national music scenes. Performers such as Amanda Martinez, Hilario Durán, Eliana Cuevas, Alexis Baro, Luisito Orbegoso. In the early days, we also hosted alternative bands like Metric and Feist; international performers have included Norah Jones, John Cale, the Mahotella Queens, Carl Palmer, Eliades Ochoa, Randy Brecker, El Negro and Ricardo Lemvo to name just a few.

What is your mandate or vision when it comes to programming? Our programming initially focussed on latin jazz and salsa but over the years has grown to include everything from rock to chamber to blues, African, Brazilian and other world music. Partly because of the high quality sound system at Lula as well as our commitment to providing the best performance experience that we can for the artists, we’ve had the pleasure of developing long term relationships with groups like the Gryphon Trio and organizations such as Small World Music and Batuki Music Society as well as individual artists such as Hilario Durán, Roberto Occhipinti, Dominic Mancuso and many many more.

The not for profit that we grew out of has changed it name to Lula Music and Arts Centre. Through that organization we continue to support Afro Latin Brazilian forms as they evolve in a Canadian context. At the same time, we try to build bridges across communities by bringing artists from different cultures together to realize various projects.

At lot of what we do is really facilitating musicians, organizations and presenters in creating their individual projects. These eight years of running Lula have lead us to the realization that in order to have a vibrant music scene, the city needs spaces where artists can realize their own visions, rather than trying to fit into the vision of programmers and venue owners.

Because of our world music programming direction and the quality of the performance experience that we strive for, we are often sought out by international, touring, world and Latin artists. So even on the international level, much of what we present seeks us out, rather than the other way around.

In addition to being a music performance venue, what other projects is the Lula Lounge involved with? Over the past few years, as Lula Music and Arts Centre, we’ve been involved in many projects outside of the walls of Lula. We helped to create the band SalsAfrica – a project that began in 2008 to bring together Latin, African and jazz musicians in order to explore the African roots of salsa. We’ve contributed to programming at Samba on Dundas, Harbourfront’s Ritmo y Color, Salsa on St. Clair and Luminato. Each May, we produce a world music festival called Lulaworld to showcase Canadian world musicians. Lula Music and Arts Centre also runs a very successful programme for high school French, Spanish and music students...

What does it mean to you to have won this award?

Of course, I was personally thrilled to have won the award. But I think that all of the Lula team including many of the musicians and community partners saw the award as recognition of the immense contribution that the Latin, Brazilian, African and other world musicians are making to the cultural vibrancy of Toronto. It feels like affirmation of our early intuition that there was a void in Toronto's musical landscape that needed to be filled. We do need affordable spaces for artists outside of the mainstream to do their thing. The award also seems like confirmation that the health of the city's musical life depends on embracing diversity and providing opportunities for the incredible wealth of talent that has made Toronto its home.

Who/what are some of the “not to be missed” performers/concerts coming up at the Lula Lounge in the coming months?

We're really excited about our new Sunday brunch program. This weekly event is an extension of other family friendly projects that we're working on. The brunches include live Cuban Son by Luis Mario Ochoa's Traditional Quartet. We've got the Roberto Linares Brown Orchestra on December 18th and New York based Gary Morgan is back with his PanAmericana project on December 29th. New concerts get added all the time so please check the schedule at www.lula.ca!

What other projects are you involved with personally, either as a visual artist or in other capacities, ongoing or coming up in the future?

I'm currently working on a "love" stamp for the U.S. Postal service to be released in time for Valentine's Day 2011 as well as on a public art project for the municipality of Guyaquil, Ecuador. Over the next year, I want to work on a documentary about Lula and the artists and communities that make it what it is. Besides continuing to program and do design work for Lula, I'm hoping to find more time to work on my painting. Over the past few years, I haven't had nearly enough time to work on my own art but I hope to change that in 2011.

Some Upcoming World-Music Events

• Luis Mario Ochoa performs at Lula’s Family Sunday Brunch till Dec. 19, noon – 3 pm.

• Pandora’s Box Salon presents Around the World in 80 Minutes, December 5 at the Aurora Cultural Centre, featuring music and dance from India, Egypt, Iran, Bali, Africa, and Europe.

• The Pearl Company presents Celtic band “Rant Maggie Rant,” December 11, 16 Steven St., Hamilton. Traditional Celtic music combined with Latin percussion and Appalachian swing.

• Echo Women’s Choir performs December 12 at Church of the Holy Trinity. In addition to settings of text by Margaret Atwood (from The Year of the Flood), they’ll also sing two South African songs in their original languages, and a composition by co-choir director Alan Gasser (a setting of words by Desmond Tutu), Three Appalachian Love Songs and other works

• Juno Award-winning vocalist Kiran Ahluwalia performs North Indian ghazals and Punjabi folk songs at Koerner Hall, January 22. Opening for her is seven-member instrumental/vocal /dance ensemble Rhythm of Rajasthan.

And, a big congratulations to Toronto’s Klezmer/East European folk band Beyond the Pale for winning the “Instrumental Group of the Year” and “Pushing the Boundaries” awards at the sixth annual Canadian Folk Music Awards held in Winnipeg this November!

Karen Ages can be reached at worldmusic@thewholenote.com.

February on toronto’s cultural and educational landscape has been for years associated with Black History Month (BHM). I don’t however recall commemorating it during my student years at Clinton St. Public School — which by the way is celebrating its 125th anniversary this year — so what’s the scoop here? I decided to snoop into the history of BHM to score some answers.

The seed for what is now widely known as BHM began in the USA in 1926 through the advocacy of the African-American historian, author and journalist Carter G. Woodson (1875-1950), one of the first scholars to study African-American history. It was initially called “Negro History Week.” Designated for the second week in February, it was meant to coincide with the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. Woodson aimed to increase awareness and understanding of the African experience in school curricula, as well as to foster self-reliance and racial respect. By the 1960s communities, as well as various school boards, in the USA began to formally observe BHM, their primary goal being to present a more balanced and accurate history of Africans throughout history.

Toronto, far from being a place exclusively populated by Europeans, has had an African population from its earliest period as a settlement. One early record shows that in July 1843 Toronto Council refused to let a circus perform “without assurances that it would not sing songs or perform acts that would be insulting to ‘the gentlemen of colour’ of the city.” Toronto native William Hubbard (1842–1935), the city’s first elected official of African descent, cut through the raw prejudice of his day to fashion an admirable career of public service over 20 years. His official portrait hangs in the mayor’s office, a tribute to his personal courage and public achievement.

Through the efforts of many, including the Ontario Black History Society, in 1979 Toronto became the first municipality in Canada to proclaim BHM. The act recognized past and present contributions African Canadians made and make to the life of Toronto in many areas including education, medicine, human rights and business, politics, public service and the arts.

Public and private institutions here participate in observing BHM. The Toronto Public Library for example is programming ten such events this year. These include “Drumming with Muhtadi” on Tuesday February 5 at 10am at the York Woods branch where you can “hear the rhythms and learn the history of traditional Caribbean and African drums” in a live performance by the master drummer Muhtadi. The next day at the same branch you can “dance to the beat of your own drum! Make your ... drum to keep and participate in an interactive story” at 4:30pm. Fittingly, the TPL’s logo for Black History Month is a hand on a drum skin, illustrating just how closely the drum is associated with African culture. Keeping with that theme, on February 9 “the king of kalimba,” Toronto’s Njacko Backo, performs at the TPL’s Morningside Branch (no time posted).

The Gladstone Hotel is also marking Black History Month with four concerts; the last on February 22 featuring a significant milestone, the release of Njacko Backo’s tenth album. It includes Mohamad Diaby’s djembe, two different banjos played by Ken Whiteley, Jane Bunnett’s soprano sax, trumpet by Larry Cramer plus support from Kalimba Kalimba.

Perhaps Toronto’s main BHM course is Harbourfront Centre’s “Kuumba Festival.” Swahili for “creativity,” Kuumba has over the years showcased leading local, national and international artists of African heritage. This year for three days, February 1 to 3, the festival offers a smorgasbord of hair fashion, storytelling, oware games, film, dance, food, exhibitions, children’s activities, drum circles and, of course, music concerts. Here are a few picks.

The “10th Anniversary Celebration of The Trane Studio,” the first African-Canadian-owned jazz venue in Toronto for generations, takes place February 2. Owned and managed by writer and programmer Frank Francis, and named after legendary saxophonist John Coltrane, the Bathurst Street jazz club would have turned ten years in February. Sadly for musicians and live music fans it closed last summer; the Harbourfront lineup of local and international acts showcases performers who have supported The Trane Studio including the powerful spoken word artist Ursula Rucker, trumpet player Alexander Brown, multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Waleed Abdulhamid and saxophonist Ernest Dawkins.

February 3 at 4pm one of the treasures of African-American music — gospel — will be featured at the “Kuumba Gospel Lounge.” Billed as “a gospel extravaganza,” the Mount Zion Fellowship Choir, a 30-voice choir with a four-piece band, will share the stage with smaller vocal ensembles and four soloists including singer Karen Jewels and Jermaine Shakespeare, a “recognized worship leader, songwriter and minister of the gospel.” At the same time, unfortunately, Kuumba has scheduled the interesting “Hiplife Showcase.” Kobè from Ghana and Canadian Radio Music Award winner Stevano UGO put faces and voices to hiplife music, the latter a West African fusion of highlife and hip-hop with touches of reggaeton, dancehall and reggae.

One of last year’s Kuumba highlights was Dr. Jay De Soca Prince DJing at Harbourfront’s ice skating rink, a novel Toronto combination of Trini and “skate culture.” Judging from the dense crowd on the rink last year, evidently I was not the only one who thought the idea fun, so Harbourfront is holding it again, on February 2, promising it will be “this winter’s hottest night on ice.” I won’t disagree.

And last on the BHM front, February 15 at the intimate Musideum, Kobe Aquaa-Harrison presents “The Golden Tale of Jungle Bouti,” a program of storytelling and music. Video evidence found on the internet shows Aquaa-Harrison to be a formidable Ghanaian dagaarti gyil (marimba) player; hopefully some of his tasty playing will be on the Musideum menu. All that the slim but enticing online notes say is that the seprewa, a Ghanaian guitar-harp, is featured. Clearly, venturing into the unknown is at the heart of the enterprise, reminding me of the apt subtitle of an 1980s world music cassette: “no risk no fun.”

Elsewhere on the cultural map: The Sony Centre for the Performing Arts re-stakes its claim as the go-to house for national and transnational culturally themed extravaganzas for yet another year. February 9 and 10 “Bharati: The Wonder That Is India” returns for its annual visit filling the hall with spectacle armed with its large cast of acrobats, dancers, musicians and singers, all in glittering costumes. The show has been touring since 2006 doing for the subcontinent what “Riverdance” did for Ireland (and several other shows did for their own nations), managing to reduce a richly varied and perhaps unwieldy cultural landscape down to a manageable masala feast for the ears and eyes. Affirming the mega concept, “Celtic Woman: 2013 North American Tour” graces the Sony Centre stage again on February 23 and 24. This year’s headliners are Chloe Agnew, Lisa Lambe, Susan McFadden and Máiréad Nesbitt. It’s an all-female Irish musical ensemble show conceived and assembled by Sharon Browne and David Downes, a former musical director of the successful Riverdancefranchise. “Celtic Woman”has proven very successful itself since 2004 spinning off 13 themed CDs and seven DVDs as well as continuous international touring. Their PBS HD television special concert taped in 2009 included a 27-member orchestra, the Discovery Gospel choir, 12-member Aontas Choir, ten-member Extreme Rhythm Drummers plus an 11-piece bagpipe ensemble, intimating that sometimes bigger may just be better.

On a much more modest scale Jorge Miguel Flamenco presents “Una Vez, Cada Mes” on February 20 at the Lula Arts Centre. Toronto- based, Spanish Canadian guitarist and composer Jorge Miguel stars in a program of traditional and contemporary flamenco instrumental and vocal music plus dance. Continuing the Latin theme, February 23 the Jubilate Singers choir collaborates with Proyecto Altiplano in a concert called “Vida, Amor y Muerte” at the Grace Church on-the-Hill. The repertoire from Latin America features Violeta Parra’s and Luis Advis’ “Canto Para Una Semilla” made famous via the 1972 album of that name by the renowned Chilean folk band Inti-Illimani, and other songs. Isabel Bernaus and Claudio Saldivia conduct.

February 28 the York University Department of Music presents a Korean program in their World at Noon series, with Jeng Yi, Korean percussion and dance, and Joo Jyumg Kim on kayagum, at theMartin Family Lounge, Accolade East Bldg.

Saturday March 2, the Music Gallery co-presents with the Ashkenaz Foundation a concert by Joel Rubin and Uri Caine dubbed an exploration of “Klezmer’s outer limits and inner space.” American clarinetist Joel Rubin has long been recognized as a leader among North American Jewish klezmorim, his playing hailed by klezmer great Dave Tarras, avant garde composer John Zorn and Nobel Laureate poet Roald Hoffmann. Pianist and composer Uri Caine has played jazz with the older generation masters, as well as gigging with a younger generation (Don Byron, John Zorn, Dave Douglas and Arto Lindsay), recording 22 CDs as a leader along the way. Their joint album “Azoy Tsu Tsveyt” (2011) evokes the sort of exciting fusion spirit that’s found in the best of jazz, as they journey through a repertoire of Old and New World sacred cantorial songs, nigunim and secular klezmer tunes. Combining Jewish musical eclecticism, sheer instrumental virtuosity and elements of improvised music, this concert is sure to appeal to several audiences.

Finally, on February 24, London, Ontario world music producer Sunfest presents Ladysmith Black Mambazo at the Aeolian Hall, London. The group has recorded 40 albums and sold over six million records since being internationally launched on Paul Simon’s Graceland recording in the mid 80s. Mambazo’s album Shaka Zulu (1987) won the Grammy Award for Best Traditional Folk Album. They continue to inspire international audiences with their core message of peace and reconciliation through the power of song. 

Andrew Timar is a Toronto musician and music writer. He can be contacted at worldmusic@thewholenote.com.

What is 12-ET A440 anyway?

Over the course of more than a decade, my WholeNote editor and I have developed a certain ritual around each upcoming article. After we agree on the story that month, it’s usually followed by a conversation on the phone, where I present my take, ask practical questions, and fret about approach and tone. My editor offers editorial guidance, and invariably offers an offhand quip or two in regard to whatever I am fretting about. As lay rituals go, I find it reassuring.

This month’s conversation point revolved around “a truly fret-worthy concern,” as my editor described it – for Labyrinth Ontario, the subject of this story, and all practitioners of modal music. One of LO’s signature concerns around its core concept of “modal music” is the ever-growing bias for “flattening out” traditional regional tunings, some very ancient, and modal-melodic performance practices in favour of the ubiquitous so-called “concert pitch.” That’s the Western-origin A440 pitch, the “settler” in the tuning house, which, given its ubiquity, we may assume has been around for centuries. But no: it was reconfirmed under the name ISO 16 recently as 1975 by the International Organization for Standardization.

Concomitant with it is the older model of 12-tone equal temperament (12-ET), where the octave is theoretically divided into 12 equal intervals. Taken together, this conglomerate-tuning model, with minor deviations, defines the sound of the modern symphony orchestra, its many spinoffs, and nearly all of the world’s commercial vernacular music.

Welcome to the first WholeNote World View column of 2019.

Calendar years are human constructs, as is time itself. Yet as we all learned in Music 101, and as Leonard Bernstein repeated in his 1955 Art of Conducting TV lecture, “music exists in the medium of time.”

As we all know, the familiar Gregorian calendar, in use since 1582, and itself a correction of the earlier Julian calendar – both based on the Earth’s revolution around the Sun – pins January 1 as the very beginning of the year. The more ancient lunar calendar on the other hand is built on the monthly cycles of lunar phases.

Chinese culture has observed both a lunar and a solar calendar for millennia, complex computations resulting in a blended lunisolar calendar which reckons years, months and days according to astronomical phenomena, in 12-yearly cycles. The Chinese lunisolar New Year falls this year on February 5, initiating the Year of the Pig, which in some related Asian zodiacs is represented by its wild cousin the boar. Widely called chunjie (Spring Festival), it technically lasts 15 days in mainland China.

Participants mark the ritual start of a new year by planting crops, feasting, gifting, praying to the gods and the ancestors, and seeking to attract good fortune. Bright red auspicious decorations and lanterns are hung, negative forces are purged, fireworks fill the sky, and much more.

Lunisolar New Years are celebrated not only in mainland China and Taiwan but also widely in East and Southeast Asia and by Chinese and other communities around the world. One estimate pegs the number of participants at a quarter of the world’s population.

In modern China, workers travel home to enjoy reunion dinners and family visits at this time of year. Called chunyun, this roughly 40-day period has been tagged as the world’s largest annual migration. The numbers are truly mindboggling, like many things in China. Over 2.9 billion individual passenger journeys are projected during chunyun this year, well over twice the actual population of the country.

Chinese New Year in the Greater Toronto Area

The Chinese Spring Festival is undoubtedly the most significant community-wide celebration in China and the diaspora. In the GTA it already began in January.

I discussed how the Spring Festival season impacts GTA Chinese musicians, their repertoire and community patronage, in a series of late January messages with Canadian Chinese Orchestra artistic director and conductor Amely Zhou. (She was too busy for a sit-down due to her intensive rehearsal schedule.)

What is the New Year season like for Chinese musicians? Does it result in performing opportunities? “Very much yes… it’s a busy time for all Chinese musicians,” replied Zhou. “Private individuals, businesses and mass entertainment providers like TV stations want live Chinese music to demonstrate their allegiance to their culture of origin at this auspicious time of year.” It’s a significant form of community support for Chinese musicians in the diaspora, as well as for their Chinese instruments and repertoire.

The patronage of Chinese music and affiliated performing arts such as dance and opera are closely tied to GTA and international commercial interests. “These are ultimately linked to the economic strength of today’s China,” added Zhou. It reflects a complex and ever-evolving economic, cultural – and even at times political – dynamic between Canada and China, one which has very recently become significantly more tense.

Canadian Chinese Orchestra

Fête Chinoise at the AGO

A good example of this patronage at work was the Canadian Chinese Orchestra’s first Chinese New Year gig at an event organized by Fête Chinoise, the Markham, Ontario magazine and lifestyle event programming company. Held at the Art Gallery of Ontario on January 26, the event, also called Fête Chinoise, seeks to “empower individuals to deepen the connection between their [Chinese] identity and culture,” through a “curated lens and critical thinking.”

CCO’s repertoire for this event included Festive Overture for Chinese orchestra by veteran Chinese composer Jiping Zhao and the pop instrumental Summer by Japanese film ccomposer Joe Hisaishi, arranged by Malaysian composer Junyi Chow. CCO’s set was, however, only one among many experiences that night. They included fashion, art and design as well as food, drink and stationery that reflected motifs of abundance, opulence, wealth and philanthropy, all significant themes in Chinese New Year celebrations. The sold-out event presented aspirational products and experiences which put a curated, contemporary and urbane spin on ancient Chinese cultural customs.

Chinese New Year Gala 2019 at the Sony Centre

February 4, on the eve of the Year of the Pig, The 6th Chinese New Year Gala 2019 takes over the substantial stage of the Sony Centre, Toronto, produced by Canada National TV, a Chinese-Canadian television station.

The Sony Centre event page describes the event as follows: “Chinese and Western artists will sing and dance, and we will drum the bell to welcome the arrival of 2019. It will be Canada’s largest Chinese Spring Festival Evening by far! … The largest overseas Chinese New Year celebration, [the show] connects millions of viewers at home and abroad… through live television.”

A portion of the ticket sales will benefit a local hospital and the Yee Hong Centre for Geriatric Care. It’s part of a long Chinese tradition of giving back to the community and taking careful care of elders.

The CCO performs a set at the New Year Gala 2019 including Dance of the Golden Snake (1934), a fast-paced orchestral composition by Nie Er, popular during New Year celebrations, drawing on Shanghai region folk melodies and featuring lively percussion. the CCO plays an arrangement of this work by Hong Kong composer and conductor Ng Chiu Shing.

“We’ll also be playing my Chinese orchestra arrangement of Billie Jean, Michael Jackson’s hit 1982 song…just for fun,” added Zhou (with smile emoticon attached).

Why choose to cover a 1982 American pop song on Chinese instruments?

“I wanted to challenge old misconceptions of traditional Chinese music being sad and quiet.” And also, “because everyone [in China] knows Billie Jean … I made the arrangement for the CCO Youth Orchestra tour to China last summer and it was very well received, with audiences clapping and dancing. My drummer was particularly popular with the girls!”

Toronto Chinese Orchestra

City Hall, Pacific Mall

The Toronto Chinese Orchestra (TCO) is the region’s oldest such orchestra. Under music director Patty Chan on the morning of February 4 – the eve of the Year of the Pig – it plays festive music at Toronto City Hall, our region’s civic hub and usually its political epicentre. Then at 10pm the same day the TCO reconvenes at the Pacific Mall playing a late-night set just before New Year. Located on the City of Markham side of Steeles Ave., the three-level Pacific Mall has reigned as the largest Chinese shopping mall in North America since opening its doors in 1997, a popular hub of an explicitly commercial kind. Both free concerts are open to the public.

COC’s World Music Free Noon-Hour Series

February 5 at 12 noon the TCO’s Chamber Players celebrate Chinese New Year in the Canadian Opera Company’s free World Music Series at the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre, Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts. Led by its erhu player Patty Chan, the Chamber Players form the professional core of the TCO, including Kenny Kwan, percussion; Dora Wang, dizi and Wendy Zhou, pipa. Boosting the lower end of the sound spectrum is cellist Jaimie Chan who was recently added to the TCOCP roster.

Their varied program celebrates the Year of the Pig with a mix of traditional and contemporary Chinese music. It continues with Colourful Clouds Chasing the Moon composed by Ren Guang, the traditional Purple Bamboo Tune, Jiang Xianwei’s Journey to Gusu, Lu Wencheng’s Rising Higher Step by Step, and Romance on the Grasslands by Wang Luobin/Patty Chan. The program then concludes with Dance of Yi Tribe by Wang Huiren, Hand in Hand by Su Shi/Patty Chan, and the popular Racing Horses composed by Huang Haihuai.

ROM Gods in My Home: Chinese New Year

The TCO remains active during the New Year season playing public and private events. For example on February 16, 17 and 18, mornings and afternoons at the Royal Ontario Museum, its youth and small ensembles perform ensemble pieces and instrumental solos. They will also offer demonstrations and opportunities for the audiences to try playing selected instruments.

These interactive performances are part of the ROM’s current exhibition Gods in My Home: Chinese New Year. Drawn from the Museum’s permanent collection, the exhibition features a selection of ancestral portrait paintings and deity prints that were an integral part of Lunar New Year observances in Chinese households. Gods in My Home “explores the connections between the domestic, material and spiritual life of Chinese society…during the late Imperial period to the early 20th-century Republic era.”

Plenty of other events

I’ve focused attention on just two Chinese Orchestras in this account of Chinese New Year music in the GTA. Of course there are plenty of other events taking place in Chinese communities throughout the GTA. For example the Chinese Cultural Centre of Greater Toronto holds its signature Year of the Pig Banquet on February 8 at its sprawling Scarborough facility, featuring an evening of community entertainment, many including Chinese music.

Finally, for those seeking musical experiences with a spiritual aim, the Fo Guang Shan Temple of Toronto marks the Chinese New Year with several activities in its Mississauga Mahayana Buddhist temple. In a message from the Venerable Master Hsing Yun, the founder of Fo Guang Shan, the Year of the Pig both symbolizes endings and brand new beginnings. “One homophone for pig is ‘all’ or ‘everything,’ which also represents a good wish for everyone to have a well-rounded and auspicious year.”

From January 26 to February 10, the Temple hosts Chinese New Year Festival activities such as lighting lamps to the Buddhas, sounding the bell of peace, and participating in Dharma services to welcome the New Year.

The Chinese New Year’s Eve Chanting Service is on February 4 starting at 8pm, while the New Year Chanting Service is on February 5 and 10 at 10am. The Temple invites everyone to visit during Chinese New Year. Please see their website for more details.

Perhaps, as the temple suggests, you will be among those fortunate enough to “bring home auspicious blessings and wisdom.”

In this KonMari-fuelled “tidying and purging” era, those are two possessions I wouldn’t mind more of. 

WORLD VIEW QUICK PICKS

FEB 2, 8PM: Lemon Bucket Orkestra and Aline Morales at Koerner Hall, Royal Conservatory of Music. Toronto’s guerilla-punk-Balkan-folk-brass band shares the stage with Aline Morales, the Brazilian-Toronto singer, percussionist and member of KUNÉ – Canada’s Global Orchestra.

FEB 7, 12:30pm: York University Department of Music presents music professor Rob Simms playing a rare concert of tanbur and setar solos in its Faculty Spotlight Series in Room 235, Accolade East Building, York University.

FEB 9, 7:30PM: The “Queen of Klezmer” Alicia Svigals, a founder of the Grammy Award-winning Klezmatics and “the world’s foremost klezmer violinist” takes the stage of the Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing Arts in Kingston, with her band.

FEB 9, 8PM: The Royal Conservatory of Music presents Cuban-Canadian piano giant Hilario Durán and his Latin Jazz Big Band with Horacio “El Negro” Hernández and Sarita Levya’s Rumberos; at Koerner Hall.

FEB 21, 22, 23 AND 24: Tafelmusik restages its moving transcultural Tales of Two Cities: The Leipzig-Damascus Coffee House at Koerner Hall. Maryem Tollar serves as the gracious narrator and vocalist while Tafelmusik guests, Persian percussionist Naghmeh Farahmand and oud specialist Demetri Petsalakis, musically illustrate the Damascus end of the tale. Elisa Citterio conducts from the violin.

FEB 23, 8PM: The powerful Cuban female bolero, canción and son vocalist Yaima Sáez and her group splits the night with Jane Bunnett and Maqueque, her band of deep-groove, early-career Cuban women musicians, at the RBC Theatre, Living Arts Centre, Mississauga.

MAR 3, 1PM: The Royal Conservatory of Music presents Padideh Ahrarnejad, Iranian tar player and member of KUNÉ, performing a free concert (ticket required) with her sextet Partow at Mazzoleni Concert Hall, RCM.

Andrew Timar is a Toronto musician and music writer. He can be contacted at worldmusic@thewholenote.com.

Even before the construction dust had settled in its galleries, the shiny new granite-clad Aga Khan Museum had, in quick order, been touted in many media reports and by our Prime Minister as a key addition to Toronto’s multi/inter/trans-cultural topography. Yes, it has elegant Fumihiko Maki-designed architecture and a world-class collection dedicated to the arts of Muslim civilizations, but it also promises to be a significant music programmer and destination for citizens and tourists alike.

The museum has only been open since September 18 but live music has already animated the impressive spaces within its walls. The AKM’s programming focusses on  Islamic diversity, encompassing and celebrating a vast range of cultural geographies energizing the GTA. In its opening flourish of concerts the museum’s programming also shows itself to be admirably ecumenical, auguring well for the myriad ways cultures interact musically here. 

October 3 at Koerner Hall the AKM marks one of its first co-presentations with The Royal Conservatory of Music – also part of the Small World Music Festival – an evening featuring Indian-Canadian singer Kiran Ahluwalia (her cover story was featured in the September 2014 issue of The WholeNote) and Rizwan-Muazzam Qawwali. The latter is a ten-member Pakistani group, a leading representative of the art of qawwali, Sufi devotional songs accompanied by tabla and harmonium. While the two groups are playing two separate sets in the concert, they will collaborate on one song. This column will undoubtedly revisit the AKM museum’s programs in the future.

The Small World Music Festival: Last issue I focused tightly on one late September concert within the Small World Music Festival, which runs until October 5. The series sets out, in its words, to “capture the world in a ten-day festival.” Here are a few others I’d like to highlight.

October 1 the spotlight falls on the music of North and South India; usually presented individually, they are here combined on the Flato Markham Theatre stage. Zakir Hussain, among the world’s preeminent tabla virtuosi, represents the Northern tradition. He joins veena maestra Jyanthi Kumaresh and violin maestro Kumaresh Rajagopalan, both representing the Southern, or Carnatic, music lineage. Rajagopalan is among India’s leading Carnatic violinists (a standard-issue fiddle but played in an inverted position, sitting on the floor), while Kumaresh performs on the veena, a plucked string instrument with ancient Indian roots. The two traditions have multiple points of divergence in music theory, as well as performance. Therefore it’s always exciting to witness top musicians from each camp issuing musical challenges, because the two parties must inevitably negotiate common ground in terms of pitch, drone tones, tempi and musical repertoire. They must also agree on phrases ending on sum (sam), the downbeat and point of resolution in both rhythm and melody.

October 5 “Cover Me Globally” occupies the intimate Small World Music Centre. The musicians on this particular evening are Drew Gonsalves, the singer-songwriter of Kobo Town; Aviva Chernick, the lead singer of Jaffa Road; Donne Roberts, a member of the African Guitar Summit; and Lisa Patterson, singer-songwriter with ROAM. Each of these Canadian artists embodies musical influences which extend in four different global directions. “Cover Me Globally” sets out to explore what happens when songs cross genre, culture and language. We’ll find out what happens when the “Canadian cultural diaspora … connects through its songwriters.”

Other Picks

NEXUS in the World: October 27 the venerable percussion ensemble NEXUS takes the Walter Hall, University of Toronto stage in a program that also features the Persian vocalist Sepideh Raissadat. NEXUS has from its beginnings incorporated elements of global musics in its diverse concerts and this show is no exception. Founding group member Russell Hartenberger’s percussion ensemble composition, The Invisible Proverb (2002), for example, exhibits substantial African references. Persian composer and setar player Reza Ghassemi’s Persian Songs, arranged by Hartenberger, is sung by Music Faculty doctoral candidate Raissadat, the first female soloist to perform publically in Iran since the 1979 revolution. It is another example of the cultural dialogue encouraged throughout the group’s career. In this case it’s between Persian and North American musical cultures. Twentieth-century modernist and postmodernist classics also have a central place in the core NEXUS repertoire. In this concert they also re-visit Steve Reich’s 1973 luminous minimalist opus Music for Mallet Instruments, Voices & Organ, itself profoundly influenced by the composer’s study of West African ensemble music.

Fado in the City: November 5, presented by The Royal Conservatory in association with Small World Music, singer Ana Moura headlines at Koerner Hall. At the breaking wave of the fado music renaissance, re-interpreting this soul music of Portugal for a new generation of international audiences, Moura typically sings her heartbreaking songs accompanied by a trio of a Portuguese guitar plus two classical guitars. “Even among the new breed of fado singers, which has dared to deviate from a rigid tradition, Ms. Moura is a distinctly worldly superstar,” wrote The New York Times. I couldn’t have said it better.

Polaris Music Prize Trailer: As seasoned concertgoers well know, not many formal music performances last much longer than the usual 90 minutes. That odd hybrid, the music award show, made even more tedious for general music buffs due to long pauses between performances for set changes, TV, and other media breaks, is an exception. Ever the eager reporter for The WholeNote, however, I managed to convince our stern publisher that I should obtain media accreditation for the Polaris Music Prize gala. It was the first time our august magazine was represented at the Polaris.

My story? I was following up on my review of the avant-garde Inuk vocalist Tanya Tagaq’s June 10, 2014 concert at Luminato published on The WholeNote blog. She has performed, toured and recorded with Björk, the Kronos Quartet and the Winnipeg Symphony, but it was her astounding CD Animism that had been short-listed for the Polaris best Canadian album of the year, a surprise to some in the mainstream music industry. Suited up and media pass in hand, I was set to take it all in at The Carlu on the night of September 22. Little did I know how sleep-deprived I was going to be the next day.

Many of you undoubtedly know how the endgame of this grand Cinderella music story unfolded, since it was splashed over the national media the next day. On the other hand much of its musical colour and significance for Canadian music hasn’t filtered through to the media – yet. Fortunately for you, and especially for those who have never heard of the Polaris, your hard-working reporter has the play-by-play, the inside scoop. For a backstage pass to Tanya Tagaq’s jaw-dropping ten-minute performance with her musicians backed up by Element, the Toronto improvising choir of 40 conducted by Christine Duncan, along with her political and provocative comments, I will be covering the story in detail on our blog at thewholenote.com.

Andrew Timar is a Toronto musician and music writer. He can be contacted at worldmusic@thewholenote.com.

In my last column I briefly introduced the new museum in town, one which is positioning itself to be a significant world music venue and curator: the Aga Khan Museum. Having opened its doors only in the third week of September, its inaugural music festival featured the renowned Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble, a group which has collaborated since 2000 with the Aga Khan Music Initiative in concerts elsewhere.

Music is one of the prime “focus areas” of the Aga Khan Development Network, the larger entity behind the museum: the proof is that five groups are being presented in November and four in December. But is the museum really positioned to “become both major cultural destination and player in very short order” as touted by James Adams of The Globe and Mail, or “a vital new addition to Toronto’s cultural landscape” as augured by David Dacks of the Music Gallery?

As I promised, I set out to take a closer look at the AKM and its music programming. I arranged an interview and tour with Amirali Alibhai, the AKM’s head of performing arts and chief architect of its curatorial vision.

I made my trek to the stretch of Don Mills where the museum is sited, north of Eglinton Ave. and between Don Mills Rd. and the D.V.P., on a cool, rainy October weekday afternoon. To a downtowner it may seem “up there” on a mental map, but on an actual map of Toronto, it is not far from the geographic centre of the city. Located on Wynford Dr., the museum is across the street from the notable modernist mid-century Raymond Moriyama-designed Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre where I’ve enjoyed many memorable cultural events, and only a few blocks north and east of the Ontario Science Centre.

Coming face to face for the first time with the imposing white stone-clad AKM building, the new museum on the block’s standards of architectural excellence are self-evident. The 10,000 square-metre building, the design of prize-winning architect Fumihiko Maki, skillfully melds postmodern and Islamic design elements and aesthetics. The monolithic building itself is set in a formal garden within expansive grounds where multiple black infinity pools form a traditional char bagh, a Persian-style four-part garden. The pools evocatively reflected and reframed the rainy Don Mills sky as I walked up to the museum’s dramatic front entrance.

Amir Alibhai led me directly to the 336-seat auditorium, the primary venue for music performances. With teak floors and stage, graced with a high, multifaceted white dome, it’s one of the architectural focal points of the AKM. “It’s an ideal site to present an intimate and powerful experience for audiences,” he says, where they can look forward to “varied and innovative cultural programs throughout the year, including music, dance, theatre, book readings and films.” I haven’t had a chance to hear music there yet but the empty space feels intimate and quiet, an acoustic sound-friendly space, underscored by the lack of air ducts in the hall, with ventilation coming from under the seats.

To ward off the early fall chill we sat down for the interview with invigorating cups of dark hot chocolate strengthened with a shot of espresso. The museum’s small café is right next to a square glassed-in courtyard through which sunlight (and reputedly moonlight) filters through Arabic-inflected mashrabiya patterns etched in the glass. Alibhai has already vetted the courtyard as an alternative performance venue, though with five very hard surfaces it’s undoubtedly a reverberant one. He related that a recent performance of Sufi whirling and its accompanying music “worked very well in the glass-walled courtyard, granting both an effective personal ritual space for the performers, as well as allowing the audience to see the performance thorough the glass walls, if they so wished.”

Prior to moving to Toronto to take his AKM position Alibhai was a 40-year Vancouver resident with an extensive career in arts administration – and significant for readers of The WholeNote, a lifetime background in music. He has worked as an exhibited artist, a curator, educator and facilitator of visual and community-based arts for over 20 years. “I was part of the team that initially developed and ran the Roundhouse Community Arts & Recreation Centre” he said, referring to the innovative arts-centric Yaletown, Vancouver organization whose mission is to “celebrate diversity ... of people, values, ideas and activities.” He has also developed a national perspective, having served on national arts boards such as the Canada Council for the Arts and the Canadian Conference of the Arts. He has clearly had plenty of opportunity during his career to consider the place of the performing arts in public-access spaces. “It may not be obvious to the core identity of the museum that it may also serve as a venue for a series of live concerts and dance performances. But I’m at the table at every curatorial meeting working to closely integrate my programming with planned exhibits,” he says.

The AKM is the first institution in North America “dedicated to the arts of Islamic civilizations.” It’s a goal clearly reflected in the exhibit halls. Visitors can see it in rare and exquisite editions of the Koran, in the sensuous paintings, illustrations, calligraphy, early scientific instruments, sumptuous silk clothing and carpets, as well as 21st-century artworks confronting and reinterpreting the traditions displayed in galleries closer to the entrance.

 Its stated Toronto mission as an oasis of diversity and dialogue is, “to foster a greater understanding and appreciation of the contribution that Islamic civilizations have made to world heritage ... through education, research, and collaboration.”

I ask where live music fits in. “In terms of [our] music programming the vision is to bring the highest calibre of traditional and contemporary performing artists from the broad diaspora of Muslim cultures to audiences. Music is particularly well suited as a creative medium that inherently engages artists and audiences in cross-cultural understanding and dialogue. “

Concerts at the Aga Khan Museum: In an earlier interview AKM educational consultant Patricia Bentley talked about how Islam has always responded to local traditions.” Alibhai’s programming choices to date put that vision into action. In November the five acts over eight concerts demonstrate an even-handed admixture of Canadian, international and local talent, some embedded in the global Islamic community, but also some only peripherally engaged with it.

The series launches November 1 with the show “Memory and Presence of Rumi: Mystic Music of Iran.” Presented by an international group consisting of a quartet of Persian musicians and a dancer, it is co-led by the prominent kamancheh (bowed spiked lute) player and composer Saeed Farajpouri and the Vancouver tar (plucked long-necked lute) master Amir Koushkani. Siavash Kaveh on the frame drum daf, Araz Nayeb Pashayee on the goblet drum tombak and Farzad AJ dancing the whirling Sama round out the ensemble. The concert’s theme is the poetry of Rumi, the great 13th century Sufi mystic. His works and ethos still resonate today across centuries and cultures.

November 8, the focus shifts to a local quartet of singers, but one with an international gaze – Nazar-i Turkwaz (My Turquoise Gaze) – a relatively new collective comprising Brenna MacCrimmon, Maryem Tollar, Sophia Grigoriadis and Jayne Brown. For over 30 years they have individually been collecting and performing traditional repertoire from various regions on or inland from the Mediterranean, in groups such as Maza Meze, Mraya, Doula and Altin Yildiz Orkestra, counting several JUNO nominations along the way. In a Facebook chat with MacCrimmon, in Turkey at the time, she confirmed that “the repertoire is a potpourri of Balkan, Greek, Turkish, [Middle Eastern] and beyond ... with lots of harmony [in our singing].” I don’t want to wait for the album, but plan to enjoy the sweet harmonies live.

The established local group Autorickshaw mount the AKM auditorium stage on November 15. This award-winning genre-bending group is no stranger to these pages. I gave the group’s terrific new album The Humours of Autorickshaw a resoundingly enthusiastic review on July 8, 2014 in The WholeNote. The lineup this night consists of vocalist Suba Sankaran, Dylan Bell (bass/keyboards), Ben Riley (drums), John Gzowski (guitar) and Ed Hanley (tabla). This is the last chance for Toronto audiences to catch Autorickshaw before their trio configuration heads off to India and Nepal on an unprecedented two-month subcontinent-wide tour of ten cities.

Skipping to November 27 and 28, Toronto audiences get another chance to hear one of today’s stars of world music, DakhaBrakha. They are presented with the support of Small World Music. Founded on solid taproots of Ukrainian village songs (and dress), these Kyiv-based performers add musical instruments and vocabularies of other cultures. Moreover they present their songs with the use of popular music microphone techniques, powerfully sung melodies and a theatrical performance art sensibility. It all makes for a striking show, the energy and attitude of which resonates with even those for whom their lyrics are a mystery.

Another performer with a growing international reputation is the Pakistani Sanam Marvi, emerging as an outstanding singer of ghazal, Pakistani folk songs and Sufi music. She gives two concerts on November 29 and 30. Marvi, a student of her father, Fakir Ghulam Rasool, devoted years of study to Sufi poetry and today is recognized as one of the leading singers in that tradition to emerge from the Sindh. Whether singing in Urdu, Sindhi or Saraiki, her aim is to “reach across generations and cultures” with her songs.

December 5 and 6 the Aga Khan Museum presents its first multimedia performance, the world premiere of “Siavash: Stories from the Shah-Nameh.” Written and directed by composer and award-winning sound designer Shahrokh Yadegari, this “page-to-stage” work explores the trials of Prince Siavash as depicted in the Persian epic Shah-Nameh (Book of Kings) through storytelling, music and projected images. Numerous manuscripts of this popular poem written by the Persian poet Ferdowsi between 977 and 1010, and illustrated over centuries, are on permanent rotational display at the museum. The cast of Siavash features Gordafarid as the naqal (narrator), Siamak Shajarian (vocalist) and Keyavash Nourai (violin, cello, kamancheh). This world premiere music theatre work neatly aims to bring centuries-old manuscripts alive on stage.

Andrew Timar is a Toronto musician and music writer. He can be contacted at worldmusic@thewholenote.com.

This year’s summer weather has drifted gracefully on right to the end of September. While some 2,500 years ago the Greek physicist-philosopher Parmenides argued that “nature abhors a vacuum,” it also surely needs a rest. Or is September slowly becoming another August in our corner of the concert world?

Whether or not it’s because the seasons themselves are shifting and smearing established concert-going cycles, the warm September we have just experienced was oddly reminiscent of the rest of the summer music break. Several series of concerts with a world music component, and a hint of summer to them, are commencing in late September or even October. These include the Small World Music Festival, Music Gallery’s X Avant Festival, and concerts at Massey Hall, the Aga Khan Museum and the always well-attended noon-hour shows at the COC’s Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre. And Kingston, Ontario’s new jewel of a venue, the Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing Arts, launches the premiere concert of its Global Salon Series this month. Welcome aboard!

Ukrainian Bandurist Chorus: Before I touch on a few of those concerts however, and departing from my usual chronological presentation, I would like to explore the fascinating story of the Ukrainian Bandurist Chorus. On October 24 it is presenting “Celebrating the Bandura: Past, Present and Future” at Massey Hall with Ruslana, its Ukrainian guest star. The UBC is an American-Canadian group with a history spanning two continents, but it also has a strong local membership.

Ukrainian Canadians are a significant presence in this country. They are the ninth-largest ethnic group, representing the world’s third-largest Ukrainian population after that of Ukraine and Russia. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukraine became an independent state in 1991. Canada swiftly recognized it, the first country to do so. Strong bilateral ties, as many readers will know,  have characterized the relationship ever since. Fewer, however, may realize that the first of these cultural links was forged generations ago.

The Detroit-based Ukrainian Bandurist Chorus’ website states that the “first professional bandurist chorus was formed in Kyiv in 1918 during the height of the country’s brief period of independence.” It was during the subsequent 1920s, a transformative period of Ukrainian national awakening, that language, culture, and specifically the UBC, “developed into a professional touring troupe,” among the most prominent of its kind.

By the next decade, however, the UBC narrative quickly turns very dark. Under Soviet leader “Joseph Stalin’s rule, artists and intellectuals were arrested, exiled or executed in an attempt to eradicate every remnant of Ukrainian culture,” states the website. “Many conductors, chorus members and blind bandurist-minstrels were accused of enticing the populace to nationalism and were executed ... their songs banned throughout the Soviet Union.”

But perhaps I’ve gotten ahead of myself here. What is a bandura, and how does its Ukrainian history tie into the group that will perform in October at Massey Hall? Ray (Roman) Beley and Orest Sklierenko, both veteran Toronto members of the UBC, helped me understand a few key notions. We spoke via a conference call on September 14.

The bandura, a kind of large-bellied lute with features of a zither, is a “multi-string plucked instrument, the voice and soul of Ukraine,” noted Beley. From all I’ve heard and read, the bandura is much more than a mere musical instrument; it symbolically embodies Ukrainian national identity, its songs reflecting the turbulent history of the Ukrainian people.

Pre-20th-century folk banduras usually had fewer than two dozen strings in diatonic tunings. Typically handmade by the musicians, no two banduras were exactly the same. The oral tradition bandurist (a.k.a. kobzar) was a troubadour who sang a wide-ranging repertoire of para-liturgical chants (kanty), psalms, social dances and epics (dumy) accompanying himself on the bandura. On the other hand the more recent Kyiv or Kharkiv style bandura, played in ensembles today, is a grander affair. It possesses 65 or more strings, some with levers enabling the bandurist to change keys during the performance. (There’s a strong GTA connection here too. I was intrigued to learn that among the leading contemporary bandura designers and makers is the Oshawa native Bill Vetzal.)

Beley picks up the story. “After years of exploitation and persecution under Soviet and Nazi regimes, in 1949 some 17 members of the all-male Ukrainian Bandurist Chorus immigrated to the United States.” Many established a home base in Detroit and Cleveland, where they continued to perform the UBC repertoire of four-part songs – tenor I, tenor II, baritone, bass – accompanied by banduras in several ranges.

“In North America, the UBC carried the torch for songs with lyrics that were banned under Soviet rule,” continued Sklierenko. “We carried on Ukrainian historical and religious traditions free of the censorship that made it impossible in the homeland at the time.” An active member of UBC since 1990 when he was just 13, Sklierenko pointed out that Canadians of Ukrainian descent have played key and very early roles in the group, “perhaps ever since the Chorus’ first Toronto performance on October 22, 1949.”

The UBC “has performed in Massey Hall several times since the 1950s,” added Sklierenko, so the upcoming 97th anniversary concert on October 24 is somewhat of a homecoming – with a special twist. Joining the Chorus on stage will be Ruslana, the 2004 Eurovision Song Contest and World Music Awards winner, an artist who can boast the best selling Ukrainian album ever, the 2003 Dyki Tantsi (Wild Dances). This remarkable singer, songwriter, producer, musical conductor and dancer also served as a deputy in the Ukrainian parliament and is an internationally recognized social activist. In 2013 and 2014 she played a prominent role in the pro-EU Euromaidan movement. Beley, a current bass bandura player with UBC, told me that Ruslana “will perform her pop hits at Massey Hall before joining forces with us in Ukrainian songs in our repertoire.”

In previous columns I’ve written about several other Toronto ensembles with proud Ukrainian roots. The activist community-minded women’s Kosa Kolektiv, and the self-proclaimed “Balkan-klezmer-gypsy-party-punk-super-band” Lemon Bucket Orkestra, presently winding up its international tour, come readily to mind. Sklierenko knows them well. “Playing a core role in community building and also on an official international level, the UBC represents the Ukrainian diaspora in Canada and in the U.S.A. In addition we are eager to reach out to both bandurist and non-bandurist groups like Kosa and Lemon Bucket. I see great potential for synergy here.”

I asked why the bandurist choruses are all male. Were they consciously modelling themselves on the practices of the earlier, exclusively male, kobzar troubadours? “Interest among Ukrainian women in taking part in the bandurist tradition has been steadily building,” noted Sklierenko. “In fact there’s an all-women’s North American bandurist chorus being formed right now.”

As co-chair of the UBC’s 2018 centennial anniversary celebrations, Sklierenko laid out the group’s ambitious three-part plan to reconnect with the homeland and to ensure the continuation of the bandurist legacy. These include “a Ukrainian tour, a fund to fuel R&D and to pass on the craft of bandura building, and an educational component including workshops.” The latter category also includes support for UBC’s summer camps in Pennsylvania, since 1979 the central site for passing on bandurist traditions and recruiting new talent. Partly reflecting the success of the camps, today the majority of UBC members are second and third generation Americans and Canadians, all of them volunteering their time to further the mission of the ensemble.

The evidence of the UBC’s plans, and of the passion and commitment to pursue them, all points to the bandurist performance legacy, sparked nearly a century ago in Ukraine, surviving well-rooted in the diaspora. The legacy also appears well-positioned to be passed on to future generations of performers in both North Americans as well as in its threatened land of origin.

Small World Music Festival: The 14th annual iteration of Small World’s signature fall Music Festival runs until October 4 this year. Its ambition is no less than to “capture the world in a ten-day festival.” This year it brings international and Canadian performers representing music from Mali, Korea, Cuba, Ethiopia, Palestine, Spain and Estonia to Toronto stages.

October 1 at Revival Bar, Vieux Farka Touré and his band makes a return Toronto visit presented in association with Batuki Music Society. Touré is best known for his virtuoso guitar style blending African guitar techniques with Western blues and rock, and an easygoing onstage charm. There’s a family touring connection to this town. I well recall seeing his Malian father Ali Farka Touré lay down seamless guitar grooves and plangent vocals accompanied by a lone gourd drummer one summer in a small open room at the Harbourfront Centre.

October 2 the emerging Estonian singer and violinist Maarja Nuut appears at the Small World Music Centre. She repurposes old Estonian village songs, dance tunes and stories, often to live looped fiddle accompaniment and solo improv melodies. Nuut’s music cumulatively builds with a minimalist texture, one which can support emotional intensity, yet never losing sight of what the composer calls a peaceful, yet “lively relaxed state which … makes you want to prolong being in the moment and concentrate.”

October 4 the Krar Collective will rock Lula Lounge, the trio armed with a krar (six-stringed bowl-shaped Ethiopian lyre), kebero (drums) and impressive vocals. Judging from their videos, they’re purveyors of sold grooves, expressive melismatic melodies and a huge sound. Bandleader Temesgen Zeleke uses an octave pedal as well as wah-wah on his electric krar but also plays an acoustic five-string model that is quieter and plucked rather than strummed, to support his eloquent vocals. The Krar Collective is a musically compelling, neo-traditional band taking traditional instruments, songs and genres, combining them into a new mode of delivery for their audiences. NB: for full enjoyment, come ready to dance.

End of an era, and passing it on: On October 1, the York University Department of Music presents “Faculty Concert Series: Rhythms of India” featuring Trichy Sankaran with the Autorickshaw trio at the Tribute Communities Recital Hall. After 44 years of service at York, where he has taught generations of students, me included, Professor Sankaran has recently retired – from teaching at York, not from performing or teaching elsewhere. This concert is his parting gift to the institution he served so long. He will share the stage with the next generation, including his daughter, vocalist Suba Sankaran, co-leader of the JUNO-nominated Indo-jazz-funk fusion ensemble Autorickshaw and her bandmates, bass guitarist Dylan Bell and tabla player Ed Hanley, Sankaran students all. The musicians will perform solo and ensemble works by the master percussionist and composer. I invite all whose life has been touched by this outstanding musician – and there have been many from around the world – to attend this once-in-a-lifetime celebration. 

Andrew Timar is a Toronto musician and music writer. He can be contacted at worldmusic@thewholenote.com.

This month I have two tales to tell of musical diversity in this city:  a tale of two presenters. One is of beginnings and continuity, while the other of (perhaps temporary) endings. Each story has a different focus, yet they run parallel in their organizers’ mission of service to our city’s heterogeneous communities of musicians sounding the music of the world’s peoples and in their sincere dedication to serve globally curious listeners.

One door closes: The first story began early in March 2016 when I read Donald Quan’s post on his “Musideum Performers & Supporters” Facebook group page. I’ve often written about what happens at Musideum - A World of Musical Instruments in these pages. Quan opened its doors in late 2007. He summed  up his retail music store enterprise as a “look at music through the eyes of [ethnically diverse] musical instruments.” He explained the name is an amalgam of three concepts: museum, music and deum. Inspired by his own challenging life journey over the past six years, he then morphed the Musideum into a special live concert room, inspired by an inclusive vision in which “everyone, regardless of their beliefs, religion, age or what part of the world they are from, can truly love one another and coexist in peace simply by speaking the magical language of music.” And he’s kept the place buzzing until today.

For those unfamiliar with its activities, Musideum has been a unique fixture in Toronto’s music scene. It serves as a retail world-music instrument store by day. By night, starting about five years ago, it’s been the venue for a very dense schedule of concerts in its intimate living room-like space - that’s if your living room was chock-a-block with working instruments from around the world.

It’s also the only store I can recall where John Cage’s seminal score 4’33” was on prominent display, not as a prop but as a potent symbol of musical diversity – and merchandise.

John Terauds put his fingers on the special mojo of Musideum in a May 24, 2008, article The Star. “One customer was so inspired by the movie Kill Bill that he had to go out and get himself a Chinese bamboo flute. Until now, finding an ethnic folk instrument from a culture not one’s own […was quite problematic]. But the mix of world cultures in Toronto has finally reached a point where an enterprising local musician thinks it worthwhile to open a store that offers musical instruments from several cultures from around the globe.”

Quan’s recent Facebook announcement, however, signalled a fundamental change in direction: “As I am extending my personal hiatus until late 2016, I am sad to announce that Musideum will be closing its doors as a store and venue at 401 Richmond on April 2, 2016. The Musideum name will live on and will be parked until a new opportunity arises. It will reawaken when the time is right.”

The Toronto-born Quan, a musician and multiple award-winning composer of hundreds of television, film, radio and multimedia productions, stated that he needed to “take a well-deserved break, travel to see family, rest [his] weary brain and formulate some new and exciting projects for perhaps late in the year.” He continued that although the impetus for this “change was mostly for health reasons, it is also [because of] the need to watch my kids grow up and to spend more time with family and friends. I also need a few months dedicated to practising to get my playing up to where I was before the [2007] stroke.”

Musideum will be sorely missed. From the earliest days, Quan has thrown its doors open across numerous musical genres that thread through the city. I counted over 20 active Facebook pages he set up with straightforward names like “Musideum Invites Indigenous Music.” (Long a contributor to the Canadian Aboriginal music scene, Quan was honoured in 2007 with the Music Industry Award at the Ninth Annual Canadian Aboriginal Music Awards.)

Other communities were encouraged to participate too on their own Facebook pages. “Musideum Invites Indian, South Asian Music,” “Musideum Invites Experimental/Improvised/New Music,” “Musideum Invites Singer-Songwriters” and “Musideum Invites World” are just a few examples of his global embrace. These pages collectively garnered thousands of “likes.”

Within a week of his announcement to close, Quan reached out to community musicians, again on social media, to help in programming six concerts during the second half of March. Or as he put it, “to squeeze some final concerts in before Musideum closes up shop.” True to form, each show had a different genre focus. I was invited too, and that’s how I found myself on the pocket-sized stage playing Indonesian suling (bamboo ring flute) with Iranian drummer Naghmeh Farahmand and cavaquinho player Nuno Cristo on the designated World Music night, Thursday, March 17. About 14 other Toronto musicians took their turns too, including flutist Ron Korb, recently nominated for Best New Age Album at the 2016 Grammy Awards.

Fittingly, Quan served as MC. He spoke passionately about his dream space where he had tirelessly programmed well over 1,600 concerts in the last five-or-so years. Given that pace, and the fact that Musideum has been a hands-on manifestation of one man’s passion, it’s no wonder he needs an extended break.

Though closing his store/venue was “one of the most difficult decisions in my life to make,” Quan nevertheless views it as a “decision that heralds a new positive, healthful, personal and creative direction for me.” As a parting gift to the larger Musideum community of musicians and store customers, he has announced a “special inventory sale” for performers on April 3 and for the public on April 4.

I already miss Musideum. I, for one, will treat Quan’s wish to “awaken [the space] when the time is right” as a promise, not just a hope.

Another door opens: From April 6 to May 29, in some 14 staged concerts and many more events at several venues across the GTA,  Small World Music presents its 14th Asian Music Series, with the financial support of the TD Bank and in partnership with an array of other presenters. Fittingly, this year the series marks Asian and South Asian Heritage Month.

This year’s AMS program features “a strong female presence, with two of the most significant artists in South Asian music - Anoushka Shankar and Abida Parveen - performing.” As well as Indian and hybrid Indian music on stage, GTA audiences will also have the opportunity to witness leading performers of Japanese, Chinese, Pakistani and Iranian music, along with Latin, ethnic chaos and “telematic music.” The latter is described on the Small World Music website as “live performance via the internet by musicians in different geographic locations, celebrating the notion of a smaller world.”

In a bid to reach core audiences, AMS concerts take place at venues big and small, in and out of town. Roy Thomson Hall and Koerner Hall alternate with the Flato Markham Theatre, Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre, Aga Khan Museum Auditorium and Lula Lounge. The charming, intimate Small World Music Centre holds down home base.

New this year, Small World Music Society executive director Alan Davis and his team have cooked up an intriguing way to bundle concerts for audiences. These curated concert sets are conveniently tagged City, Fusion, Soul, Global, Classical and Legends. Those buying into a set of concerts also receive additional coupons for South-Asian themed self-improvement activities such as yoga, tabla or bansuri lessons, in addition to more typical bundle benefits of a coupon (e.g. admission to the Royal Ontario Museum) and of course discounted prices. It’s an interesting way to systematically extend the tools of partnership, a presentational and marketing skill that Davis and Small World has honed to a keen edge over the years. It is perhaps a key ingredient in the company’s success, a success which in turn enriches our entire community. It echoes a central aspect of Small World’s mission: “to promote understanding between cultures.”

Equitably reflecting such a sprawling mosaic of concerts is certainly beyond my means here. Probably the best tack is to put the spotlight on a select few April AMS concerts, leaving the later May shows to the next issue of The WholeNote.

April 6 AMS launches with a Koerner Hall presentation of the reigning diva of the world music sitar, Anoushka Shankar. About eight years ago, I reviewed her last appearance there with her late father, Ravi Shankar, for readers of this magazine. She has emerged since with increasing assurance not only as a sitar player, but also as as a composer in her own right, and as a collaborator with djs, dancers, flamenco musicians and singers and with Western orchestras. In her commercially successful albums, she has explored the interstices between Hindustani music and other genres, plus paying musical tribute to her father’s vast legacy. Her fourth album, Land of Gold, is slated to be released just days before the concert, so I have no details to share of it yet. I am, however, sure that the audience will hear Shankar and her accompanists featuring music from the new album.

The next day on April 7 the venue switches to the Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre which presents a concert titled “Tsumugu.” Featuring Japanese musicians, Keita Kanazashi, Anna Sato and Chie Hanawa, it’s a mixed program: folk songs from Amami Island along with  “bluesy” Tsugaru shamisen of Aomori prefecture, and coming to a thunderous climax with taiko drumming aimed to evoke the Japanese spirit.

Saturday April 9 Wu Man and the Shanghai Quartet take the stage of the Flato Markham Theatre, just north of Highway 7. That’s unfortunately well beyond the reach of the TTC for those who love “The Better Way,” but judging from pipa virtuosa Wu Man’s moving performance last year with the Silk Road Ensemble at Massey Hall, it’s a journey this downtown music lover will want to make. Presented in association with Flato Markham Theatre, the concert headlines Wu Man; abundantly gifted as a musician she has been called a “force of nature” by Gramophone magazine. Dusted magazine also praised her performance, describing it as deftly combining “earthly energy and celestial delight.” Her masterful musicianship has also inspired several composers, including Terry Riley and Tan Dun. The Shanghai Quartet, among today’s leading string quartets, will join Wu Man in a program of music composed or arranged by Chinese musicians called “A Night in Ancient and New China.” Perhaps I’ll see you there.

Our last peek into the Asian Music Series this issue: Indian master sitarist Shujaat Khan and Toronto vocalist Ramneek Singh take us deep into North Indian cultural poetics and centuries-old mystical traditions. Presented by Aga Khan Museum on April 29, the double bill concert, titled “Reflections on Kabir and Khusrau,” is presented in the museum’s Great Poets Series. Kabir was an important fifteenth-century Indian mystic, poet and saint. Amīr Khusrau (or Khusraw, CE 1253–1325) of Delhi was a Sufi musician and is often regarded as the father of Qawwali. His contributions to the advancement of poetry and music were immense and place him at the heart of the cultural history of the Indian subcontinent. In music, Khusraw is credited with the introduction of Persian, Arabic and Turkish elements into Hindustani classical music, as well as with originating khayal and tarana forms, features still central to the music today. It’s a pretty safe bet we will hear vivid performances in both forms by Shujaat Khan and Ramneek Singh.

From Anoushka Shankar, one of the newest and most syncretistic voices in Hindustani music today, we get to sonically travel to one of the tradition’s oldest innovators, represented by Khusraw - all in the space of one Toronto festival!

Like Donald Quan’s Musideum, that’s some story too!

Andrew Timar is a Toronto musician and music writer. He can be contacted at worldmusic@thewholenote.com

This summer column focuses on an ensemble so new that at press time it hasn’t played a single concert, and yet with concerts already booked into next year!

The New Canadian Global Music Orchestra (we’ll call it NCGMO for short) was formed in late 2016 and gives its debut concert at Koerner Hall on June 2, after rehearsing and composing music for months. The orchestra includes 12 professional musicians each hailing from a different country, “from Peru to Burkina Faso to Cuba to Ukraine,” but who currently make their homes in the Toronto and Montreal areas. Then it goes on tour in the summer and fall.

Conceived by Mervon Mehta, executive director of Performing Arts at the Royal Conservatory, and hosted by the RCM, the NCGMO is, in the words of its host, “a major initiative by the RCM which celebrates the cultural diversity and pluralism of our great country as it turns 150, connecting us and communicating in ways that words, politicians and spiritual leaders cannot, and helping us to find a common language.”

To helm this ambitious undertaking, the RCM picked JUNO Award-winning trumpeter, composer and bandleader David Buchbinder as NCGMO’s artistic director. Buchbinder’s career bristles with varied performance and intercultural projects, on both large and small scales. Initially he was known for his music groups, such as the Flying Bulgars, Nomadica and Odessa/Havana, and as the founding artistic director (1995) of the flourishing Ashkenaz Festival. He has subsequently produced the shows Shurum Burum Jazz Circus, Andalucia to Toronto, Tumbling into Light and Jerusalem Salon, as well as award-winning scores for stage and screen.

He was also the founder, in 2010 of Diasporic Genius, founded on the premise that new hybrids can emerge from dramatically different musical traditions and art forms in a city like Toronto. The organization seeks to interweave communities and art forms that are typically estranged, to bring about personal and civic transformation, embodying in action “the notion of strength through diversity.”

All this activity has earned him a reputation as a leading figure in the Canadian world music and jazz scenes. In 2016 Buchbinder was recognised as a “cultural inventor” when he was presented with the Toronto Arts Council William Kilbourn Award for “artistic contributions to creative city building.” 

In NCGMO’s official video trailer, Mervon Mehta lays out an ambitious, aspirational roadmap for the project. “We’re going deeper into a holistic [conception] of musical form rather than a fusion of musical styles. This is just what we need right now. We need to show people that, yes, we can work together and form a new entity with people from around the world.”

Buchbinder in the same trailer, as an experienced intercultural music director, is a bit more cautious, but just a bit: “It’s always a bit of a fool’s game to claim you’re doing something in music that’s never been done before – because it’s all been done in a way – but doing a process just like this is pretty rare.” He then proposes two initial roadblocks to success: “First of all, how do you make all these instruments work together? Second…how do you get them to speak to each other?”

Good questions and, without missing a beat, he offers solutions. “Well, you don’t try to make all the traditions directly speak to each other,” he says. Their approach, he explains, is to have the ensemble’s music filtered through each of the individual composers in the ensemble. “My gig” he says “is to coordinate things so that the band has a [cohesive] sound.”

Having explored the ever-changing subject of when and when not to attempt to bridge the boundaries of different music cultures from many angles in this column, I personally recognize and applaud the general goodwill and Canadian multiculturalism at work here. On the other hand, even before its premiere concert, NCGMO has prompted healthy dialogue on social media from invested performers in this field, based on media releases and video trailers. One commentator challenged the notion of “composing” for this combination of global instruments, suggesting a privileging of European orchestral culture at work. How will the compositions produced share credit with those whose cultures include a large proportion of improvisation, or those that interpret melody or structure without an externally imposed roadmap? Furthermore, will the differences between urban and high art cultures vs. rural and vernacular traditions be addressed?

Another concern raised: if you want to work as a single orchestra, compromise is necessary – but whose standard/s will govern? And how will writing music on staff notation as a modus operandi impact on the musicians in the group not fluent in it, or for whom such notation does not work for their instrument or performance tradition? And what happens in terms of the potential watering down and glossing over of the individual musical traditions represented, including those with tunings, tonal modes, idioms and performance contexts which diverge from those commonly practised by more dominant cultures? Furthermore, will some instruments lose things inherent to their cultural and musical identity when subsumed within an ensemble such as this?

Concerns such as these underline how complex and sensitive such a project is, and why it has rarely been tried on this scale. All the more reason, perhaps, for undertaking it as a crucible for their exploration.

Returning to Buchbinder’s initial observation about nothing ever being entirely new, self-avowed transcultural acoustic ensemble musicking – the kind NCGMO does – already has roots in this country and elsewhere. A ready example is the Vancouver Inter-Cultural Orchestra. Founded in 2001, it is going strong today. Before it, both the Vancouver World Music Collective and the ASZA acoustic quartet flourished in the 1990s, encouraging the appetite for hybrid music in the region. And I’d be remiss if I didn’t also mention Yo-Yo Ma’s pioneering, Grammy Award-winning Silk Road Ensemble here. Formed in 2000, it claims performers and composers from more than 20 countries. (The group, which set the bar high for cross-cultural understanding and innovation, was featured in my article Silk Road Stories: Spinning a Musical Web in The WholeNote in September 2015.)

Over the course of the last few months, NCGMO members have shared their music traditions with one another in rehearsals, composition sessions and workshops. I arranged to speak with Buchbinder in person, now that things are moving towards their first performance, about what it has taken to reach this point.

“Selecting the participant musicians was a lengthy process, one which involved a large number of potential candidates. The NCGMO audition call went out last fall. We had three rounds of auditions with more than 100 Canadian musicians, originally from 47 countries, applying to be in the orchestra, ending up with the 12 musicians we have today.”

What were the criteria used to choose the musicians? “We wanted to spread the music traditions represented as widely as possible round the globe,” replied Buchbinder. “We were also looking for musicians with a wide range of musical experience, open minds, and playing at a high and exciting level of musicianship.”

In the end, the chosen musicians include some who are established on the local world music, scene such as sitarist Anwar Khurshid, who also plays flute, esraj, tabla and harmonium, and Brazilian percussionist and vocalist Aline Morales. But it’s only by seeing the complete personnel list, however, that we can get an impression of NCGMO’s aspirational global reach: Luis Deniz (saxophone), Lasso Salif Sanou (Fulani flute, kambélé n’goni, tamanin, balafon, djembe, doum-doum, vocals), Paco Luviano (bass), Demetrios Petsalakis (oud, guitar, lyra, bouzouki, riq, Greek baglama), Padideh Ahrarnejad (tar), Sasha Boychouk (woodwinds, ethnic Ukrainian flutes), Alyssa Delbaere-Sawchuk (Métis fiddling, jaw harp, spoons, vocals); Matias Recharte (drums, percussion, cajón, conga, timbales); and, rounding out the Asian branch of the orchestra, Dorjee Tsering (dranyen, flute, piwang, yang chin, Tibetan vocals) and Dora Wang (bamboo flute, flute, hulusi, xiao, panpipe, ocarina).

I asked him about the biggest challenges of the process so far. “Creating a cohesive ensemble where musicians can connect on cultural and musical common ground,” he said. “Beginning with meetings at the end of last year, we began rehearsals in earnest in January of 2017. We used group-building exercises I’ve developed over the years including a language game.”

(We can see Buchbinder briefly conducting one of these games in the video trailer I mentioned earlier.)

There have been three phases to the group’s ongoing development, he says. “The first includes group building, creating a common language, exploring musical ideas. The second focuses on composition, since most of these performers hadn’t experienced working in this sort of environment, and exploring ways of approaching intercultural musical development. The third involves holding intensive rehearsals and then shaping the works each composer/musician developed. Each member of the group worked on a musical idea; most of the ideas were then arranged by me.”

I asked him how how they had negotiated the issue of notation, which could potentially conflict with the multiple oral traditions represented within the group.

“I was a bit surprised to find that eight of the twelve read Western staff notation well. Notation gives us the opportunity to specify musical intention [and to record it for performance]. Given the limitations of rehearsal time, in this phase of our work we’ve created charts on paper that serve as blueprints for performance. The big challenge is how to have a musical meeting in every piece, allowing each musician’s voice to emerge from among the ensemble – a process which includes adaptation and making space [for the individual within the collective].”

“After all, the notes are only a starting place. I think of the ideal texture as cultural heterophony, where everyone gets to perform with their own accent. The process of defining each musician’s voice is actually happening on two levels. On one level each composition is one person’s own; on the other each other person is putting their own shimmer on it.”

What about future directions for NCGMO? “One of our members, Alyssa [Delbaere-Sawchuk], is Indigenous, and that’s something I want to explore further. One of the essentials of cross-cultural creation is the idea of specificity, of individual identity. I completely believe in the power of intercultural creations, and it is powered by individual stories.”

The emergence of NCGMO signals a growing general societal awareness around embracing musical multiplicity. It also signals the recognition by an elite music organization, focused in the past almost exclusively on Euro-American music, of the reality of changing Canadian demographics and music markets, and the responsibility to broaden its musical landscape.

On the Road

After NCGMO’s inaugural June 2 performance on its RCM home turf, the show goes on the road. On June 30, it opens Toronto’s Canada 150 celebrations at Nathan Phillips Square. Then it travels west down Hwy. 401 to TD SunFest in London, Ontario, in downtown Victoria Park, where on Sunday, July 9, it plays two festival-headlining performances. Begun in 1994, Sunfest is a non-profit community arts organization “dedicated to promoting cross-cultural awareness and understanding of the arts,” and this year its main festival happens July 6 to 9. I can attest it is worth the drive to London to catch the small-town feel and the world music-centred programs.

NCGMO next appears in the evening program on Friday, July 14, at North York’s annual Cultura Festival at Mel Lastman Square. Curated by world-music programmer Derek Andrews, who has been on the world-music file for decades, Cultura is a free family-friendly outdoor festival presenting every Friday evening in July. Expect the eclectic. A sampling: the Korean folk pop of Coreyah, JUNO-winning Okavango Orchestra, and Peterborough Celtic fiddling by Donnell Leahy.

On July 15, NCGMO performs at the Hillside Community Festival held in the idyllic Guelph Lake Conservation Area in rural Ontario. It will give a mainstage performance as well as workshops at this festival that “celebrates creativity through artistic expression, community engagement and environmental leadership.” I attended years ago and eagerly soaked up the positive community vibe in the verdant park setting.

On July 23, the orchestra takes the afternoon stage at Ottawa’s National Arts Centre during the Canada Scene festival, produced by the RCM and presented in collaboration with Ottawa Chamberfest. Canada Scene is a vast festival aiming to be “a living portrait – a daring, eclectic reflection of contemporary Canadian arts and culture.” It includes “1,000 talented artists in music, theatre, dance, visual and media arts, film, circus, culinary arts and more for an extraordinary national celebration.” With some dozen concerts tagged “World” and “Folk,” I’m seriously tempted to visit our nation’s capital to take in the musical wealth. Fall dates have also been announced for NCGMO, including a recording session at the Banff Centre.

I wish the fledgling NCGMO beautiful sounds, exciting experiences and lasting friendships. And I wish all you, dear readers, a relaxing, music-filled summer.

Andrew Timar is a Toronto musician and music writer. He can be contacted at worldmusic@thewholenote.com.

This month starts auspiciously with the Arabesque Dance Company & Orchestra’s world premiere of its NOOR (Light), running March 3 - 6 at Harbourfront’s Fleck Dance Theatre. This ambitious production promises to be among the grandest world performance events this season with an international ensemble of 17 dancers and 14 musicians, including three vocalists. Linking traditional art forms from Egypt, Lebanon, Syria and Spain, NOOR evokes the rich influence of Arab art in medieval Andalusia as expressed through spiritual poetry, regional music and dance. The company directors Yasmina Ramzy and Bassam Bishara collaborated with the noted violinist and exponent of the ancient Muwashshahaat poetic tradition Fathi Aljarah, with Canada’s premiere flamenco guitar master Roger Scannura and dancer Valeria Scannura of Ritmo Flamenco. The result is a juxtaposition of the more languid belly dancing tradition with the fiery brilliance of flamenco.

West African music lovers are in for a treat on March 6. The Royal Conservatory of Music in partnership with Small World Music present Acoustic Africa, a concert featuring three headliners: Habib Koité, Oliver Mtukudzi, and Afel Bocoum, legends in their native Mali and Zimbabwe. We can expect an infectious blend of pop, South African mbaqanga, jit and traditional kateke drumming. I’m willing to bet that more than a few patrons will get up out of their Koerner Hall seats to dance along.

Melodies of Armenia on March 10 is part of the free World Music Series held noon at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts. The concert by the Levon Ichkhanian Quartet shines the spotlight on the playing of Mark Korven’s soulful duduk, an apricot wood shawm with ancient roots in Armenian culture. Levon Ichkhanian on plucked strings, bassist Victor Bateman and Wilson Laurencin on percussion join the duduk in presenting the oft melancholy music of Armenia.

The Kodo Drummers of Japan marks its 30th anniversary this year bringing its show to the Sony Centre For The Performing Arts on March 11. I saw them years ago and their interpretations dazzled the audience with feats of astounding percussive speed, dexterity, and muscular endurance.

The Musideum is a unique and fun downtown Toronto music retail store cum museum, filled to the ceiling with musical instruments from around the world. Its Friday 7pm series continues March 11 with the FreePlay Duo in which Suba Sankaran and Dylan Bell (of Autorickshaw fame) sing a capella songs accompanied only by a digital looping station.  On March 25 local world music diva Maryem Hassan Tollar performs with musicians Ian De Souza and Chris Church.

Hindustani classical music will take the stage on March 17 at the Toronto Centre for the Arts. Presented by Small World Music, the concert presents the leading younger generation sitarist Nilandri Kumar (whose father was the prominent sitarist Pandit Kartick Kumar) with the celebrated tabla maestro Zakir Hussain.  Zakir received a firm musical foundation from his father the honoured late tabla virtuoso Allah Rakha, though many would say Zakir with his brilliant technique and crowd-pleasing musicianship has outstripped his guru’s international fame through his expeditions across once-forbidding musical boundaries.

Readers may be surprised to see the name of Toronto’s ViaSalzburg Chamber Orchestra in this column. They owe this distinction to the special guests for their Glenn Gould Studio concert on March 24 and 25: Canada’s pioneer Evergreen Club Contemporary Gamelan. (Full disclosure: I have been composing for and performing with Evergreen since its inception in 1983). The programme will include the epic Beethoven String Quartet Op. 131, Montreal composer Michael Oesterle’s piece for gamelan degung and string quartet, and Evergreen Club’s performance of “Ibu Trish” (1989), its signature work by American composer Lou Harrison for gamelan.

Kicking off its New World Series on March 25, the Music Gallery and Batuki Music Society present ETHIO T.O.  This concert, described as “Ethiopian and Eritrean pentatonic jazz-funk” features two bands. Ethio Fidel is led by the local first-call Ethiopian bandleader saxophonist, Girma Wolde Michael. The group Canaille on the other hand is directed by the multi-instrumentalist Jeremy Strachan, who is strongly influenced by Ethiopian horn arrangements and tonality. Toronto has the second largest population of people from Ethiopia and Eritrea in North America. Kudos to The Music Gallery which has thought to bring the music of Ethiopia’s “Golden Age” of the ’60s and ’70s to its venue just north of Queen St.

The next day on March 26 the Echo Women’s Choir and Mariposa In The Schools present David and Goliath: An Earth Hour Evening of Song and Story at the historic Church of the Holy Trinity, benefitting both of these charitable organizations that bring music to diverse communities. This spirited evening of international songs and stories will feature artists such as Ken Whiteley, the 80-voice Echo Women’s Choir, David Anderson, Njacko Backo, Jowi Taylor and the Cuban Percussion Ensemble.

Brampton’s spiffy Rose Theatre is stepping up to challenge T.O.’s hold on touring world musicians on March 31. Debashish Bhattacharya, among the pre-eminent Hindustani slide guitarists today, will appear accompanied by Shubhasis Bhattacharya on tabla. The duo will bring the classical raag and taal based music of northern India to Flowertown.

Finally, this is the time of year for new beginnings. Nowruz marks the Iranian New Year, celebrated on the vernal equinox by Iranians all over the world. The youthful Sarv Ensemble presents two concerts on April 1 and 2 called Eidaneh: A Celebration of Persian New Year and Arrival of Spring. They perform Iranian classical and folk music at the Beit Zatoun House on 612 Markham St. in downtown Toronto. Just one year old, this new venue is a large open gallery that aims to serve as a platform for social justice and human rights events. “When we share the art and culture of another then there is no room for injustice or hatred.” A noble vision indeed. ν

Andrew Timar is a Toronto musician and music writer. He can be reached at worldmusic@thewholenote.com.

In my summer 2016 WholeNote column I mused on Luminato’s repurposing of the cavernous decommissioned Hearn Generating Station. Would it work as a venue for symphony orchestra, for community cultural engagement, visual art, for Shakespeare? In the end, the capacious,  though out-of-the-way, venue turned out to be a gamble that paid off handsomely for Festival organisers as well as for concertgoers. It appears to be part of the continuing recognition in our collective urban zeitgietst of the importance of reclaiming, revitalizing and honouring Toronto’s industrial-commercial past.

In September it’s the turn of another large scale 20th-century man-made structure to be repurposed as an artistic venue. Originally opened on May 22, 1971, Ontario Place, the government of Ontario-owned amusement park, was imposed into Lake Ontario, sited on three artificially constructed and landscaped islands. The futuristic buildings and entertaining amenities along Toronto’s shoreline included the world’s first IMAX theatre, the geodesic-domed Cinesphere, and the province’s first waterpark.

Some of us old enough to have attended concerts there might fondly recall the spacious, leisurely rotating stage of the Forum. It’s where I took my young kids for free summer concerts, including the memorable time we saw jazz great Miles Davis and his band. We bonded over cool jazz with attitude that sunny afternoon. Then early in 2012 most of the public sections of the park were closed for redevelopment – its 2017 projected completion date aimed to celebrate Canada’s sesquicentennial.

in/future: After the venue has been shuttered for four years, Art Spin in partnership with Small World Music is re-animating Ontario Place’s scenic 14-acre West Island. They’ve cooked up an ambitious menu consisting of 11 days and nights of arts programming from September 15 to 25, dubbing the festival in/future. Wishing to dig deeper, I spoke to Small World’s executive director and in/future co-curator Alan Davis one hot sunny summer day.

“It’s the 15th anniversary of Small World’s fall festival,” Davis began, “and we’re delighted that Art Spin invited us to showcase part of our current season at in/future.” Art Spin – Layne Hinton and Rui Pimenta’s brainchild – has been active as a presenter for over seven years, re-activating decommissioned venues and public spaces to produce group exhibitions along with curated bicycle-led art tours.

“The festival will host site-specific projects by over 60 visual and sound artists,” Davis continued, “with close to 50 music acts on the Small World stage (presented by Exodus Travels).” Films and videos will also be presented in the Cinesphere, as well as dance performances, a lecture series, and kid-friendly programming and activities at various sites.

“We’re excited by this opportunity to connect with the larger community. Nostalgia for Ontario Place’s illustrious musical past is one part of the draw, but so is engaging with young audiences. For example, site DJ activations will encourage a party vibe.”

“We have also tried to squeeze the envelope with regard to genres, to mix things up, to embrace the entirety of the global musical spectrum. Cross-fertilization is one of the things we’re aiming for. Though it’s easy to say, it’s hard to do,” he added with a knowing smile.

I asked Davis to pick a few highlights. “We are leaning toward high-energy, festive acts suitable for an outdoor stage. An example would be BaBa ZuLa, Istanbul’s legendary psychedelic dub band, which takes the stage Friday September 16 with a wide variety of influences and a truckload of instruments. They are followed by Mariachi Flor, a feminist Mexican mariachi group based in New York” he explained.

Saturday September 24, at the other end of the festival, is a day so chock full that space here permits only a partial mention. Headlining is the Dhol Foundation, a leading bhangra band making its Canadian debut. It’s led by the U.K.- born master-dhol drummer and artistic director of the group, the “bhangra king” Johnny Kalsis. His London-based 12-piece band, which he first established about 17 years ago, places the musical focus tightly on the massive sound of closely miked multiple dhol drums, those icons of Punjabi bhangra music. Kalsis has since waded into transnational waters by fusing bhangra with a mixed bag of popular global genres including Afrobeat, reggae, hip-hop, EDM, and Bollywood with a Celtic fiddling twist. The resulting thumping beats are designed to lift audiences’ spirits, moving everyone to dance.

Also performing on September 24 is the Shanbehzadeh Ensemble. It was formed in 1990 by Saeid Shanbehzadeh, a virtuoso of the neyanbān (Persian Gulf bagpipe) and the ney-e jofti (Persian Gulf double reed pipe). He is well known as a forceful performer of the traditional song, music and dance of the southern Iranian province of Bushehr, on the Persian Gulf. It’s a region of Iran strongly influenced by African as well as Arabic culture, and its music and dance amply demonstrate those influences. Shanbehzadeh is no stranger to Toronto. In 1996 he taught a world music studio course at the University of Toronto and at the time I was impressed with his brilliant and charismatic solo performances, full of the feeling of his culture of origin. Now a resident of France, in recent videos he’s increasingly playing alto sax, and including an electric guitarist and a DJ in his sets, in addition to the regional acoustic instruments he made his reputation with. It looks like in/future audiences can expect a mix of trance-y traditional dance music of the Persian Gulf merged with contemporary beats from Shanbehzadeh.

Much of the rest of the ambitious festival music program likewise appears to echo Alan Davis’ dictum of high-energy, populist leaning, multiple genre-inclusive and at the same time genre-smearing music performances. While there is a place for nostalgia, this is perhaps the sort of non-nostalgic au courant musical cross-fertilization needed to re-activate the 45-year-old old Ontario Place and make it fun and relevant again – at least for 11 days this September.

Follow Your Heart:

My second story is about a single production, but one which is no less ambitious in the size of its cast and the scope of national cultural elements and themes portrayed.

Four years in the making and workshopped at the Fleck Theatre in 2014, Toronto’s Evolution Dance Theatre presents the premiere of Follow Your Heart, a “Broadway-style Middle Eastern multimedia extravaganza.” The multimedia and multidisciplinary production runs September 22 to 25 at the Richmond Hill Centre for the Performing Arts. Follow Your Heart was conceived, written and directed by EDT founder and artistic director Armineh Keshishian. Rooted in the rich traditions of Middle Eastern dance and culture, the production tells its story with sound design, lighting, actors, dancers and three sets of musicians, 45 performers in all.

The production has both pre-recorded sound design cues, as well as live music, the latter provided by three culturally distinct groups of three musicians each. The Middle Eastern section is led by Persian percussionist Naghmeh Farahmand, the African section by master drummer Amadou Kienou and the Indigenous Canadian section by singer Sue Croweagle. In the show’s finale, the three groups perform together, directed by Kienou accompanying dancers who likewise represent ethnic, cultural and gender mutual respect and harmony.

I spoke with Keshishian in between rehearsals about her show. “Follow Your Heart is a tale of love and struggle, with a special emphasis on the empowerment of women,” she told me. “Our story centres around Almaza, a modern Middle Eastern woman, who falls in love with Jivan, a traditional Middle Eastern man – in contemporary Toronto. It’s the journey of a woman who fights for love against all odds, a love story marked by both taboo and tradition.” She concluded, “the story in the end explores unity and mutual understanding between peoples, a relevant theme in these troubled times,” particularly in the Middle East.

Whether or not a “Broadway-style multimedia extravaganza” is your cup of tea, Follow Your Heart’s inclusive and optimistic vision of a world where people born three continents apart can share their indigenous music and dance – even if it’s only modelled for us briefly on stage – is cause for celebration.

Andrew Timar is a Toronto musician and music writer. He can be contacted at worldmusic@thewholenote.com.

El Dia de los Muertos (The Day of the Dead) has been celebrated by Mexicans for centuries as a time for families to remember and honour the departed. It’s a pre-Columbian custom grafted onto the Christian triduum consisting of All Hallows’ Eve (Halloween to the secular world), All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day. Many Mexicans believe that the spirits of the dead dutifully visit their descendants on October 31, returning to their accustomed resting places on November 2. To properly receive their spectral relatives, families make altars and place ofrendas (offerings) of food such as pan de muertos (bread of the dead) baked in shapes of skulls and figures, yellow marigolds known as cempazuchitl, photos, candles, and incense.

This practice may sound a touch morbid to some Canadians but to Mexicans death is approached with joy, celebration and playfulness, as well as with mourning. It’s not uncommon for Mexican children to play “funeral” with toys representing coffins and undertakers. The fear of death is transformed through mocking it, as well as by living alongside it, accepting it as a fact of everyday life.

Larry Lake: Day of the Dead rituals have slowly been seeping into our secular Toronto collective consciousness over the past decade or so — see my mention of the Harbourfront events further on in this column. What better time to celebrate influential musicians among us who have recently passed? Larry Lake, the influential Toronto composer, radio broadcaster and record producer, died in September of this year (and was remembered in the October WholeNote by David Jaeger). As he was a friend I’ll call him Larry here, and this is my written mini-ofrenda.

As a composer Larry was best known for his electronic music. Much less well known however is Larry’s support of the early career of the Toronto world music group, Evergreen Club Gamelan (of which I am a member). ECG is Canada’s first performing gamelan group and this season we are marking our 30th anniversary. Larry was an “early adaptor” of the gamelan as a brand new medium for expression among established Canadian composers. “Larry’s support was critical to the fledgling group,” notes Jon Siddall, ECG’s founding artistic director. In the mid-1980s when Siddall commissioned Larry to compose a new work for ECG, the notion of a set of Indonesian gamelan instruments performing contemporary music written and played by Canadians was a brand new — even a radical — proposition. The gamelan ensemble and its music was barely known in the True North. Larry’s open ears, open mind and generous spirit helped the fledgling ECG, among Canada’s first wave of world music groups, to go from strength to strength. In the space of a few years it went on to commission John Cage, as well as dozens of Canadian composers, and to tour internationally.

Larry completed composing his Three Bagatelles for ECG in 1986. Its recording was released on the LP/cassette (later CD) North of Java on the Arjuna label in 1987, the first commercial recording of Canadian gamelan music. I re-auditioned Three Bagatelles recently. I heard a charming three-movement work effectively layering the brash sounds of 1980s electronic music synthesis with the eight-musician acoustic gamelan degung sounds of the ECG. It was in turn declamatory, lyrical and incisively percussive.

Larry’s geniality was often tinged with an endearingly gentle wry sense of humour. When I met him for the first read-through of my suling (bamboo ring flute) part for “Andrew’s Song,” movement two of his Three Bagatelles, I was discouraged by the primitive dot-matrix staff notation printout he presented. I made a comment disparaging what to me seemed an overly simplistic, unchallenging score. Unfazed, Larry gave me some memorable advice: “Treat the notation only as a guide ... go ahead and ‘Eastern it up!’” In other words, play it expressively, where appropriate using idiomatic suling ornaments, articulation, phrasing and dynamic shadings.

From then on whenever I am challenged by a score which appears musically too “square” for its own good I smilingly recall Larry’s challenge to “Eastern it up.” You can hear me heeding Larry’s advice some 27 years ago in the recording of Andrew’s Song, streaming on ECG’s website. When time came to produce a CD from the original LP tracks of North of Java, ECG called Larry. Then in 1994 the group commissioned Larry for Sanft (Soft) another work for pre-recorded electronic sounds and gamelan degung. The collaboration continued with the CD Palace (Artifact Music: 1996) which he co-produced, also streaming on the ECG site.

Through his own compositions in which he dared new cultural mash-ups, his record producing, and his advocacy via his CBC radio music show Two New Hours, Larry did more than introduce generations of listeners to the latest trends in Canadian and international avant-garde concert music. He also introduced them, as I’ve begun to illustrate here, to world music voices which challenged received notions of cultural hierarchies and aesthetic boundaries.

Picks

Sicilian connection: Let’s start this chilly month off with warming southern sounds on November 2 at the Royal Conservatory’s Koerner Hall when two Toronto groups the Vesuvius Ensemble and the Sicilian Jazz Project collaborate. Led by Francesco Pellegrino the Vesuvius Ensemble’s mission is to preserve and stage the music of southern Italy. The Ensemble’s repertoire is anchored in the songs of the Neapolitan region. Moreover they perform on some of the instruments from the region including the tammorra (frame drum), chitarra battente and colascione (plucked lute), and the ciaramella, a shawm. Michael Occhipinti’s Sicilian Jazz Project takes Sicilian folk songs and rhythms and interprets them through the harmonic and improvisatory lens of contemporary North American urban jazz, world music, funk, blues and chamber music. Its stellar lineup starts with the eight-time JUNO Award-nominee Michael Occhipinti on guitar, and continues with seven other leading Toronto jazz musicians.

Harbourfront: As I hinted earlier, on November 9 and 10 Harbourfront Centre hosts what it calls “Toronto’s longest running Day of the Dead festival ... two days of family-friendly programming.” There will be public ofrendas both large and small, plus a wide range of films, mariachi music, songs, dance, food, storytelling, crafting and performances, all with a Dia de los Muertos theme. Some of the music events are listed in The WholeNote pages. For a complete listing of all scheduled events please check the Harbourfront Centre’s website.

York and U of T: York University and the University of Toronto have had world music studio programs running continuously since the early 1970s, I know because I dabbled at them in both places back in the day. Every fall both institutions showcase faculty, students and visiting scholars in public concerts that are well worth exploring. I’ve been invariably delighted by these events and they’re at a price every student can afford: gratis.

November 5 at 12:30pm the York University Department of Music presents a rare demonstration of Azerbaijani mugham by Jeffrey Werbock, a leading expert of this modal music, at the Accolade East Building. The same evening at 7:30 the University of Toronto Faculty of Music presents its “World Music Ensembles Concert” at Walter Hall featuring the Balinese gamelan ensemble, the Klezmer ensemble, and the Japanese taiko ensemble.

November 14 at 12:30 pm York’s Department of Music presents one of Toronto’s premier Korean drum and dance ensembles, the Jeng Yi Korean drum and dance ensemble, at the Accolade East Building.

Back downtown on November 25 at 7:30 in Walter Hall, the U of T Faculty of Music showcases the work of its current world music artists-in-residence, the distinguished Balinese-based performers and scholars Putu Evie Suyadnyani and Vaughan Hatch, and their students in its “World Music Visitor Concert.” The program stages Balinese gamelan and dance including repertoires from royal courts, rituals and entertainments performed on the U of T’s gamelan semar pegulingan (orchestra).

COC Bradshaw: The free noon hour “World Music Series” continues at the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre.

The November 5 concert showcases the bass veena, a new addition to the Hindustani instrumentarium developed by Canadian musician Justin Gray and luthier Les Godfrey. “Monsoon:Synthesis” is the concert’s title evoking a merger of North Indian ragas and original Justin Gray compositions featuring the bass veena and the tabla wizardry of Ed Hanley, with additional percussion and Tibetan singing bowls by Derek Gray.

November 27 “Balinese Music and Dance: Temple, Court and Village Traditions” takes over Bradshaw Amphitheatre. The event is listed in the “Dance Series,” a fitting designation given that dance and music performance is intimately interrelated in Bali. The U of T’s 20-piece gamelan Dharma Santi alternates with Seka Rat Nadi the gendèr wayang (keyed metallophone quartet). The U of T world music artists-in-residence, Vaughan Hatch and Putu Evie Suyadnyani, are again featured performers.

The last event this month is on November 28. The Shargi Persian Percussion Ensemble performs Unbound. Naghmeh Farahmand, a rare female Iranian percussionist, now a Toronto resident, leads a very unusual all-female percussion group in a program of traditional music from Persia and the Middle East.

Gzowski’s Soldier: November 17 The Music Gallery presents “A Soldier’s Tale” an ambitious multidisciplinary theatre work with both aboriginal and world music elements. Composer, sound designer and musician John Gzowski can certainly be considered among Toronto world music stalwarts, having been active in groups like Maza Meze and Tasa. In this staging of “A Soldier’s Tale” he collaborates with Cree actor, artist, choreographer Michael Greyeyes, video artist Andy Moro and David Sait on guzheng. The work’s narrative explores the soldiering role of First Nations in World War II and Iraq using theatrical dance, enhanced by the contribution of other top Toronto world musicians.

Quick Picks

November 22 and 23 Nagata Shachu stages its “15th Anniversary Concert and CD Release” at the Enwave Theatre, Harbourfront Centre. This viscerally exciting Toronto group, regularly discussed in my column, goes from strength to strength and never disappoints musically.

November 23 at Koerner Hall, the Royal Conservatory and Small World Music present Anoushka Shankar. The star sitarist performs selections from her latest CD, Traces of You, produced by the very successful British Indian musician and composer Nitin Sawhney.

November 27, also at Koerner Hall, the Royal Conservatory, Batuki Music and Small World Music present “Rokia Traoré: Beautiful Africa.” Malian-born Rokia Traoré’s powerhouse voice is the ideal vehicle for her rendition of songs from her most recent album. 

Andrew Timar is a Toronto musician and music writer. He can be contacted at worldmusic@thewholenote.com.

Established in 1997 by Toronto music curator Alan Davis, Small World Music Society has for years maintained its position as one of the city’s premier presenters of culturally diverse music. All in, they reckon they have presented and partnered on close to 800 concerts and related events in venues ranging from top-tier concert halls to their own venue, from outdoor festival stages to clubs across Greater Toronto, making SWMS one of the this country’s most significant global music presenters, reaching audiences of many kinds.

Full disclosure: I first met Davis when he was a programmer at The Music Gallery, probably back in the late 1980s. Later on he joined Gamelan Toronto, a community music group I started in 1995; in fact, one of Small World Music’s first projects, in 1997, was to present the Gamelan Summit Toronto, a ten-day festival of which I was the founder and artistic director. I have also performed as a musician at SWM-produced concerts since. And over the last decade I’ve followed various aspects of Small World Music Society’s programming and evolution here in The WholeNote. One example was when its Small World Centre, a hub for the culturally diverse arts community, opened six years ago; another was my summer 2017 World View column about the 2017 launch of Polyphonic Ground, a multi-organization umbrella group of ten GTA-based music presenters working collaboratively to showcase the voices and sounds of Toronto’s global music scene.

So I was all ears when, early this year, SWM announced not only its annual springtime Asian Music Series, but also an ambitious Global Toronto conference. It was all set to go in May as a showcase for select culturally diverse Canadian musicians, plus a place where Canadian and international buyers could meet, greet, hear and book them. Then the COVID-19 crisis suddenly locked (almost) everything down, and both those events were cancelled. End of story it seemed.

Music in the summer: the very notion evokes a field of pleasant images. I’m thinking of concerts in a green and flower-filled public park or a more intimate garden setting, touring groups appearing on festival stages throughout our province, as well as Harbourfront Centre’s lakeside venues teeming with casual, lightly clad crowds out for a good time. People generally appear more relaxed and good-humoured in the summer than in other seasons; smiles seem more common. The other seasons are meant for music encounters indoors. The few months of kind summer weather we are allotted make it an ideal time to cross paths – and share outdoor musical discoveries – with families from around the world.

Luminato: The first major Toronto summer series featuring global music is the Luminato Festival, this year running from June 19 to June 28. In order to get a sense of the direction of the programming of interest to you, dear reader, I spoke with veteran music curator Derek Andrews over the phone. He pointed out that there will be changes this year to the venues, compared to recent Luminatos held at David Pecaut Square. “The big stage is gone at The Hub – which has a landscaped backyard garden theme this year. We now will have The Festival Shed, an indoor venue of around 200, plus an expansive outdoor venue with a much larger audience capacity called The Garden Stage (which the TSO will use on June 28). It will also host the 35 acts in my program.”

With numerous individual shows and several themed concert series spread over the ten days, Luminato has much to offer listeners out to explore world music. Many have “Americas” themes, pre-echoing the Pan Am games about to take over Toronto in July. To my regret, I can’t pretend to cover more than some part of the vast scope of this subsection of the festival. June 20, during the first weekend fete at Luminato, begins with the launch of “The North-South Project,” billed as “a collective work of storytelling authored by 12 celebrated writers working the breadth of the Americas, from the Canadian Arctic to Argentina.” It’s co-curated by Andrews and literary and ideas curator Noah Richler. The readings by the authors are accompanied by several singers articulating lyrics of dissent. Singer-songwriters Amai Kuda n’ Y Josephine, Drew Gonsalves and Quique Escamilla will also bring their own unique pan-American music to the festival stage.

Among the lineup is Ani Cordero, a founding member and drummer of the Mexican rock band Pistolera and other groups. Recordar, her latest solo album, is a tribute to the voices of dissent via reinterpretations of Latin American protest songs. Another participating artist, La Yegros, has been a powerful presence on the Buenos Aires underground music scene for years. Her signature voice and commanding stage presence is imbued with South American flair, but she also brings with it a globally aware mindset, drawing equally on deep regional folk traditions and cutting edge beats.

On June 21 the solstice, National Aboriginal Day and Father’s Day all fall on the same day. (As a dad, I’m hoping for a lavish BBQ dinner hosted by my sons as per family tradition.) Why not celebrate them all at The Hub with performances by four aboriginal women? Leela Gilday, a member of the Dene nation, transports the listener through her northern stories sung in a gutsy voice and open stage presence. Martha Redbone’s music blends Native American elements with her deep roots in Appalachian folk and Piedmont blues, plus soul and funk.  On the same day, the “New Canadian Music Series” features two emerging aboriginal musicians, cellist Cris Derksen and singer-songwriter Binaeshee-Quae. Derksen’s music braids the “traditional and contemporary in multiple dimensions,” weaving her classical music training and features embedded in her aboriginal ancestry “with new school electronics, creating genre-defying music.” Her 2010 debut album The Cusp was nominated for a Western Canadian Music Award and won the 2011 Canadian Aboriginal Music Award for Instrumental Album of the Year. Binaeshee-Quae, from Pic River First Nation, describes her musical style as “jazzy-alterna-folk mix.” She delivers her songs in a full-throated, sometimes quirky yet articulate mezzo.

Music curator Andrews has waggishly dubbed Luminato’s June 22 tribute to Mexico, “Distrito Federal Chilango Power Ska Punk meets Chiapas Mexico Message Music.” It is a mouthful, but it also serves as an accurate genre-inclusive tag. Headliners include the Toronto-based troubadour Quique Escamilla, the 2015 Juno Award-winning multi-instrumentalist singer-songwriter and producer. Active on the Canadian music scene since 2007, his powerful voice and passionate performances fuse Mexican genres such as ranchera and huapango with rock, reggae, ska, pop, jazz, cumbia, bolero and other Latin American forms. His incisive song lyrics are often keenly socially and politically engaged.

Los de Abajo from Mexico City is another politically committed group (they’re supporters of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation). Over a 23-year career, it has constructed a distinctive fusion of regional Mexican musics. A champion early on was David Byrne, in 1999 signing Los de Abajo to his Luaka Bop label. The group has gone from strength to strength, touring extensively and including yet more influences in its diverse palette: ska, reggae, hip-hop and even echoes of Balkan music.

Skipping to June 25, “Caribbean Calypso” is billed as a musical “exploration of coastal Caribbean Garifuna culture and Trinidadian Roots Reggae Calypso.” Taking centre stage will be the Canadian group Kobo Town. Named after the Port-of-Spain neighbourhood where calypso was born it was founded by Trinidadian-Canadian songwriter Drew Gonsalves. The group mixes Caribbean calypso and reggae using acoustic instrumentation along with innovative production, social commentary and an indie rock attitude. Independence, its debut album, won the International Folk Alliance Award. Another headliner is Aurelio Martinez. He is not only a star Honduran musician, but also a passionate politician and cultural ambassador for the coastal Garifuna people as well. Known by his first name alone, Aurelio possesses a gritty expressive voice with which he performs a compelling musical blend of received Afro-Caribbean cumbia fused with Latin rhythms.

The Luminato Festival celebrates in style June 27 with a “Brazilian Block Party,” billed as a “fun family event featuring day-long animation by strolling artists, craft-making workshops and irresistible food!” Luminato programmers aim to capture the Brazilian tradition of festive gatherings at this all-day public party with food, drink, music and dance, all elements embracing “a beloved part of the Brazilian cultural landscape.”

The Festival Hub’s Block Party is curated by Toronto’s own Uma Nota Culture, programming a “carnival of active cultural jamming.” That includes an invitation to connect with fellow Torontonians by dancing to live music – to irresistible forró music from the Northeast of Brazil, the martial arts-inspired capoeira and the ever-popular samba.

Among the notable acts taking the stage is the Quebec City-based Flávia Nascimento and her Smallest Big Band. Hailing from Recife, Pernambuco, Mundo Livre S/A is a genre-defining manguebeat band formed in 1984. Mundo Livre’s founding notion was to connect the culture of the mangues (mangroves) of Recife with a network of global pop genres. It has released three albums, the last of which was included in many best-of-the-year lists. Aline Morales has built a solid reputation in Canada as a percussionist and bandleader. Her Juno-nominated Flores, Tambores e Amores also showcased her interpretative, vocal and composer chops. With her project Forró Nite, Morales taps deeply into her forró music roots.

Among the newest Brazilian drum troupes in town, Tdot Batu is a diverse, youthful group performing samba reggae, but spun with their own edge. (Samba reggae became a hit in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil in the 1980s when the group Afro-Blocos mashed Bahian rhythms like ijexa and samba with Caribbean musical influences.) It sounds like quite the lively party.

Sunfest ’15, London, Ontario: Now to a festival decidedly outside of Toronto and sporting a pedigree older than most: TD Sunfest ’15. From July 9 to 12, downtown London’s Victoria Park is transformed into a culturally diverse playground where over three dozen world music and jazz groups entertain audiences on five stages scattered throughout the park. “Canada’s Premier Celebration of World Cultures” is its byline and all events are free.

Headliners this year include the venerable Afro-Cuban All Stars, and the new generation Scottish folk five-piece Breabach. It has been described as “the new face of Scottish Traditional music.” Paulo Flores, the distinguished Angolan singer-songwriter and author who performs in the semba genre, also takes the Sunfest stage. His lyrics often touch on the politics and hardships of Angolan life, and since 2007 he has served as a UN Goodwill Ambassador in Angola.

When my kids were young we repeatedly visited Sunfest, feasting on its small-town Ontario feel and diverse ethnic good vibes – but also on the scrumptious international street food and crafts for sale by dozens of vendors. That too is experiencing musicking in the summer for me.

Summer Music in the Garden: What more pleasant a reminder of the evanescent – and thus even more keenly savoured – summer in Southern Ontario than music in a garden? As it has for 16 years, Harbourfront Centre is this year again producing a delightful season-long series titled Summer Music in the Garden, skillfully curated by Tamara Bernstein. It’s held in the pleasantly verdant surrounds of the Yo-Yo Ma co-designed public Music Garden at 235 Queens Quay West. Cooled by the nearby waters of Lake Ontario, it’s all free. Make sure you get there in plenty of time however, to snag a seat on one of few benches. Also arrive early if you wish to claim a private pied à terre on the sloping lawn in front of the open air grassy stage area under the magnificent mature weeping willow. (I think you can guess I have performed and visited there many times over the years).

My picks? I can’t make up my mind from among the multiple tempting summer offerings. I invite you to check The WholeNote listings to discover your own old – or perhaps new – favourite. Relaxed, high-quality music in a garden: how can you lose?

A Celebration: June 14 Darbazi, the choir which was formed in a Toronto living room (yes, I was there), marks its 20th anniversary with a concert at St. Andrew by-the-Lake Anglican Church on Ward’s Island, Toronto. Darbazi is Canada’s first choir dedicated to the music of the various regions of the Republic of Georgia. Under the direction of Shalva Makharashvili and founding guest conductor Alan Gasser, the group hosts local groups Trio Zari and Hereti as guests to mark this significant occasion. I invite you to join me to celebrate in Georgian style with song, food and toasts to many more years of music and warm summer weather in which to enjoy it.

In keeping with my custom, I wish you a gloriously musical summer and invite you back to revisit me in these pages in September. 

Andrew Timar is a Toronto musician and music writer. He can be contacted at worldmusic@thewholenote.com.

Arguably one of the most exciting features of Toronto’s musical geography today is how our metropolis has emerged as a kind of globally flavoured creative seedbed. Over the past few decades potentially viable music hybrids of myriad kinds have been created and encouraged to flourish. I’ve touched on many in this column over the years.

This inclusive scene is abetted by the presence of many of the world’s musics actively performed by musicians of the first rank. In this column last month, for example, I focused on music-making within the Persian community, which is thriving in the greater Toronto area.

In addition to performers, the GTA music scene is also supported by numerous audiences which have developed an appetite for tasting, mixing and merging of sonic genres from disparate worlds. Yet another essential element supporting this development includes a social-political infrastructure comprising community organizations, governments, venues and media which generally view hybrids favourably.

Inclusivity and diversity were adopted as part of the core philosophical platform of the current Canadian government. Recognizing that this approach is not necessarily the norm in other societies, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has repeatedly articulated its outlines, particularly in his foreign speeches. “Diversity is Canada’s strength,” he said in London, UK, in 2015. “Canada has learned how to be strong not in spite of our differences, but because of them…that capacity will be at the heart of both our success and of what we offer the world.”

Let’s examine how Canada’s appreciation of the value of diversity –reflected and transformed by (both immigrant and Canadian-born) musicians through the process of artistic hybridization – is reflected in and shaped by several April concerts in Toronto.

Small World Music: Asian Music Series

Small World Music’s 15th Annual Asian Music Series, running April 1 to May 20, is a case in point. About half of the events are staged at SWM’s own intimate Centre at the Artscape Youngplace. The 14-concert series came about through networking with partner presenters such as the Aga Khan Museum, Batuki Music Society and Raag-Mala, in addition to support by various arts councils and levels of government. Its private sector sponsor is TD Bank.

The program brings together “emerging artists with internationally renowned figures, engaging communities around the GTA…embracing the scope of music from across the Asian cultural landscape – from India to Japan, via China, Pakistan and Iran….”

In order to assist audiences in navigating the two-month series, SWM groups concerts into what it calls Explorer Bundles. They are cannily shaping audience experiences thematically, as well as across genre and culture of origin. Allowing audiences to “take advantage of Small World’s place at the heart of the city’s global music scene,” the bundling of “Asian Music Experiences” is presented through discounted three-concert packages with the following evocative and user-friendly titles: Rhythm, Soul, Heritage and Motion.

The Asian Music Series Rhythm Explorer Bundle commences with the Haniya Aslam Trio on April 1. Aslam is a star in her native Pakistan, having co-led the country’s first all-female band Zeb and Haniya. Their groundbreaking 2008 hit album Chup! (Silence!) topped the charts for months. Now a Toronto resident, singer-guitarist Aslam fluidly combines pop, folk-rock, alt, blues and jazz with vernacular songs she learned in her native Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. Lyrics in Urdu, Pashto, Dari and Turkish, and thematically bold subject matter, thicken the regional-transnational tensions in her songs, yet at the same time give them unusual potency. Continuing her advocacy of transnational culture in her music, she’s joined by leading Toronto world musicians Naghmeh Farahmand (percussion), Peter Lutek (winds) and Waleed Abdulhamid (bass).

The Rhythm Explorer Bundle continues April 16 with Upanishads, Toronto musician Debashis Sinha’s new solo project which explores ancient sacred text while remaining firmly rooted in the thoroughly contemporary sound world of electronic and beat-based music. Steeped in his experience as a second generation South Asian Canadian, Sinha’s music is “committed to expand[ing] the notions of what it means to express and be influenced by a life in/between cultures.”

May 6 at 10pm, the Rhythm Explorer Bundle wraps with a lighthearted “throwback dance party, Globetrotter’s Retro Bollywood Edition.” Local and international DJs will mix a live “cross-cultural concoction on the dance floor, in celebration of diversity and inspired community…with spicy blends of funk, sitar, tabla, soaring vocals and lush orchestras, all mashed up with modern beats.” Vintage Bollywood film clips, South Asian-themed decor and a chai bar round out this multisensory, playful party at Round, 152a Augusta Ave.

Tinariwen and Dengue Fever

Those are only three out of 12 concerts in SWM’s Asian Music Series which fall into the framework of this issue of The WholeNote so I can’t possibly highlight them all here, even though I’m itching to. Well – maybe just one more.

Tinariwen, presented at Massey Hall by Small World Music, Batuki Music Society and Massey Hall on April 12, is a Grammy Award-winning Malian sextet with an impressive international fan following. Formed in 1979 in Algerian exile by Malian Tuareg musicians, Tinariwen is among the pioneers of the desert blues genre. Digging heavily into traditional Tuareg music, but also influenced by Bob Marley, Carlos Santana, American blues and Bob Dylan, Tinariwen’s powerful driving music and controversial lyrics address the pain of exile and the struggle against political repression. Slate called the group “rock ‘n’ roll rebels whose rebellion, for once, wasn’t just metaphorical.”

The opening act Dengue Fever is fronted by award-winning Cambodian native vocalist Chhom Nimol. She sings in both Khmer and more recently in English. California based, the five-piece band with standard pop instrumentation takes 1960s Khmer pop music as its primary source of inspiration. It then liberally adds rock of the garage and psychedelic persuasion. Rock icon and veteran world music champion Peter Gabriel said of their music: “It’s done with a lot of style. It’s spirited, impassioned stuff.”

Tabla and Taiko: April 15 two of Toronto’s veteran world music groups join forces. Toronto Tabla Ensemble and Nagata Shachu present “Tabla and Taiko: Two Ancient Traditions Meet” at the Toronto Centre for the Arts. The promotional material states the concert is to serve as a “cross-cultural music collaboration of Indian and Japanese percussive traditions with the goal of bringing communities together.” It promises to be a textbook demonstration of how the evolutionary processes of artistic hybridization can be developed over years and successfully presented.

I’ve written before about how both Toronto-based ensembles have significantly contributed to the Canadian world music scene since the 1990s. In pursuing their groups’ artistic vision they have both succeeded in raising the profiles of received Indian and Japanese musics. In this concert they join hands and drums, featuring compositions by the two ensembles’ artistic directors, Ritesh Das and Kiyoshi Nagata. Each is creating works that maintain their home traditions’ integrity while also searching to integrate the other group’s inherent strengths. I spoke to each AD to better understand their collaborative approach.

“I wrote Sare Panch, in a rhythmic cycle of five and a half beats,” said Das. “I then modified and fine-tuned it in rehearsal so it would work with the extreme dynamic range of the taiko ensemble. I’m also looking forward to performing a piece by Aki Takahashi in 14 beats, as well as a work where I play solo tabla and Kiyoshi plays the chappa, a Japanese cymbal.”

How would he characterize the common denominators between the two quite different groups? “We both share values of respect, discipline and knowledge,” Das replied without pause.

Kiyoshi Nagata added: “I agree we share those values. [On the other hand] I always tell Ritesh it’s not our similarities but our differences that complement one another! For example taiko is loud, tabla is quiet; taiko is primal, tabla intricate and technical. It’s those kinds of juxtapositions which offer rich new sonic and artistic possibilities.

“In addition, both our ensembles work within the oral tradition,” continued Nagata. “Not being bound by notation makes it easier to communicate, I find. As we like to recite to one another: ‘Once you say it, you can play it!’ It’s quite liberating to be able to internalize music in order to express yourself. You could reduce the process to memorization, internalization and finally expression. After all, the goal of taiko practice is that the body becomes the extension of the rhythm.”

Finally Nagata added “Collaborations like this are pretty hard to come by. Toronto is one of the few places where this could happen. There’s a certain convenience in having both groups in the same town. They’re 20 minutes from us, so we can get together any day of the week!”

Aga Khan Museum’s “Entrancement”

As for presenters, they are continually evolving ways to reinterpret aspects of musical inclusivity, diversity and cultural framing to their audiences. The Aga Khan Museum is one such presenter and venue which has actively welcomed the music of the world right from its beginnings in 2014. I spoke to Umair Jaffar, performing arts manager at the AKM about its latest efforts to retag its concert series in order to keep it relevant to its patrons.

“We’ve had series called ‘classical’ and ‘world music’ in the past. Now we’re considering using the word ‘entranced’ however,” said Jaffar. “Trance is a word that aptly describes and connects several of our upcoming performing arts programs.”

It is an idea clearly reflected in the “mesmerizing and mood-altering grooves of Vishwa Mohan Bhatt’s slide guitar” that will be showcased in his April 22 concert presented in partnership with Raag-Mala Toronto and Small World Music’s Asian Music Series. The Grammy Award-winning Bhatt performs exclusively on his bespoke 19-stringed mohan veena. While his instrument borrows as much from the Hawaiian and blues slide lap guitars as from the indigenous Indian veena, the music Bhatt plays on it is strictly Hindustani classical, relying on the performance of raga. Raga itself is a complex concept in classical Indian music akin to melodic mode, possessing the power to “colour the mind” of the performer, as well as to affect the emotions of the listener.

The April crop from the Toronto global seed bed is promising indeed!

Andrew Timar is a Toronto musician and music writer. He can be contacted at worldmusic@thewholenote.com.

After a long, dreary, weary winter, spring is finally deigning to show us some sun. Yet springtime signs are still meagre. In the midtown city park across the street the trees remain starkly bare. On the bright side, a few brave bird chirps can occasionally be heard. It’s surely a harbinger of kinder weather to come when we can venture out of doors to hear human as well as nature’s music.

Written while still firmly in the grip of winter, my column last month, World Music Goes to School explored the commitment of several Ontario universities to global music education. The focus was on world music ensemble courses as seen through the perspectives of several current teaching and performing practitioners.

Performing Scholars: Annette Sanger and James Kippen

We did not hear however from Annette Sanger and James Kippen, veteran University of Toronto ethnomusicologists, musician-educators and partners in life. And that’s because I found out only recently that, by the time this issue is well and truly launched, the university’s Faculty of Music will have honoured them with a rare two-day symposium and concert on March 29 and 30, in celebration of their distinguished university careers.

An expert on tabla performance and the life and music of communities of hereditary drummers in North India, Kippen has authored several books and numerous articles on the subject. He began his career at the Faculty of Music in January 1990 where he has taught and mentored several generations of students. He’s also been active in several musical groups in our town.

Sanger received her PhD for her research on the music and dance in Balinese society. That background served the GTA well, as she is a pioneer of Balinese music performance here. Commencing teaching in 1990 at the university’s Scarborough Campus, within a few years she arranged to have the university purchase a complete Balinese gamelan, inaugurating the Semar pegulingan gamelan ensemble course in the fall of 1993. That launched the first Balinese ensemble and course in Canada west of Montreal, an ensemble she led for a remarkable 25 years. Later she formed the performing ensemble Seka Rat Nadi – more of which further on.

Outside academia, Sanger served Toronto’s larger music community in many roles. Just two examples: from 1990 to 2000 she was the director of the Music & Arts School at the University Settlement House, the first community-based social service centre in Toronto. For several years she also reviewed CDs for The WholeNote.

Titled “Constant Flame: A concert honoring the retirements of Professors Annette Sanger and James Kippen,” the March 29 event features a performance by Seka Rat Nadi with Sanger, Kippen plus Toronto musicians Albert Wong and John Carnes. Seka Rat Nadi is the name of the group consisting of four Balinese gendèr (metallophone instruments), a quartet traditionally called a gendèr wayang. In addition, several guest musicians will perform Hindustani classical and other musics.

The symposium is called “The Performing Scholar,” reflecting the interlocking twin aspects of Kippen and Sanger’s careers. (It also rather accurately describes the lifelong work of most of the musician-educators I interviewed for my March 2019 column.)

By the time most of you read this, the symposium honouring our two performing scholars will have probably already taken place. But I couldn’t leave you, dear reader, hanging like that. I asked them what they intend to do now that they’ve officially retired.

“We plan to return to Bali to learn more gendèr repertoire including more unusual regional styles that are fast becoming eclipsed by inevitable standardization,” replied Sanger. “As well, we will go to India where Jim will continue to work on his research into the history of the tabla. As always, we are open to doing occasional performances and demonstrations in and around Toronto.”

It’s clear they don’t intend to hang up their performing scholar hats anytime soon.

Small World Music Society’s Asian Music Series

Toronto’s oldest and largest presenter of culturally diverse music, Small World Music Society celebrates springtime with the 17th annual edition of its Asian Music Series. Marking Asian and South Asia Heritage Month, throughout April and May, 11 concerts, a film screening, plus a talk will be held at the intimate Small World Music Centre (SWMC) in downtown Toronto, as well as at grander venues across the GTA.

I asked SWM’s founding director Alan Davis about his longstanding relationships with his programming partners. “We’ve always embraced partnerships as a way to get Small World’s message out to as many people as possible,” he replied. “This is increasingly true in recent years, as more and more larger presenters embrace diversity and cross paths with artists who are part of our musical ecosystem.”

Davis is confident that with SWM’s hard-won reputation for community outreach and deep connections, they can bring value to their partners by connecting them to audiences that they may not otherwise intersect with. “This speaks to both audience taste and geography. [For example]… audiences going to the Markham Theatre will be aware of events at the Rose Theatre in Brampton, Koerner Hall and the Small World Centre downtown, and a wide variety of presentations from traditional to modern. Collectively, the hope is … audience-building and community intersection. ‘Cause that’s how we all succeed!”

Let’s explore a few of the concerts in this year’s Asian Music Series.

Mahmood Schricker – thoughtful sadness of the electric setar: April 4 the Series launches at the SWMC with the music of Mahmood Schricker, the Toronto musician-producer of electronic music for film and commercials. An electric setar (Persian long lute) performer, Schricker’s concert is a release of his new instrumental album El Muerte, inspired by the Persian dastgah (tonal modal system), the delicate strumming of the setar, international dub and techno, all supported by electronics and drum machine sounds. Nima Dehghani’s videos provide a backdrop for Schricker’s live music, reflecting moods of “thoughtful sadness…” onto the screen.

Bageshree Vaze – Global Bollywood: April 5 at 7pm, SWM in association with The Rose presents “Bageshree Vaze: Global Bollywood” at the Rose Theatre, Brampton. The show is a celebration of the widely popular music and dance featured in the globe’s biggest film industry. Starring Indo-Canadian GTA resident vocalist and dancer Bageshree Vaze, the concert is a tribute to the songs, instrumentals and extravagant dance numbers that have propelled Bollywood to international fame. Featuring a cast of Toronto musicians and dancers, Global Bollywood is also choreographed and directed by the multitalented Vaze.

Qais Essar and Fazelyar Brothers – Afghani instrumental: April 11 at 8pm, SWM and the Tawoos Initiative co-present Qais Essar x Fazelyar Brothers at SWMC. Qais Essar is a GTA-based Afghan composer, instrumentalist and producer, a specialist on the rubab (a.k.a. rabab), a short-necked Afghani lute. He has toured extensively visiting international stages, releasing two LPs, five EPs plus a live album.

Essar contributed original music to feature films such as the Golden Globe and Oscar-nominated film The Breadwinner (2017) and earned a Canadian Screen Award for Best Original Song for his work The Crown Sleeps. He will be playing selections from his recently released EP I am Afghan, Afghani is a Currency, Vol. III. The concert also features the Afghani-Canadian duo Fazelyar Brothers, consisting of tabla player Haris Fazelyar and Wares Fazelyar a rubab student of Essar.

Dang Show – Iranian musical hybridity: Both April 12 and 13 concerts at the SWMC by the Dang Show sold out well in advance. Dang Show is a popular Iranian four-piece band which regularly sells out Tehran venues. The band has also composed and recorded soundtracks for over ten major Iranian movie releases. Its unusual name in Farsi evokes, in the words of the band, “mountainous vocals as well as velvety textures, jazz saxophone, medieval counterpoints, rock rhythms, [a sound which is] lush, rich and brassy like the best Balkan bands. Dang Show could be defined as a fusion of Persian classical and jazz.”

With an instrumentation of piano, saxophone, Persian vocals and percussion, Dang Show’s ambitious goal is to satisfy traditional Iranian classical music aficionados as well as those primarily interested in pop-flavoured music. In 2018 Dang Show was awarded Best Fusion Album for Mad O Nay in Iran. No wonder both their SWMC shows are sold out.

Amjad Ali Khan – sarod master: April 13 at 8pm, The Rose in association with SWMS present Amjad Ali Khan, with his sons Amaan Ali Bangash and Ayaan Ali Bangash at the Rose Theatre, Brampton. The multiple award-winning veteran sarod (a.k.a. sarode) master and composer, Amjad Ali Khan, was born into a renowned Indian classical musical family and has toured internationally since the 1960s. Over the course of his distinguished career he has garnered numerous international accolades.

The sixth generation exponent of the Senia-Barash gharana (a North Indian music lineage), Khan is at heart a classicist with a populist’s need to “communicate with the listener who finds Indian classical music remote,” as he once put it. You can expect khayal (the Hindustani classical music genre) musicianship at its finest in his recital.

Anda Union – Mongolian fusion revival: April 17 at 8pm, SWM and Flato Markham Theatre explore Northern Asian culture in their presentation of the Mongolian fusion group Anda Union at the Flato Markham Theatre in Markham. Hailing from Hohhot, the capital of the Inner Mongolia in northern China, the versatile nine-piece band has deep cultural roots in the vast grasslands where many of their families still live. Its mission: to rework the region’s music, filled with ancestral stories of nomadic customs and beliefs.

The band brings together tribal and musical traditions from all over Inner Mongolia playing a wide variety of Indigenous instruments and vocal throat singing styles. Its 2018 set at the London UK Songlines Encounters Festival was dubbed “a rousing masterclass in folk revivalism,” by The Guardian.

Qawwali – demystified and performed: April 18 at 8pm, SWM’s executive director Umair Jaffar gives a free talk titled “Demystifying Qawwali” at the SWMC. He notes that “Qawwali is the most popular Sufi devotional music from South Asia and, in recent years, has gained increased attention from worldwide audiences. Despite its popularity, upbeat rhythm and emotional appeal, qawwali’s origins and lyrics are shrouded in mystery.” Jaffar explains the genre, exploring its history, and demystifies the hidden messages in its poetry.

April 19, the series moves to the Aga Khan Museum with “Hamza Akram Qawwal and Brothers.” The 26-year-old singer Hamza Akram’s music is deeply rooted in the Pakistani Sufi devotional tradition. The group is becoming known in the subcontinent, across Europe, Middle East and North America. Akram and his brothers are the 26th generation of their musical lineage, the Qawwal Bachon ka Delhi Gharana, and are dedicated to sharing qawwali with the world. Their performance is part of the Aga Khan Museum’s 2018/19 Performing Arts season titled “The Other Side of Fear,” featuring artists who seek to transcend fear through music, dance and spoken word.

Anoushka Shankar – continuing a legacy of transcultural collaborations: The Asian Music Series continues well into May, but the last concert we will look at in this column takes place early that month. May 2, the Royal Conservatory of Music and SWM co-host sitar virtuosa and composer Anoushka Shankar and party on the Koerner Hall stage. Being groomed by her illustrious father from an early age, she has developed into one of South Asia’s most celebrated instrumentalists. In March 2019, Shankar released her latest Deutsche Grammophone album, Reflections, a retrospective of her career so far, focusing on musical collabs.

I last saw her live at Koerner Hall almost ten years ago with her father Ravi, who was a still musically vibrant 89 at the time. She has, since his death in 2012, taken his musical legacy into several new territories, crossing classical and vernacular, South Asian and Euro-American. Audiences at her concert can expect more transcultural musical dialogues while she demonstrates the versatility of her sitar across musical genres. 

Andrew Timar is a Toronto musician and music writer. He can be contacted at worldmusic@thewholenote.com.

The 2015 Canadian census estimated that Iranian Canadians number over 200,000. They have settled in significant numbers in the greater Montreal and Vancouver regions but the largest group – some estimates put the number at around 65,000 – lives in the northern Toronto outliers of Richmond Hill, Vaughan, Markham and Thornhill.

Over the past few decades, increasing numbers of singers, musicians, composers, conductors and music teachers specializing in many genres have joined their ranks, greatly enriching the musical life of the GTA. They and musicians from many other lands, including those native to Canada, are truly “making Toronto into a real music city,” a politicized phrase I’m cheekily lifting from The WholeNote’s Publisher/Editor In Chief David Perlman’s insightful Op-Ed last issue.

I have highlighted numerous concerts with a Persian theme in my column over the years, however this March several presenters are combining forces to highlight Persian culture alive and well right here in the diaspora. Under the rubric of Nowruz, the Persian annual New Year’s celebration welcoming the advent of spring, a museum exhibition, epic shadow theatre, storytelling, educational workshops, culinary experiences, children’s programs, cinema, dance and music performances – even a Nowruz DJ party – will warm our burg residents’ late-winter blahs.

Mystic Persian Music and Poetry: March 4, the Aga Khan Museum in partnership with Rumi Canada presents “Mystic Persian Music and Poetry” with the Soley Ensemble at the museum’s auditorium. The concert animates the current museum exhibition “Rebel, Jester, Mystic, Poet: Contemporary Persians,” highlighting “cultural rebellion and lyrical reflection” in the works of 23 artists who have chosen self-expression over silence.

The Soley Ensemble is led by the veteran singer-songwriter Soleyman Vaseghi. Born in Tehran in 1946 into a multi-generational Sufi-centric family, he was already popularly known as “Soley” throughout Iran by the age of 20, singing his own songs on National Iranian Radio and Television. After the Iranian revolution in 1979, however, Soley was prohibited from performing in public. He turned intensive research into Persian literature, poetry and music. This work eventually resulted in a series of new age-style albums aimed at international audiences, inspired by the lessons of Sufism.

Soley left Iran in 1986 and by the early 2000s had joined forces with the Lian Ensemble, a Los Angeles-based group of expat Iranian virtuoso musicians and composers. Their common goal was to fuse their classical Persian music heritage with contemporary jazz sensibilities, aiming for a “synthesis of mystical world music.”

Soley now makes Toronto his home and his Soley Ensemble is comprised primarily of several younger generation Toronto-area musicians of Iranian origin playing traditional Persian instruments. In Mystic Persian Music and Poetry, the Soley Ensemble performs devotional Sufi music honouring Nowruz. They are joined by “sacred whirling dancer” Farzad AttarJafari and Toronto-based spoken-word artist Sheniz Janmohamad reciting her English-language poetry.

Nowruzgan Festival: Tirgan, a “non-profit, non-religious and non-partisan cultural organization committed to promoting a cross-cultural dialogue between the Iranian-Canadians and the larger Canadian community,” is at the centre of Toronto’s Nowruz cultural festivities this year. Intending to honour both Nowruz as well as Canada’s sesquicentennial, Tirgan is producing the three-day Nowruzgan Festival.

The festival posits a twin purpose, one that looks culturally to the Persian homeland, but one which also embraces the community’s presence within Canada’s multiple socio-cultural and political geography. In addition, Tirgan’s Nowruzgan Festival mission statement emphasizes not only the entertainment value of its programming but also a didactic purpose.

“Daytime activities are geared toward youth and families and combine Persian art/craft technique with Canadian content.Using workshops and performances, children, teens and young adults have an opportunity to gain a clearer perception of their roles in society’s development as a cultural mosaic. Evening activities are designed for family and adult audiences.” It appears that the Nowruzgan Festival also aims to encourage younger Canadians of Iranian origin to better understand Canadian society.

Running over the March 10 to March 12 weekend, in partnership with Toronto Centre for the Arts, North York Arts and Aga Khan Museum, the Nowruzgan Festival events take place at the Toronto Centre for the Arts. It’s strategically located in the lower end of the heart of contemporary Toronto’s Iranian neighbourhood centred on Yonge Street. Of the nearly 60 scheduled events let’s take a closer look at a few with music as a key ingredient.

Feathers of Fire: A Persian Epic: The festival kicks off Friday March 10 with the multidisciplinary shadow theatre production Feathers of Fire: A Persian Epic which is repeated three more times during the weekend. Billed as a “cinematic shadow play for all ages,” the production is rooted in stories from the Shahnameh (The Book of Kings), an epic literary milestone written by the great Persian poet Ferdowsi roughly between 977 and 1010 CE.

Conceived, designed and directed by New York-based Iranian filmmaker, playwright and graphic artist Hamid Rahmanian in collaboration with the American shadow-theatre trailblazer Larry Reed, Feathers of Fire features original music by composer/musician Loga Ramin Torkian and vocalist Azam Ali, an Iranian American husband-and-wife team. Torkian co-founded the groups Niyaz and Axiom of Choice, both incorporating Persian and Middle Eastern music and lyrics. Torkian performs on the Azerbaijani tar, the Turkish saz and, a recent invention, the guitarviol, a new bowed hybrid of guitar and viola da gamba. He has scored a number of films, a skill which comes in handy supporting this epic production which employs eight actors, 160 puppets, 15 masks and many costumes. Its 158 animated backgrounds are rear-projected onto a vast 15- by 30-foot screen.

Sahba Motallebi with Special Guest Maneli Jamal: Saturday, March 11, at 5pm, the Aga Khan Museum and Tigran co-present Sahba Motallebi with special guest Maneli Jamal at the Toronto Centre for the Arts. Motallebi is that rare musician, a female soloist on the tar and setar. Recognized internationally for her virtuosity for four years running (1995-1998), she was named the Best Tar Player at the Iranian Music Festival while still enrolled at the Teheran Conservatory of Music. In 1997 she co-founded the groundbreaking women’s music ensemble Chakaveh and was subsequently invited to join the Iranian National Orchestra.

Motallebi currently lives in Southern California where she completed a degree in world music performance  at CalArts. She performs worldwide and has released a series of albums, the latest of which is A Tear at the Crossroad of Time. She has also pioneered Internet tar instruction. Her online teaching has inspired a renewed interest in the transmission of this venerable art form.

Joining Motallebi on stage is the hot Iranian Canadian guitarist Maneli Jamal. He won first place in the 2014 Harbourfront Centre’s Soundclash Music Awards wowing audiences with his signature approachable style of playing acoustic guitar with connections to his Iranian roots. A Minor 7th review raved about his “mastery of phrasing, a sumptuous tone and an ability to wrest emotion from every note, even from the pauses between the notes.” I, for one, look forward to the plucked-string heat generated by Motallebi and Jamal. It will certainly put me in a proper celebratory Nowruz frame of mind.

Other Picks

Mar 4: The Church of St. Mary Magdalene provides an earthly setting for the meeting of two musical choral worlds – the church’s Schola Magdalena and their guest choir Darbazi, the latter singing the polyphonic music from the Republic of Georgia. Schola Magdalena supplies its trademark medieval-to-Renaissance liturgical repertoire of Gregorian chant, Hildegard, Dufay, Dunstable, as well as Appalachian folk song. Toronto’s first Georgian choir Darbazi, on the other hand, performs selections from its extensive sacred and profane Georgian repertoire. The listing also mentions the performance of the intriguing but as yet undesignated “new music.” Will the two choirs jointly sing a new Canadian work or two? My advice is to go and find out.

Mar 16 and 17: Rounding out the month York University Music Department’s World Music Festival runs over two days, March 16 and 17, at the Tribute Communities Recital Hall, Martin Family Lounge and Sterling Beckwith Studio, all in the Accolade East Building. The genres on offer are wide-ranging: Chinese Classical Orchestra, Cuban and Klezmer Ensembles, West African Ghanaian Drumming, Escola de Samba, West African Mande and Caribbean Music. The Korean Drum, the Celtic as well as the Balkan Music Ensembles, will also show what they have learned this year. I’m willing to bet you’ll be impressed.

Andrew Timar is a Toronto musician and music writer. He can be contacted at worldmusic@thewholenote.com.

World music concerts this month launch with the culmination of the Toronto association Bharathi Kala Manram’s 40th Annual Thyagaraja Music Festival at the SVBF Auditorium in Etobicoke. Thyagaraja (1767–1847) was a singer and prolific composer and remains among the most influential figures in the Carnatic (South Indian classical) music canon. On Sunday April 1 at 4pm, Thyagaraja’s musical legacy is marked in a concert featuring the Indian vocalist P. Unnikrishnan, accompanied by Embar Kannan, violin and Anand Anathakrishnan, mridangam (hand drum). As well as being considered one of India’s great composers, often compared to Beethoven, he dedicated his life to the devotion of the divine. Many South Indians thus consider him the patron saint of Carnatic music and his widespread diasporic legacy is celebrated every year in presentations of his songs.

Our remarkably early and pleasant spring weather this year is certainly a cause for celebration of another, more secular kind. (The weather’s distractions might also explain the fact that this next concert, by the Sarv Ensemble, as well as that of the Baarbad Ensemble on April 15, discussed below, came to my attention too late to convey to The WholeNote listings department.)

On April 5 the Sarv Ensemble presents a concert marking the arrival of spring and the Persian New Year at Trinity-St. Paul’s Centre. Comprised of young musicians playing Persian instruments this ensemble was formed two years ago in Toronto. Its music draws inspiration from diverse classical and folk music traditions from across Iran, freely incorporating new compositions, yet striving to remain faithful to the tradition of the radif, the primary tonal organizational principle of Persian music. The eight-member Sarv Ensemble is joined by the York University ethnomusicologist Irene Markoff as vocalist and baglama player.

That same April 5 night, around the nose of Lake Ontario in St. Catharines, three top Canadian guitarists share the stage at the Centre for the Arts, Brock University. P.R.O. is pan-Mediterranean specialist Pavlo, Canadian Rock Hall of Famer Rik Emmett and multi JUNO Award winner Oscar Lopez. Each musician has carved out a career specializing in a particular guitar-centric niche mixing his passion for pan-Mediterranean, rock, Latin, “nouveau flamenco” and fusion music genres. Another passion — one they share with their many fans — is an abiding love for the six-string, fretted instrument they’ve built their careers on.

On April 12, Small World Music/Batuki Music Society present the trio called Bombino, whose music is billed as “blues from the Saharan desert” at Toronto’s Lula Lounge. Born in 1980 at a nomadic camp near the North African desert town of Agadez, the guitarist and songwriter Omara “Bombino” Moctar grew up during an era of armed struggle for Tuareg independence. His electric guitar riffs, once considered a symbol of Tuareg rebellion, draw on the guitarism of fellow North Africans Tinariwen and Ali Farka Touré, as well as the American rock and blues of Jimi Hendrix and John Lee Hooker. Bombino, with his intense guitar virtuosity backed with driving drum kit and electric bass, is renowned throughout the Sahara. Not only are his bootleg tapes treasured and traded among fans in the region, but in recent years his guitar prowess has been increasingly noticed internationally. In 2006, Bombino recorded with the Rolling Stones’ Keith Richards and Charlie Watts.

On the same day, April 12, at the Harcourt Memorial United Church in Guelph, and with no guitars in sight, the Guelph Youth Singers headline a concert titled “United for Africa.” Joined by the Guelph Community Singers and Les Jeunes Chanteurs d’Acadie, the GYS program includes three African dances, the marching song Siyahamba, and songs from the traditional Acadian repertoire. The concert proceeds go to the Bracelet of Hope charity, providing medical care to HIV/AIDS patients in Africa.

The Irshad Khan World Ensemble performs on April 13 at the Living Arts Centre, Mississauga. Of impeccable North Indian musical lineage, Irshad Khan, a resident of Mississauga, is a formidable sitar and surbahar master whose career is rooted in classical Hindustani music. In this, his latest East-West fusion project, however, he has infused his sitar playing with the talents of local musicians John Brownell on drum set, Dave Ramkissoon on tabla, guitarist Brian Legere, Mark West on keyboards and bassist Dave Field. Together they explore the lighter side of world-beat, playing Irshad Khan’s compositions that will “be decided spontaneously on the stage.”

Also on April 13 the Perimeter Institute in Waterloo presents international pipa (Chinese lute) virtuoso Wu Man with the Shanghai String Quartet as part of their Classical World Artists Series. Wu Man is an eloquent advocate of traditional and avant-garde Chinese music who is best known to international audiences as a champion of the pipa in the works of contemporary composers. Performing for nearly three decades, the polished Shanghai Quartet has toured major music centres throughout the globe and collaborated with some of the world’s leading composers and musicians. Together they perform a mixed program of music by both European and Chinese composers.

April 15, the Persian music Baarbad Ensemble in collaboration with Sinfonia Toronto and Moussou Folila, stage an ambitious seven-part music program at the Glenn Gould Studio. Titled “The Wayfarers of This Long Pilgrimage,” the evening is intended to represent “the seven stages of ancient mysticism.” This multi-cultural performance showcases the premiere of compositions by Persian santur player Mehdi Rezania and kamanche master Saeed Kamjoo. New arrangements of the folk music of Iran and the Balkan region by Hossein Alizadeh and Hans Zimmer enrich the musical texture and ethno-historical resonance. Involving a large group of over 25 musicians the ensemble also features guest Toronto world music vocalist Brenna MacCrimmon, Hossein Behroozinia on barbat (Persian lute), and djembe player Anna Malnikoff.

Ritmo Flamenco Dance and Music Ensemble present “Vida Flamenco” at the Al Green Theatre on April 21. Directed by Roger Scannura who serves as lead flamenco guitarist and composer, the show features Anjelica Scannura as lead dancer and choreographer. The Scannura family has made flamenco a way of life and are among Canada’s foremost exponents of the art form.

This month intrepid Toronto world music fans can feast on music and dance: the multi-venue Bulgarian Arts Festival demonstrates the many faces of that country’s culture. Titled “Soul Journey to Bulgaria,” the festival’s events include not only visual arts exhibits, classical concerts, poetry, theatre and film screenings, but also several folklore dance and world music concerts. I can mention only a few concerts here; for a complete listing of the many scheduled events please visit the festival’s website. On Saturday April 21, the Eurovision-esque singing style of Bulgarian pop stars Rossitza Kirilova and Kaloyan Kalchev headline the concert along with the engaging folk based music of the Bulgarian Children’s group Bulgarche at the Great Hall of the Macedono-Bulgarian Eastern Orthodox Cathedral. The venue changes on April 27 to St. George’s Macedono Bulgarian Church. That concert showcases the folkloric music and dance of the Dimitrovche group, with Grammy winning kaval (end-blown Bulgarian flute) virtuoso and composer Teodosii Spassov.

On the following Saturday, April 28, from 3pm to 10pm, the Bulgarian Arts Festival takes over Toronto’s Harbourfront Centre. A few highlights rounding out the afternoon: the Bulgarche children’s group and Irene Markoff’s York University Balkan Music Ensemble. At 8pm the Teodosii Spassov Ethno Jazz Trio swings into the Brigantine room. The trio’s moniker couldn’t be more descriptive. Led by kaval maestro Spassov, a soloist at the Bulgarian National Radio and with ten solo albums to his credit, the trio explores his patent merger of traditional Bulgarian folk music with jazz, classical and popular genres. He has been hailed by the Chicago Tribune for making music “… like a jam session between Ian Anderson and Thelonius Monk.” With his brilliant and innovative playing, Spassov has taken what was originally a shepherd’s flute into 21st-century concert halls around the world.

Also on April 28, unfortunately, the Grammy Award winning Buena Vista Social Club’s guitarist Eliades Ochoa performs with his band at Toronto’s Opera House. The Toronto-based Latin singer Laura Fernandez guests. For Cuban song (and Wim Wenders’ film) aficionados like me it’s a rare opportunity to experience one of this music’s godfathers live on Queen St. E.

Andrew Timar is a Toronto musician and music writer.He can be contacted at worldmusic@thewholenote.com.

According to The WholeNote’s “Previous Issues” searchable database, this marks the ninth year I’m writing this column. According to a back-of-the-envelope tally, I’ve written about 80 of these explorations of the seemingly inexhaustible globally conscious music communities in the GTA. Occasionally, I’ve even ventured off-continent following the touring activities of our musicians.

No matter how often I do it, however, writing about the launch of the pre-fall concert season amid our typical Southern Ontario August heat and humidity always feels oddly dyssynchronous.

One way to bridge this musical inter-seasonality is to select some of the musicians whose careers I’ve touched on here in past Septembers over the years, trace their 2019 summers, and see where they land this September. The fact they’re all recent Polaris Music Prize recipients, and all Indigenous artists, provides us with another interesting lens.

Polaris Music Prize

The Polaris Music Prize is arguably a Canadian music industry bellwether. It is annually given to the “best full-length Canadian album based on artistic merit, regardless of genre, sales, or record label.” Founded in 2006 by Steve Jordan, a former Canadian music industry A&R executive, it was endowed with an inclusive-sounding mission statement: “A select panel of [Canadian] music critics judge and award the Prize without regard to musical genre or commercial popularity.” Polaris’ aim differs from other awards which recognize album and digital title sales and/or streaming, radio airplay, touring and social media engagement.

Mission statement notwithstanding, a review of Polaris winners for the first eight years reveals its juries chose artists reflecting commercial album production within relatively mainstream popular music genres. These include indie rock (Final Fantasy/Owen Pallett, Patrick Watson, Arcade Fire, etc), pop (Dan Snaith/Caribou), post-rock (Godspeed You! Black Emperor), electronic/hip-hop (Kaytranada), as well as hardcore punk. Given those genres, until a few years ago Polaris awardees would not have found their way into this column.

In recent years however, Indigenous voices have come to the fore with Polaris juries, bringing their awards and their artistic achievements to the attention of the general public and to this column. While A Tribe Called Red’s album Nation II Nation – their electronic dance music, dubbed powwow-step, imbued with powerful elements of First Nations music – was short-listed in 2013; it didn’t win best album. But Indigenous sounds, however, did finally sweep into the Polaris award nightscape in downtown Toronto the following year.

Tanya Tagaq’s 2014 Win

On September 22, 2014 avant-garde Inuk vocalist Tanya Tagaq gave a jaw-dropping, dramatic ten-minute Polaris concert performance with drummer Jean Martin and violinist Jesse Zubot, along with, for the first time, the 44-voice improvising Element Choir conducted by Christine Duncan. “…It was as if an intense Arctic wind had blown into downtown Toronto’s The Carlu [venue]…” I wrote, reporting for The WholeNote. To cap off the evening, Tagaq was awarded the Prize for her brilliant, overtly political album Animism.

“Her win marks a significant milestone” I wrote in my WholeNote report. “For the first time it was awarded to an Indigenous musician. … a complex and heady mix of confrontation and reconciliation, of social and political issues [with] musical genres … hinting at the potential transcultural power of the healing force of sound.”

In the Polaris Spotlight in 2015 and Beyond

Tagaq’s 2014 award seemed to have opened some kind of Polaris door for Indigenous Canadian musicians. The following year, the Piapot Cree-born singer-songwriter, composer, educator and social activist Buffy Sainte-Marie won the Prize for her firebrand statement, Power in the Blood; her 15th studio release. This fearless veteran of the music business, 74-years-old at the time, has been writing and singing songs of love, war, religion and Indigenous resistance for over half a century.

In 2017 the Polaris jury awarded the $50,000 Polaris Music Prize to the Colombian Canadian singer-songwriter Lido Pimienta for her album La Papessa. Identifying as Afro-Colombian with Indigenous Wayuu heritage on her mother’s side, her music incorporates musical influences from those sources, as well as synthpop and electronic music genres. I also covered that Polaris gala evening for The WholeNote, and wrote: “In addition to her acrobatic voice, the sound of the tambura (Colombian bass drum), snare drum, electronics and a four-piece horn section dominated the music.” There wasn’t a single guitar or piano on stage; a rarity in the Polaris world.

Also significant that year, four of the ten short-listed albums directly reflected current Indigenous realities. A Tribe Called Red, Tanya Tagaq and Lido Pimienta were joined by Gord Downie’s Secret Path, a moving concept album about Chanie Wenjack, the Anishinaabe boy who tragically died after escaping from a residential school. 

Then in 2018, singer, pianist and composer Jeremy Dutcher captured the Prize with his moving freshman album Wolastoqiyik Lintuwakonawa. Dutcher, a Wolastoqiyik (Maliseet) member of the Tobique First Nation in New Brunswick, studied music and anthropology at Dalhousie University. He also trained as an operatic tenor, surely the first Polaris winner to do so. He later expanded his professional repertoire to include the traditional singing style and songs of his Wolastoqiyik community. His unique album reflects all those musical, linguistic and historically informed threads, reclaiming the past with an authenticity and emotional core that resonates with audiences.

In his Polaris acceptance speech, Dutcher declared, “Canada, you are in the midst of an Indigenous renaissance,” placing his work within a larger, growing Indigenous presence in the Canadian theatre, music, visual arts, dance and cinema scenes. With an eagle feather in his hand – holding an eagle feather honours the Creator and invites them to take notice – he continued, “What you see on the stage tonight is the future. … Are you ready to hear the truths that need to be told?”

Dutcher concluded his 2018 speech with a mission statement, an insight and a heartfelt invitation. “I do this work to honour those who have gone before and to lay the footprints for those yet to come. This is all part of a continuum of Indigenous excellence – and you are here to witness it. I welcome you.”

The Summer of 2019

The laying of footprints continues apace. Over the 2019 summer, Tagaq, Pimienta and Dutcher kept busy touring. Tagaq, having relocated to Toronto since her win, has been on tour with both her music and her award-winning genre-bending literary debut Split Tooth (2018) which masterfully mashes up fiction, memoir, Inuit myth and poetry. Her coming-of-age story is not unlike her music in the richly layered texture of its narratives. In July, Tagaq appeared several times at the Riddu Riđđu Festival at the Centre for Northern Peoples in Northern Norway, along with Buffy Sainte-Marie, Jeremy Dutcher and other global Indigenous acts.

Pimienta’s self-described “work of theatre, work of performance” We Are in a Non-relationship Relationship premiered earlier this year at Toronto’s Museum of Contemporary Art. The cross-disciplinary work illustrated her versatility across a variety of performance genres integrating music, storytelling and visual elements, portrayed on three screens above a living room-like set. She’s ambitiously expanding her career in new theatrical directions, “exploring the politics of gender, race, motherhood, identity and the construct of the Canadian landscape in the Latin American diaspora and vernacular.”

Pimienta also took her music on tour this summer to Montréal’s Suoni per il Popolo, Toronto’s Koerner Hall, Folk on the Rocks in Yellowknife, Pickathon 2019 in Oregon, USA, SummerStage in New York City’s Central Park and headlined the Dawson City Music Festival.

The positive reception of Jeremy Dutcher’s Polaris win has provided a discernible lift to his career in radio plays, print coverage, record sales and live concerts. In The WholeNote‘s summer issue, I wrote about Dutcher’s August concert at the rural Westben in Campbellford ON., an event that also featured an Anishinaabe BBQ for concertgoers. He also appeared at summer festivals in Toronto (Luminato), San Francisco, Montreal, Canso NS, Moncton NB, Woody Point NL, and Rees, Germany.

And in September … and early October

September 24, Tanya Tagaq and her band take the National Arts Centre stage in Ottawa along with Kalaallit (Greenlandic Inuk) Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory, in a concert evocatively titled “Voices Rising.” A frequent Tagaq onstage collaborator, Bathory is a performance artist, actor, and storyteller, a specialist in uaajeerneq, a Greenlandic mask dance.

Jeremy Dutcher’s tour dates include the World Music Festival in Chicago on September 18 and 19, the National Arts Centre Ottawa on September 25 and Centre in the Square in Kitchener on September 27 and 28. He continues with dates at First Ontario Performing Arts Centre, St. Catharines on October 3 and Burton Cummings Theatre, Winnipeg on October 9.

October 18 The Music Gallery presents “Lido Pimienta: Road to Miss Colombia, plus OKAN” at its home Toronto hall as part of its annual X avant concerts. Pimienta presents songs from Miss Colombia, her La Papessa follow-up album, exploring Pimienta’s relationship to the culture of her birth. Performing with horns, winds and choir, the performance showcases her new songs arranged by Halifax-based composer Robert Drisdelle.

And the 2019 Polaris Music Award?

For one thing, Indigenous musicians remain contenders. The short list includes the Indigenous West Coast hip-hop duo Snotty Nose Rez Kids, nominated for their strong third album Trapline. Haisla rappers Darren “Young D” Metz and Quinton “Yung Trybez” Nyce incorporate themes from the Kitimat BC reservation, where they grew up, in their album’s dense lyrics, mixing it with trap (a style of hip-hop music developed in the Southern USA): a style the duo call “Indigenous Trap.”

Inuk singer, filmmaker and activist Elisapie, born in Salluit in Quebec’s far north, is also on the short list. Her The Ballad of the Runaway Girl is by turns moody, melodic, richly layered and skillfully arranged throughout.

Of course there are eight other, non-Indigenous, nominees too. But no matter which one wins on September 16, the 2019 edition of the Polaris Music Prize clearly reflects, as Jeremy Dutcher astutely observed, the “continuum of Indigenous excellence” that the Prize itself, since 2014 at least, has contributed to.

WORLD VIEW QUICK PICKS

SEP 7: Aga Khan Museum, in partnership with Raag Mala Society of Canada, presents “Stree Shakti: Celebrating Women in Music,” featuring Arati Ankalikar-Tikekar at the Museum. Ankalikar-Tikekar, an award-winning Hindustani music vocalist, accompanied by harmonium and tabla, performs raags associated with female deities and her own compositions.

SEP 28: Aga Khan Museum presents Madagascar’s supergroup Toko Telo in its auditorium. Toko Telo features the soulful vocals of Malagasy diva Monika Njava and guitarists D’Gary (the fingerpicking master) and Joël Rabesolo, inspired by the rich inter-cultural music traditions of the island’s southwest.

SEP 19 TO 29: Small World Music Society (SMWMS) presents its 18th Annual Small World Music Festival in Toronto. Here are just three of the concerts to look forward to:

SEP 19: Hanggai from China and Mongolia takes the stage at the Revival Bar. Beijing-based Hanggai convincingly mashes up rock and Mongolian music; the resulting mix can be heard on some of the world’s biggest festival stages;

SEP 26: Lula Music & Arts Centre in association with SMWMS present “Women in Percussion Festival” opening night at Lula Lounge, headlining Adriana Portela. A leading figure in the samba-reggae movement, Portela was the first woman to lead a samba-reggae ensemble, and has played percussion with many leading Brazilian groups. Also on the bill is Brazilian-Canadian percussionist and vocalist Aline Morales with her new horn and drum project, Aline Morales & Vulvas.

SEP 28: MRG Concerts in association with SMWMS present Tinariwen at the Danforth Music Hall. Formed 40 years ago, this Malian band is closely associated with the electric-guitar-driven desert blues sound and with their powerful songs about issues facing their Tuareg people.

Andrew Timar is a Toronto musician and music writer. He can be contacted at worldmusic@thewholenote.com.

Spring is a season of renewal. As the last of the dirty snow melts away, grass greens around us, tree buds begin to plump and birds return to song, we’re reminded that the season is connected to some of humanity’s deepest values and hopes.

That optimism is reflected in major cyclical religious holidays celebrated round the world – Holi, Nowruz, Passover and Easter – each of which possesses an extensive song list. While these spring-launch festivals will have taken place by the time you read this, there still remains the balance of the season to explore in music the many sacred and profane rites of spring associated with the vernal equinox. Please use this column as your guide to some of its rich abundance in our Greater Toronto Area communities.

In this issue I’ll be exploring ethnic pluralism, aka cultural diversity as performed in music, in three stories. First is a preview of the second season of Labyrinth Ontario, modal music’s Toronto outpost, then a segue to the Toronto leg of the Canadian tour of a choir from the Republic of Georgia, finally arriving, in my Quick Picks, at the smorgasbord of musical offerings this season.

Labyrinth Musical Workshop Ontario

Speaking of renewal, Labyrinth Music Workshop Ontario, an organization “dedicated to promoting the study and enjoyment of global traditions of modal music,” is launching its second season of workshops, capped by a concert.

In its inaugural season, the full range of spirit of an extended modal family was reflected in Labyrinth’s remarkably ambitious lineup featuring nine week-long workshops, twelve concerts, plus two panel discussions. Eleven masters of Greek, Turkish, Bulgarian, Iranian, Azerbaijani, Arabic, Kurdish and Afghani music traditions gave lessons and performed. Historically these musical cultures have interacted variously in and between their homelands, but last year’s Toronto concerts reflected an intensified interaction perhaps only possible on the ground here today.

Ethnomusicologist Rob Simms, a Labyrinth Ontario board member, provided an overview on the site’s blog. “Labyrinth’s inaugural season offered attendees an immense wealth of practical insights into the technique and craft of modal music, inspiring performances, and valuable lore and wisdom regarding the larger context of contemporary modal cultures, straight from the source of some of the most important representative artists.

“While there was much great music making going on, I was particularly struck by the reminder that true mastery goes beyond playing to knowing what really matters on a deeper cultural, aesthetic, and ultimately spiritual level with this music—and being it, living it. … Toronto’s Danforth and Chester neighbourhood is quite likely the modal musical centre of the planet for the month of May!”

Ross Daly, a musician of international influence and founder in 1982 of the original Labyrinth centre in Crete – after which Labyrinth Ontario is modelled–- was on hand for the duration of last year’s events. An eloquent spokesman for contemporary modal music, Daly offered thought-provoking perspectives at the panel discussions on many aspects of his long, inspiring career. He spoke to the relationship of individuals to tradition, building a repertoire, the balance of study and intuitive creativity, aesthetic preferences, the dynamics of audiences, the effect of recordings on learning and performing, and on the role of “cultural outsiders.” These are all issues very pertinent to Canadian musicians in this scene too.

Labyrinth Ontario June 2019 Workshops

Daly again plays a central role in this year’s Labyrinth activities. June 3 to 7 he will blend lecture, demonstration, performance and hands-on composition in his workshop, drawing on his decades of study of modal traditions. A modal heads-up: while the workshop is suitable for performers and composers of all levels and backgrounds, an “instrument capable of playing quarter-tones” is recommended. All workshops will be held at Eastminster United Church, 310 Danforth Ave., Toronto

Running concurrently, Cretan lyra virtuosa Kelly Thoma leads a workshop on her instrument covering technique and repertoire, serving as an introduction to Cretan music and to her compositional and performance practice. Award-winning Bulgarian diva Tzvetanka Varimezova brings her decades of experience as a choir director and solo vocalist to cover vocal techniques and several styles of Bulgarian song in her class.

The following week on June 10 to 14, Araz Salek (tar) and Hamidreza Khalatbari (kamanche) jointly offer an Introduction to Iranian Music covering the fundamentals of Iranian modal music, while tombak virtuoso Pedram Khavarzamini teaches Percussion Cycles drawing on his deep intercultural study of cyclic rhythmic patterns in his workshop.

Labyrinth Ontario’s concert

Saturday June 8, Labyrinth Ontario presents Modal Music Summit at Eastminster United Church, the concert tying together various threads explored by workshop leaders, including Ross Daly, the group This Tale of Ours (Daley, Thoma, Salek and Khavarzamini), plus vocalist Varimezova.

I spoke recently with Labyrinth’s artistic director, Araz Salek, about the organization’s first year. One of the healthiest aspects of the inaugural concerts was the mixed audiences, he told me. “They were not just drawn from the music’s community of origin, but also attended by Torontonians eager for something new. That’s in the core missions of Labyrinth: to encourage audiences to experience and then enjoy musics beyond what they listen to day to day. We believe audiences can develop a taste and ear for modal music traditions. We can learn to appreciate musics other than those we’ve grown up with.”

Why is that important? “Because that experience ultimately enriches our lives. Many of us look forward to exploring cuisines we didn’t grow up with, eventually developing a taste for diverse food and drink: why not music?”

Salek cautions against easy solutions, however. “Musicians from modal traditions often aim to make their music palatable to a broad international audience. All too often this results in reducing its essential characteristics to the lowest common denominator that the music shares with Western models. That’s the opposite of what we’re trying to do at Labyrinth. We encourage musicians, their students and our audiences to reach for what’s essential in each musical tradition, and to develop it. Getting rid of microtones, modality and shoehorning melodies and performance practices into a Western framework, compromises the cultural voice of the individual culture represented.”

Cultural bridges are crucial, Salek reminds us, “but it takes good will, time and considerable effort to build a sturdy and elegant bridge that accommodates both sides without compromise.” This insight is useful for musicians to keep in mind when embarking on transcultural musical collaborations.

Didgori Ensemble in Canada

Didgori Ensemble is an award-winning six-voice choir from the Republic of Georgia performing the country’s unique polyphonic choral repertoire. Since 2004, the have toured Russia, UK, France, Switzerland, Poland, the Czech Republic, Latvia, Uzbekistan, Turkey and Israel. Late in May into mid-June their Canadian tour promises to be a huge moment for Georgian music in Canada, an opportunity that happens perhaps once in a lifetime. How uncommon is this? The only time a choir from Georgia toured Canada previously was in the 1970s.

Co-sponsored by a consortium of Toronto, Edmonton, Winnipeg and Quebecois producers, Didgori’s tour kicks off with a concert and workshop at the Edmonton International Choral Festival. The Winnipeg Singers then present them in Manitoba before they travel to Toronto, followed by dates in Kingston and Quebec.

Declared by UNESCO in 2001 as an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, the millennial-old Georgian polyphonic singing tradition, with its close harmonies and un-tempered scales, is a visceral experience. It features three-part singing in a variety of regionally based styles, ranging from melismatic lyrical singing and drones, to relaxed urban songs, to exploding “crunchy” counterpoint, reflecting the old, diverse and complex Georgian social and physical landscape.

The Didgori singers are acknowledged masters of a variety of Georgian musical styles. They are dedicated to the traditions of their ancestors through the mastery and popularization of Georgian polyphonic folk songs and liturgical chants. Didgori’s very name honours the 1121 battle that helped reunite Georgia and usher in a period of growth in arts and culture.

Didgori Ensemble in Toronto: concert and workshops

Friday June 7, three Toronto arts organizations – MusiCamp, Clay & Paper Theatre and Folk Camp Canada – present Didgori Ensemble at Jeanne Lamon Hall, Trinity-St. Paul’s Centre.

On June 8, Didgori gives a public Georgian choral workshop from 5 to7pm at the St. Vladimir Institute, 620 Spadina Ave. Then on Sunday, June 9, MusiCamp holds a five-hour Georgian choral workshop with Didgori at the MusiCamp Studio, 11 Cobourg Ave. from 11am to 4pm. Limited to 12 participants, this intensive mentoring experience with six experts of traditional Georgian choral repertoire is the closest Torontonians can get to this music short of a very, very long plane ride to Tbilisi. For more information about registration check MusiCamp’s website.

Monday June 10, Didgori drives east for a 12:15pm concert at St. George’s Cathedral, 270 King St. E, Kingston, Ontario, before travelling to dates in Québec. 

WORLD VIEW QUICK PICKS

MAY 1, 5:30PM: the Canadian Opera Company presents Stomp the Floor with the sibling-fuelled Métis Fiddler Quartet at the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre, Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts, as part of its noon hour World Music Series. The concert is free, but note that a “no late seating” is strictly observed.

MAY 2, 7PM: North York Central Library/University of Toronto Faculty of Music offer Toronto audiences the rarely heard Music of Rajasthan with vocalist Abhishek Iyer, harmonium player Sushant Anatharam and Tanmay Sharma on tabla, at the North York Central Library. The event is free but registration is required.

MAY 2, 8PM: the popular sitarist Anoushka Shankar and party perform at Koerner Hall, Telus Centre in a concert produced by the Royal Conservatory of Music

MAY 3 AND 4, 8PM; MAY 5, 3PM: Esmeralda Enrique Spanish Dance Company stages its latest show Impulso at the Fleck Dance Theatre, Harbourfront Centre. The production features works by choreographers Esmeralda Enrique and José Maldonado. Guitarists Caroline Planté and Benjamin Barrile, vocalists Manuel Soto and Marcos Marin, are joined by percussionist Derek Gray to provide the energizing dance music.

MAY 4, 7PM: Singing Together 2019 presents A Celebration of Cultural Diversity, a “multicultural choral concert with seven choirs from different ethnic backgrounds,” at St. Paschal Baylon Church, Thornhill. Groups include the Chinese Canadian Choir of Toronto (Cantonese); Coro San Marco (Italian); Joyful Singers (Korean); Nayiri Armenian Choir of Toronto (Armenian); Noor Children’s Choir (Armenian); Toronto Taiwanese Choir (Mandarin), plus the guest Filipino Choral Group.

MAY 4, 6:30PM: the Mississauga Festival Choir, joined by guest world music ensemble Autorickshaw, offers songs from South Africa, South Asia and Canada’s far north in a concert titled Building Bridges at the Living Arts Centre, Mississauga.

MAY 5, 1PM: the Royal Conservatory of Music presents the illustrious Toronto vocal quartet Turkwaz at the Mazzoleni Concert Hall, Royal Conservatory. Maryem Hassan Tollar draws on her Arabic language heritage, Jayne Brown and Sophia Grigoriadis bring their experience with Greek music and Brenna MacCrimmon adds her expertise in Turkish song repertoire to the mix.

MAY 12, 3PM: Echo Women’s Choir performs a Mother’s Day Concert: Thanks to Life, A Celebration of Songs from the Americas at the Church of the Holy Trinity. The repertoire includes Calixto Alvarez’s Cuban Suite and Violeta Parra’s Gracias a la Vida (arr. B. Whitla). Guest singer-songwriter Amanda Martinez joins veteran Echo conductors Becca Whitla and Alan Gasser.

MAY 17, 8PM: Small World Music Society presents Anindo Chatterjee & Guests, a North-meets-South-Indian percussion summit at the Small World Music Centre, Artscape Youngplace. Tabla master Pandit Anindo Chatterjee headlines, joined by Gowrishanker Balachandran (mrdangam), Ramana Indrakumar (ghatam), Shirshendu Mukherjee (vocalist), Hardeep Chana (harmonium), and local tabla maestro Ravi Naimpally.

MAY 26, 3PM: the Kyiv Chamber Choir conducted by Mykola Hobdych sings a program titled Sounds of Ukraine at the Koerner Hall, Telus Centre.

MAY 26, 7PM: Jewish Music Week in Toronto presents Nomadica: Music of the Gypsies, Arabs and Jews featuring David Buchbinder on trumpet and vocalist Roula Said at Lula Lounge.

MAY 28, 12PM: the Canadian Opera Company presents Celebrate Japan! in its World Music Series. Nagata Sachu, directed by Kiyoshi Nagata, will makes the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre ring with festive percussion-centric sounds.

JUN 2, 7:30PM: Sing! The Toronto Vocal Arts Festival continues with Cuban Fantasies with Vocal Sampling and Freeplay at Lula Lounge.

Andrew Timar is a Toronto musician and music writer. He can be contacted at worldmusic@thewholenote.com.

In my summer 2017 column I examined the formation and first season of the New Canadian Global Music Orchestra – the Royal Conservatory’s supergroup celebrating cultural diversity and pluralism – and its search for a common language here in Toronto, Canada.

Now, with fall subtly nipping at our heels, two new initiatives aiming to address issues of interest to students, practitioners and audiences of globally sensitive music, are poised to set projects in motion. On the one hand, Polyphonic Ground aspires to bring under a big tent a group of individual “live music presenters committed to building and sustaining Toronto as a global music city.” On the other hand, Labyrinth Musical Workshop Ontario is a non-profit “dedicated to promoting the study and appreciation of modal music traditions of Asia, Africa and Europe.” Both publicly launch in September.

Polyphonic Ground

Kayla McGee, Small World Music’s managing director, serves as Polyphonic Ground’s community lead. In a mid-August interview she told me why Polyphonic Ground was an obvious next step in the evolution of our region’s global music community. “We at Small World saw there was no real infrastructure for live music presenters, no shared platforms to allow us to work and grow together.” Small World couldn’t do it alone. But the need for setting up such infrastructure became abundantly clear to McGee when she served with Ontario’s Live Music Working Group, an industry association promoting live Canadian music.

Polyphonic Ground’s activities, McGee explains, will include collaborative programming, fundraising, addressing resource issues and professional development such as presenter panels and surveys. “We also want to stress to audiences that the music we collectively present is for the culturally curious and not just for members of a specific group. Many of us are looking for ways to break out of genre and confirmed audience silos … to cross-pollinate audiences.”

That Small World had identified a real need became instantly clear when they put the word out about Polyphonic Ground; 12 small-to-medium-sized organizations responded to the call for “a new initiative to strengthen Toronto’s culturally diverse music industry.” It’s an impressive list: Ashkenaz Foundation, Lula Music and Arts Centre, Batuki Music Society, Good Kind Productions, Link Music Lab, MonstrARTity Creative Community, Music Africa, Revolutions Per Minute, Uma Nota Culture, World Fiddle Day Toronto, iNative and Small World Music Society, the initiative’s catalyst.

I have featured the activities of many of its members individually in this column over the years. Under the Polyphonic Ground banner these presenters could constitute a significant cultural voice. Taken as a whole the numbers are impressive. Collectively they employ 40 people in their operations and present some 300 concerts each year, to an estimated audience of over 300,000.

The press release announcing Polyphonic Ground’s formation — Hear Toronto. Where the World Lives. — sets out its mission systematically: to provide points of connection for artists and audiences; to strengthen industry practices and be a united voice to government, business and industry; to encourage exchange and discovery through a monthly double-bill performance series and professional development initiatives for diverse artistic leaders. The release also acknowledges funding by the Ontario Media Development Corporation, as well as support from MusicOntario, Music Canada Live, City of Toronto and Cultural Pluralism in the Arts Movement Ontario (CPAMO). So at some level the collective has already begun making its case.

Polyphonic Ground serves up the first in its series of monthly double-bill concerts at Revival Bar, 783 College Street. As planned, for each concert, two partner organizations will pair in collaborative programs geared to transcultural musical discovery. The September 14 inaugural concert is spearheaded by Ashkenaz Foundation and Small World Music Society in co-presentation with three groups: Turkwaz (Toronto), GROOZ (Montreal) and Sandcatchers (Brooklyn). Transcultural the evening certainly will be, featuring the Balkan voices of the seasoned JUNO-nominated Turkwaz trio, the Middle Eastern-meets-Appalachian fusion of Sandcatchers, and GROOZ’s spirited Algerian-Québécois septet. (This inaugural concert also celebrates the launch of the 16th annual Small World Music Festival, running September 14 to 17, “bringing Toronto music from around the world and around the corner.”) Further double-bill Polyphonic Ground musical juxtapositions are scheduled for October 12, November 9 and December 14, with different Polyphonic Ground member organizations presenting. I’ll be eagerly following these concerts.

I’ll also be following with interest Polyphonic Ground’s other meaningful initiatives beyond the concert hall. These include access to training and leadership and bolstering professional development opportunities within the music industry. Already announced is its Diversity and Live Music Panel series, supported by Ontario government and industry players; the Developing Diverse Leaders program “with the goal of empowering young talent through mentorship;” as well as its Best Practice Workshops. The titles may not be as catchy as “Middle Eastern-meets-Appalachian fusion” but the need is real.

Labyrinth Musical Workshop Ontario

While Polyphonic Ground is presenter-driven, Labyrinth Musical Workshop Ontario focuses on the education of a new generation of musicians – and also audiences. Its stated mission and mandate is also distinctly different: “dedicated to promoting the study and appreciation of modal music traditions of Asia, Africa, and Europe.”

Founded in 2017 by two Toronto-based musicians, Persian tar player and teacher Araz Salek and keyboardist, composer and sound designer Jonathan Adjemian, LMWO takes its cues directly from the successful Labyrinth Musical Workshop founded in 2002 at Houdetsi, Crete by leading world musician and educator Ross Daly and running annually since. That successful model has inspired similar workshops in Spain and Italy, establishing an international Labyrinth network.

In a recent telephone interview Salek framed the core reason for establishing Labyrinth Ontario as a belief “in encouraging the study of modal musical traditions in their specific details. [We believe in] embracing the diversity of musical traditions and audiences in the GTA rather than smoothing out particularities of tuning, rhythm or phrasing to cater to an assumed common ground. Our ultimate hope is to see the GTA become a global hub for the study and performance of these traditions, providing institutional support to the many world-class musicians already living here and encouraging a new generation of performers.”

Having begun his music career in Iran, Salek has been active as a tar player and leader in Toronto for about a decade in both Persian ensembles as well as in more eclectic music circles. He has taught and performed at the Labyrinth Musical Workshop in Houdetsi since 2011. Labyrinth Ontario will hold its first annual Toronto training intensive in May 2018. On offer will be a series of three week-long seminars in instrumental technique and in regional modal theory systems. Topics will cover aspects of Afghan, Arab, Azeri, Bulgarian, Greek, Iranian, Kurdish, and Turkish music. Confirmed faculty includes Bassam Bishara (CAN, oud), Ross Daly (Greece, modal music composition), Imamyar Hasanov (USA, Azeri kamancha), Pedram Khavarzamini (CAN, tombak), Ali Akbar Moradi (Iran, Kurdish tanbur), Araz Salek (CAN, tar) and Kelly Thoma (Greece, Cretan lyra). In addition to the workshops, faculty and their students will give concerts each week and moderated panel discussions will be open to the public.

Friday September 15, Labyrinth Ontario holds its Launch Event and Fundraiser at 918 Bathurst Centre for Culture, Arts, Media and Education in order to celebrate its upcoming 2018 programming. The concert features performances by oud player and faculty member Bassam Bishara, Bulgarian and Balkan vocal and instrumental ensemble Meden Glas and Iranian Modal Music Ensemble of Toronto. Then a quartet co-led by faculty members tombak master Pedram Khavarzamini and artistic director Araz Salek on tar takes the stage, capped by a set by DJ Cheba Khadijah of Souk Sessions, known for his “Arab techno for the people.”

New Canadian Global Music Orchestra, Polyphonic Ground and Labyrinth Ontario all launched this year. They are all ambitious adventures in imagining new ground on which global music can grow in Ontario soil, in our Ontario souls. They also address, albeit in very different ways, challenges of bridging musical cultures and expanding global musics’ musician and audience base while maintaining the music’s quality.

We’ll keep eyes – and ears – open for just how they engage with all their necessary Toronto region stake-holders consisting of learners, creators, presenters, audiences and funders alike.

Andrew Timar is a Toronto musician and music writer. He can be contacted at worldmusic@thewholenote.com.

Update 3pm, Sep 6 2017: A previous version of this article incorrectly implied that Polyphonic Ground received financial support from organizations other than the OMDC, and that McGee encountered barriers among colleagues to setting up the organization. These errors have since been corrected.

I don’t usually mention my personal life much in these pages. On the other hand the eventful month since my last WholeNote column has been marked by one of life’s major milestones. I would feel remiss not to share a few of the highlights with you, faithful reader.

In August I enjoyed a joyous pre-wedding reception at Array Space here in Toronto with my bride-to-be, family and friends. On its heels was a bells-and-whistles wedding on Jericho Beach in Vancouver. It was raining for much of the week on the “wet coast,” yet the sun actually beamed and bestowed its blessings on us on the appointed day.

From Vancouver we immediately flew to Hungary for our honeymoon. Over 27 years since my last visit, it was a jam-packed whirlwind tour of the Western Transdanubian region of the country, graced all the way with unseasonably hot and sunny weather. Family, friends, food and wine, vistas and music featured prominently, along with the ever-present rich history of a mixed glorious and painful legacy of 1200 years which surrounded us at every turn. Back only a few days, my bride and I are still wiping jetlag cobwebs from our eyes.

One of my semi-musical tasks in Budapest was to connect with a prominent Hungarian player of the cimbalom – the Hungarian concert hammered dulcimer – on behalf of busy Toronto percussionist and cimbalom player Richard Moore, and that is where this month’s musical story starts.

I first met Moore at York University a few years ago where we were each pursuing our respective graduate degrees. He often spoke to me about his research on the history and repertoire of the cimbalom. His passion for it has clearly shaped his career choices as a gigging musician. Moore’s command of the instrument has made him that rara avis of doublers: a percussionist who also plays the cimbalom and hammered dulcimer. His highly honed skill set is so rare in Canada that he is often the first call cimbalomist in concert chamber, symphonic and film soundtrack work.

October 26 and 27, for example, Moore performs the cimbalom solo in Hungarian composer Zoltán Kodály’s Háry János Suite (1926-27) with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. Curious about his unusual choice of instrumental doubling, I spoke with Moore on an unusually hot mid-September Toronto afternoon.

We talked first about the origins of the cimbalom scored for in Kodály’s Suite. “The cimbalom has an important voice in Hungarian music of the last 135 years, often being characterized as the country’s ‘national instrument,’” Moore stated. “The piano-like chromatic cimbalom I play today was first developed in Budapest in 1874 by the piano maker József Schunda, probably based on hammered dulcimer predecessors commonly played amongst the Romani in Austria-Hungary.”

It was a large and elaborate instrument, equipped with a pedal damper mechanism and possessing a range of four to five chromatic octaves. “It was immediately put to use by Ferencz Liszt,” Moore says. “The cimbalom entered the western orchestral world via Liszt’s patriotic 1875 Ungarischer Sturmmarsch (Hungarian Assault March) and his Hungarian Rhapsody No.6 with generations of composers following.”

I then asked him about the hammered dulcimer, the roots of which, I’ve read, can be traced back, under many various names, thousands of years. “Yes, the roots of the hammered dulcimer extend back many centuries and span numerous regions of Asia and Europe,” Moore asserted. “A modal and diatonic, rather than a chromatic, instrument, it was also brought by European immigrants to North America, and had a presence in the vernacular music of 17th-, 18th- and 19th- century America and Canada.” It appears that many Hungarian Romani musicians adopted the Schunda cimbalom very early on, he told me. “For example there is contextual stylistic evidence in Liszt’s scores that Roma cimbalom playing influenced some of his Hungarian Rhapsodies,” a significant part of his oeuvre.”

So, how did Moore’s own interest in the cimbalom develop?

“It all started in 1998 when I was a music student in Munich where I heard a Roma cimbalom player on the street. I was immediately drawn to its sound and timbre. Thinking like a percussionist, I made a connection right away between the two beaters he was using and the two-mallet techniques on the percussion instruments I was used to playing. The two performance techniques appeared similar to me. I could see adapting my existing percussion techniques to the cimbalom.”

He soon learned, however, that it is unlike any keyboard percussion instrument in its unique layout of strings, which directly dictates its pitch series. “Instead of the left-to-right horizontal layout typical of keyboards, the notes on the cimbalom are arranged vertically in front of the player.”

Moore continued: “The second obstacle was finding a cimbalom teacher in Munich. I couldn’t find one, so I studied with an instructor of the Hackbrett-cimbalom, a German hybrid chromatic instrument.”

Early in our conversation Moore talked about Liszt’s use of the cimbalom in two of his orchestral works, valorizing its patriotic symbolism as much as its timbral identity. But what of its presence in 20th-century scores?

Moore jumped right in, “In late January 1915, Igor Stravinsky heard Aladár Rácz, the important Romani cimbalomist, playing at Maxim’s, a café in Geneva. The result of that meeting fired the composer’s instrumental imagination, compelling him to purchase one for his personal compositional use.” The experience proved so powerful that it inspired Stravinsky to score for the cimbalom in several major works: the ballet Renard (1915-1916), and in 1917, in the Ragtime for 11 Instruments, a draft instrumentation of Les Noces, and in an early instrumentation of his Four Russian Songs. “Then in 1928 Béla Bartók featured it in his mature Rhapsody No.1 for Violin and Orchestra, underscoring melodies derived from Hungarian folk songs which infuse the work.”

Returning to Kodály’s Háry János Suite in which Moore will be playing the prominent cimbalom part with the TSO this month, Moore notes that “the instrument is found throughout the opera, evoking a mythical Hungarian past.” Illustrating how his rare doubling career works in practice, Moore will play both parts in these concerts, rendering the percussion part in movements of the Suite without the cimbalom.

The Kodály work has, over the years, retained its popularity in the symphonic repertoire. Moore played it with the Winnipeg Symphony around six years ago and also performed it with the Toronto Philharmonia. “By the way, the Toronto jazz pianist Rudy Toth (1925-2009), the son of a cimbalom maker, also doubled on the concert cimbalom until his retirement in 1989, performing it in the Háry János Suite with the TSO and other orchestras.”

New Passion: Beginning in the 1950s, Hungarian modernist composers like György Kurtág embraced the instrument with a new passion. “Kurtág included it in over a dozen works,” Moore says. “His colleague Péter Eötvös has extended the cimbalom’s repertoire further with a concerto and chamber works, one of which I performed with New Music Concerts in Toronto a few years ago under the baton of the composer.”

Is the concert cimbalom only the preserve of Hungarian composers? “British composers like Harrison Birtwistle and Peter Maxwell Davies also included it in their works starting in the 1960s,” says Moore. “French composer Pierre Boulez was a notable advocate. He told me he very much enjoyed writing for the instrument when I worked with him in 2006 on the Glenn Gould Award concert in Toronto.” In addition, Frank Zappa scored for the cimbalom in his Yellow Shark (1992-93) score and live concert DVD, possibly influenced by Boulez’s example.

I seem to recall hearing the cimbalom in TV and film soundtracks. “Yes!” enthused Moore. “The Gladiator film soundtrack uses it. I performed it at live screenings in Toronto and Montreal last year. Howard Shore, the multiple Oscar-winning Canadian film composer included it in each of his three Lord of the Rings film scores. The TSO will be performing live to the first of those films on December 1, 2, and 3, 2016. For those concerts I’ll be playing not only the concert cimbalom, but also hammered dulcimer and other percussion parts, since technically these hammered string instruments are considered part of the percussion section,” and thus may be considered doubling instruments of the percussionist.

The Canadian National Ballet’s The Winter’s Tale, its 2013 score composed by English composer Joby Talbot, features two different types of hammered dulcimers on stage. Moore performed the onstage parts and he adds that “its successful 2015 premiere run in Toronto was replicated in 2016 at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, and also at Lincoln Center, NYC, in which I also performed.”

Moore’s dedication to this string percussion instrument has led him to performance opportunities at the heart of European concert music, as well as in recent popular film soundtracks and ballet scores. I asked him how he sees his cimbalom-playing career evolving. “In the future I see myself working closely with film composers to develop its expressive potential and ability to evoke a particular, though hard to define, sonic atmosphere, often used by composers to depict the exotic ‘other’ landscape – whether Celtic Ireland, a Central or Eastern European folk milieu, or rural 19th-century North America.”

For me, what’s particularly intriguing about Moore’s advocacy of hammered dulcimers is how these instruments have emerged and have been adapted to various performance disciplines and genres. Another intriguing – and as yet little explored – facet is the connection between the cimbalom’s discovery in 1914 by the major modernist music composer Stravinsky and the living Romani tradition which had already long adopted the concert cimbalom by that time. This connection is a living one in Moore’s career. The instrument he is pictured with in the photograph accompanying this story and which he plays in the October TSO concerts was purchased from a Hungarian musician specializing in Romani cimbalom music.

Andrew Timar is a Toronto musician and music writer. He can be contacted at worldmusic@thewholenote.com.

Just past mid-August my WholeNote editor called. Fall on the doorstep, it was time to fine-tune stories for my September column. “What do you have?” he asked. “I am wondering if it’s time for a terminology reboot” I replied. (My column has been called “World View” and the beat I cover has been described as “world music” for a decade or more, even before I took over from my pioneering predecessor columnist Karen Ages.) What got me thinking about all this is that I’d been busy all summer attending, playing in and following online stories of festivals which could be tagged with the “world music” moniker.

To begin with, in June I toured with Toronto’s Evergreen Club Contemporary Gamelan (ECCG) representing Canada at the International Gamelan Music Festival in Munich, Germany. Cheekily dubbed “Indonesia # Bronze.Bamboo.Beats,” the experience proved both exhilarating and exhausting. For ten days the Munich Municipal Museum hosted for the first time what turned out to be Europe’s largest gamelan festival. There was a two-day symposium, over 300 participants giving 40 concerts and 28 workshops at six venues, in an environment that was much more about a global community sharing a passion for music rather than a commercial enterprise. Not a single band was selling an album or T-shirt.

On public display all over downtown Munich was the face of the transnational contemporary gamelan music scene. Far from its birthplace on the islands of Java and Bali in Indonesia, European audiences witnessed live performances of gamelan music which had been adopted and adapted by people all over the globe. What was emotionally and artistically powerful to hear was how some of those diasporic musical adaptations and personalizations (including those by 35-year-global-gamelan-scene veterans ECCG - Canadians who are musically rather than ethnically connected to Indonesian culture) have been in turn absorbed and indigenized by Indonesian innovators. It was in turns unexpected and inspiring to personally experience all this in the Bavarian home of Oktoberfest. Is this one face of “world music” in practice today?

Then on the August 17 weekend I attended the Small World Music Festival (SWMF) at Harbourfront Centre. This year it celebrated the 30th anniversary of the first North American WOMAD (World of Music Art and Dance) which took place at the same venue. WOMAD, “the world’s most influential global music event … became a landmark event during its [five-year] tenure at Harbourfront,” according to Small World. “The ear-opening inspiration it provided led directly to the formation of Small World Music. Three decades on, we explore this legacy and how it resonates in multicultural 21st-century Toronto.”

I had not only visited WOMAD during its landmark first year here but had also helped arrange an Evergreen Club Gamelan concert on August 14, 1988 and then played in it. So at some level my interest in this year’s SWMF was personal. Keen to get beyond the autobiographical, though, I checked out two SWMF panels and a workshop, on the afternoon of August 18, 2018. The “WOMAD 30” panel, made up of people who were involved in it on various levels, looked back at that first 1988 music festival that in the words of its Facebook events page, “changed the perception of music in Toronto.” Moreover, in terms of live music, it introduced the “world music” brand, then barely one year old, imported from the UK to Canada.

The second panel “A Post-Genre World” asked some big questions: How do artists, audiences and industry work together in the post-genre world? How are livelihoods and bottom lines affected by a multi-fractured or multi-faceted music space? How does genre affect the creative process?” I found the answers offered in both panels memory-jogging, thought-provoking and compelling.

World Music: the double birth of a term

I’ve weighed in on various occasions in this column on the notion of world music, its promoters, detractors, its problems and its origins. It’s helpful to keep in mind that the term “world music” entered the musical lexicon on two separate occasions, on two continents, serving two quite different purposes and masters.

Its academic origins appeared around 1962, coined and promoted by American ethnomusicologist Robert Brown, professor at Wesleyan University. He meant it as an inclusive term to be used in university music education to describe “living music” and to be used to “foster awareness and understanding of the world’s performing arts and cultural traditions through programs of performance and teaching.” That once-academic term got a marketing refresh a quarter century later, however, at a June 1987 gathering of record label bosses, retailers and producers in the Empress of Russia, a now-defunct London pub. Why was a new marketing tag so necessary that these thirsty English professionals had to put their pints down?

In a succinct 2011 story in The Guardian, journalist Caspar Llewellyn Smith reported that “Charlie Gillett who was present that evening, recalled one example of the problem at hand: in the US, Nigeria’s King Sunny Ade would be filed under reggae, while in the UK, he ‘was just lost in the alphabet, next to ABBA.’ After several proposed terms were vetted, ‘world music’ stuck and ‘11 indie labels put in £3,500 between them to introduce newly labelled sections in record stores.’”

At its commercial birth, “world music” was all about labelling, increasing album visibility, genre identity, market share - and thus hopefully sales - in international brick and mortar record stores. (It doesn’t take a Cassandra to observe that it’s a very different world in 2018, when there are many fewer physical shops and when some musicians and presenters increasingly embrace the possibility of a post-genre musical future.)

Genre vs post-genre: late 20th century record store racks

Back in the last two decades of the 20th century, genre still proudly ruled Toronto’s imposing multi-department, multi-floor record (and then also cassette tape) shops. Following London’s lead, there was a wholesale switchover for many records to the World Music label from what previously were marked Folk or International record shelves.

I well recall schlepping numerous times up the creaky upper level wooden stairs of Sam the Record Man’s flagship Yonge St. store to its upper floors. My mission as Evergreen Club Gamelan’s artistic director and Arjuna label manager was to chart the (to be frank, modest) sales of our LP North of Java (1987). I did the same for its CD remix namesake when it was released in 1992, making sure it wasn’t buried too deeply on the shelf.

What was on that album? All the compositions were by younger-generation Canadian composers. All the musicians were Canadian, it was recorded in a Scarborough, Ontario studio, and the label was registered in Ontario by ECG. While gamelan degung instruments were featured on most cuts, some made prominent use of decidedly non-gamelan sound sources like a synthesizer, electric bass and field recordings, as in the case of my work North of Java. Nevertheless, Sam’s didn’t rack it in the substantial Classical Canadian section on the first floor. Now I understand the album was a novelty, being the first Canadian gamelan disc. But this (to my mind) quintessential Canadian album in that retail environment was displayed not with Canadian music, but in the World Music section among other albums with which it had little in common, a long, long walk up.

World music: contesting and defending the term

My North of Java album story reveals the difficulties retailers faced when attempting to apply the new world music marketing tool. In that case it was misinterpreting a product with multiple layers of cultural and music genre affiliation, racking it by default, I assume, in the World Music section.

The commercial use of world music on one hand fuelled consumer interest in sounds from outside the Western mainstream both on recordings and in live concerts, yet on the other hand it posed the risk of ghettoization, of “othering,” the world’s myriad individual music traditions. Such risks have been articulated in recent decades by numerous voices raised in consternation over the term, seeing it as a polarizing factor.

Rock star David Byrne, an early world music adopter, was also thereafter an early dissenter. In his strongly worded October 1999 New York Times article provocatively titled Why I Hate World Music, he sums up some of the problems he saw in the way it had been commercially applied and then received by consumers: “In my experience, the use of the term world music is a way of dismissing artists or their music as irrelevant to one’s own life ... It’s a way of relegating this ‘thing’ into the realm of something exotic and therefore cute, weird but safe, because exotica is beautiful but irrelevant … It groups everything and anything that isn’t ‘us’ into ‘them.’ This grouping is a convenient way of not seeing a band or artist as a creative individual … It’s a label for anything at all that is not sung in English or anything that doesn’t fit into the Anglo-Western pop universe this year.”

Many in the business took notice of Byrne’s passionate denunciation. The following March, Ian Anderson, musician, broadcaster and the editor of fRoots published a lengthy rebuttal in his magazine. In it, he explored many crannies of the topic, including the different resonances world music had in America, UK, France, and among African musicians and audiences. He summed up with, “It’s not all positive, but World Music (or Musique du Monde in neighbourly Paris) is way ahead on points. It sells large quantities of records that you couldn’t find for love or money two decades ago. It has let many musicians in quite poor countries get new respect (and houses, cars and food for their families), and it turns out massive audiences for festivals and concerts. It has greatly helped international understanding and provoked cultural exchanges. …I call it a Good Thing…”

Pierre Kwenders, the early-career Congolese-Canadian singer and rapper is not impressed with arguments for the term’s usefulness. Shortlisted for the 2015 JUNO Award for World Music Album of the Year and the September 2018 Polaris Prize, Kwenders called out the marketing term on the CBC show q on August 24, 2018. His point comes close to the one I made in the case of North of Java. “What is world music? What is that ‘world’ we put in that box? It’s ridiculous [for example] that classical music from India is put in the same category as the music I make … it doesn’t make any sense. I believe I’m making pop music and it should be put in the pop music category.”

Despite all these concerns, there is still a Grammy Award for Best World Music Album today. Ladysmith Black Mambazo won it earlier this year. Moreover the terms world fusion, ethnocultural music, worldbeat and roots music have been touted as less controversial alternatives, but with modest commercial or popular traction.

As I wrote at the outset of this article, this column has been called “World View” and this beat has been described as “World Music” for over a decade. Is it time for a change? I, and my editor, welcome your comments. 

Andrew Timar is a Toronto musician and music writer. He can be contacted at worldmusic@thewholenote.com.

I once mused in this column that “summer in the city for me also means music in the city.” It’s not an especially deep statement, but it does suggest that experiencing sound in warm outdoor weather is different from listening indoors. Summer liberates music in Canada in a way other seasons cannot.

The advent of short sleeves, shorts-and-sandal weather means music lovers need no longer be confined to indoor spaces. We can enjoy music at a wide range of outdoor venues this summer. To name only a few: Harbourfront Centre, North York’s Cultura Festival, Peeks Toronto Caribbean Carnival (commonly still called Caribana), Small World Festival, and Ashkenaz Festival. We can also experience global music at TD Sunfest 2018 in the parkland heart of London, and at Stratford Summer Music in the Ontario town Shakespeare made famous.

Many of these concert series feature music which reflects the diversity we see and hear around us every day.

Summertime concerts often cover a huge cultural range, sometimes with several genres on a single bill. It’s an ideal opportunity to sample music you’ve been meaning to try – or never knew existed. The latter’s a special treat for inveterate sonic explorers.

In this 2018 summer column I’ll explore that en plein air experience as presented by three Toronto music festivals rich in global sounds.

Harbourfront Centre: Summer Music in the Garden, June 28 to September 16

We begin our summer global music journey at Harbourfront Centre, which I once called “the granddaddy of current Toronto summer music festivals.” It has followed its multicultural mandate for more than four decades, presenting what it calls a cross-section of the “mosaic of cultures from within our country and around the world.”

I’ve mentioned here before that I was a Harbourfront Centre early-adopter. I hadn’t yet shared, however, that as well as being an enthusiastic audience member, I also performed there with various groups from the 1970s on. Bringing my children along when they were young to Harbourfront Centre’s eclectic high-quality (and mostly free) music programming proved to be a summertime essential for our growing family. Along the way I learned a great deal about diverse musics there. Perhaps our kids did too.

Harbourfront’s concert series Summer Music in the Garden returns for its 19th year by the shores of Lake Ontario. Located in the Yo-Yo Ma co-designed Music Garden, the free concerts are scheduled on most Thursdays at 7pm and Sundays at 4pm. Audiences are encouraged to sit on the lawn and to bring a blanket or lawn chair since bench seating is quite limited. Hats, umbrellas and sunscreen are wise options.

Summer Music in the Garden’s logo is “Our garden is your concert hall.” It’s an apt description of the relaxed backyard-in-the-city environment you can expect, though you’d have to be in the upper one percent to personally own such a waterfront property.

This year’s 18 concerts have been carefully curated by longtime Summer Music in the Garden artistic director Tamara Bernstein. They include outstanding local and touring artists performing in a wide range of music genres. Here are just three picks from the Music Garden’s abundant 2018 crop.

July 1. Kontiwennenhá:wi and Barbara Croall: “Songs for the Women.”

It’s very fitting that Bernstein booked Kontiwennenhá:wi and Barbara Croall for Canada Day. Kontiwennenhá:wi (Carriers of the Words) have performed at the Toronto Music Garden as The Akwesasne Women Singers in the past. They return performing both received songs that are an integral part of Haudenosaunee life, as well as original repertoire.

Odawa First Nations composer and musician Barbara Croall was (from 1998 to 2000) resident composer with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. Her Summer Music in the Garden set features a performance of her Lullaby (2008) for pipigwan (traditional Anishinaabe cedar flute) and voice. The work is dedicated to the many Indigenous mothers whose children died at residential schools.

July 5. Kongero: “Scandinavian Songlines.”

Formed in 2005, the popular Swedish a cappella group Kongero consists of four women folk music singers, Lotta Andersson, Emma Björling, Anna Larsson and Anna Wikénius. They have performed at major folk music, a cappella and chamber music festivals in Europe, Asia and the Americas. Their repertoire consists of a mix of traditional and original songs characterized by tight harmonies, lively rhythms and vocal clarity. They playfully call their genre, “Swedish Folk’appella.”

Summer and beer go together for many Canadians, but how many a cappella groups can boast a beer named after them? This quartet can. Kongero is a bottled Saison/Farmhouse Ale-style brewed by Jackdaw Brewery in Sweden. Audiences can expect to hear excerpts from Kongero’s four full-length albums, though sadly I saw no mention of samples of their eponymous ale.

August 9. Bageshree Vaze, Vineet Vyas and Rajib Karmakar: Satyam (Truth).

The Indo-Canadian dancer and musician Bageshree Vaze and tabla soloist Vineet Vyas both studied their respective art forms with the best in India. They have been part of the Ontario performing arts scene for over two decades. Currently based in LA, Rajib Karmakar is an award-winning electric sitar musician, educator and digital artist with ample international touring credentials.

Last year these three artists were commissioned by Opera Nova Scotia to create Satyam (Truth). Their opera is based on the love story of Savitri and Satyavan, first found in the Mahabharata, one of the two major Sanskrit epics of ancient India.

Small World Festival at Harbourfront Centre, August 17 to 19.

Harbourfront Centre is the venue for several other festivals this summer. For three days in August, this year’s Small World Festival takes over Harbourfront’s facilities for the first time. Placing its 17th annual festival at the height of the summer season in one of the city’s premier summer cultural and tourist destinations is a bold and perhaps even risky move for Small World Music. On the other hand, the fit feels organic. The weekend celebration of “diversity through music” suits the mandates of both organizations well.

In a recent telephone interview with Alan Davis, SWM’s executive director, he told me that this year’s Small World Festival is inspired by the 30th anniversary of WOMAD. Founded by Peter Gabriel in the UK 36 years ago, World of Music Art and Dance was first produced in Canada at Harbourfront Centre in 1988. (I recall that WOMAD particularly well. I performed a concert there with Evergreen Club Gamelan on the outdoor Tindall stage, a stone’s throw from busy Queens Quay.)

Davis noted that the “inspiration [WOMAD] provided created a direct line to the formation of Small World ten years later. Three decades on, this festival explores its legacy and how it resonates in multicultural 21st-century Toronto.”

Small World’s annual signature concert series is known for its “eclectic mix of top artists from around the globe and around the corner, representing the state of the-art in global sound,” continued Davis. “Taking place on multiple stages, the mostly free program will attract a wide range of demographics, ranging from audiences that identify culturally with the music onstage, to mainstream music fans, families and tourists seeking a global cultural experience.”

Davis makes a case for providing “a predominately free program in one of Toronto’s premier summer locales helping to reduce the barriers in celebrating multiculturalism and enriching the cultural tapestry of our city.” He projects the weekend will “draw over 25,000 participants from markets beyond the GTA, including Southern Ontario, Montreal and American border-states.”

What will audiences see and hear? Davis aims “to continue to feature the high-quality presentations that the festival is renowned for. This includes international and Canadian artists from a diverse range of cultures, including but not limited to Korean, South Asian, Iranian, Latin American, Portuguese and Afro-Caribbean.”

Given that the Small World Festival will be held in the middle of August, Davis was reluctant to nail down programming months prior to the festival. When pressed, however, he revealed to The WholeNote readers the acts booked at press time.

The wide-ranging mix includes Daraa Tribes (Morocco), which present a fusion of the ancestral tribal music at the heart of the Moroccan Sahara; DJ Lag (South Africa), a pioneer of the explosive dark techno movement out of Durban; and one of Italy’s hottest bands, Kalàscima, purveyors of a unique brand of “psychedelic trance tarantella.” Also confirmed is the East LA band Las Cafeteras, which fuses spoken word and traditional Son Jarocho, Afro-Mexican and zapateado dancing into a joyous celebration of Chicano culture.

The Malian singer and guitarist Vieux Farka Touré may be the best-known Small World Festival headliner to Toronto audiences. Carrying on the musical legacy of his Grammy-winning father Ali Farka Touré, Vieux’s latest album Samba (2017) was praised in the Monolith Cocktail Blog: “This is the devotional, earthy soul of Mali, channelled through a six-string electric guitar.”

Canadian groups include Toronto’s Surefire Sweat, a diverse and multi-generational roster of musicians who feature the danceable original music of drummer Larry Graves which draws on “an amalgam of New Orleans brass band, funk, jazz, blues and Afrobeat.” The Montreal-Moroccan outfit De Ville will also take the stage. More Canadian and international acts will be announced during the summer, so keep an eye out.

Ashkenaz Festival at Harbourfront Centre, August 28 to September 3.

The 12th biennial Ashkenaz Festival happens over the final week of the summer, wrapping on Labour Day Monday. Following the template established in previous editions, this year kicks off with an assortment of events at venues across the GTA before Ashkenaz segues to Harbourfront Centre over the Labour Day weekend.

The 2018 festival features over 90 performances, with more than 250 individual artists coming from across Canada and at least a dozen countries. Following the lead of previous iterations, the festival showcases diversity and cross-culturalism within the Jewish music world. This year the festival also features the enhanced participation of women performers, “spotlighting the role of women as prominent performers, innovators and key custodians of various Jewish musical traditions from around the globe.”

Given the vast scope of the festival I can only provide a few picks.

On August 28, Yiddish Glory (Russia/Canada) is the festival opener at Koerner Hall. The show is built on songs and poetry from the Holocaust era, rediscovered in a Ukrainian archive a decade ago. The songs and texts are presented in a concert format featuring jazz chanteuse Sophie Milman, Psoy Korolenko and Trio Loyko.

Other acts have been confirmed, though their festival appearance dates have not yet been released. Here’s but a taste.

Frank London, Grammy-winning group Klezmatics’ co-founder and one of the godfathers of the new Yiddish culture scene, is this year’s Theodore Bikel artist-in-residence. Fronted by trumpeter London, the band Sharabi has been dubbed “a Yiddish-Punjabi bhangra-funk-klezmer party band.” (Would I kid you?)

Salomé: Woman of Valor (Canada/USA) was created by London and Adeena Karasick. This new work is a multidisciplinary spoken word opera incorporating the interplay of poetry, music and dance. It seeks to refute Oscar Wilde’s “misogynist and anti-Semitic interpretation and re-casts [Salomé] as a powerful revolutionary matriarch, translating the renowned myth to one of female empowerment, socio-politic, erotic and aesthetic transgression.”

Gili Yalo, making his North American debut, is one of the most intriguing new artists in Israel’s world music scene. Yalo mashes his Ethiopian roots with soul, reggae, funk, psychedelia and jazz, forging an energetic new sound.

Neta Elkayam, a leading researcher and performer of Moroccan Jewish music, presents songs with Andalusian, Berber and Middle Eastern influences. Her latest project is a multimedia concert tribute to the great Moroccan-Jewish singer Zohra Al Fassia, featuring 11 musicians..

Choro Das Tres (Brazil) is a virtuoso instrumental ensemble comprised of three sisters and their father who perform choro, Brazil’s first popular music. The group pays tribute in this concert to Brazilian-Jewish mandolin master Jacob do Bandolim, on the 100th anniversary of his birth.

No matter which festival or open-air concert you choose, I wish you a pleasant global musical summer! 

Andrew Timar is a Toronto musician and music writer. He can be contacted at worldmusic@thewholenote.com.

It’s February. It’s still dark before you arise, and cold, with nary a sign of green outside. February is also Black History Month and all over Toronto politicians, schools and cultural organizations are marking it in various ways.

On its events page, the Music Gallery’s David Dacks writes that from its earliest days the MG “has welcomed adventurous Afro-diasporic sounds [such] as free jazz, the science fact/fiction of Sun Ra’s Arkestra and the advanced musical theories of George Lewis. This commitment has intensified over the past several years with events with saxophone titan Matana Roberts, jazz elder Henry Grimes, mbira innovator Evelyn Mukwedeya, and ‘world music 2.0’ theorist DJ/rupture.”

For Black History Month 2016, the MG presents a two-part event which pushes these explorations further.

Val-Inc: body and spirit: the first of these starts at 5pm Saturday, February 20, with a free panel discussion called “The New Black: Challenging Musical Tropes” with Val-Inc and Witch Prophet, two “Black artists who create stereotype-challenging music” on the panel, along with  moderator Alanna Stuart (Bonjay, CBC), Garvia Bailey (JazzFM) and Amanda Parris (CBC). They plan to delve into ways in which awareness can be raised around “under-represented facets of Afro-diasporic cultural expression, specifically within Black Canadian culture.”

Putting these concerns to the musical test that same evening at 8pm, will be a concert titled “Val-Inc + Witch Prophet.” Val-Inc is Val Jeanty, once a member of Norah Jones’ band. Her music was described by the New York Times as blending “traditional-sounding music from Haiti with synthesized sounds and instruments to develop a genre she calls ‘Afro-Electronica.’” Her audiovisual installations have been showcased at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Whitney Museum, Museum of Modern Art and in European galleries.

Val-Inc’s own characterization of her music is more inclusive; she describes it as evoking “the musical esoteric realms of the creative subconscious by incorporating African Haitian musical traditions into the present and beyond, combining acoustics with electronics and the archaic with the postmodern.”

Just how does she do that? I called her in New York City to find out.

I asked first about the accuracy of a media depiction I had read of her music as “Big Apple Vodou.” “I grew up in Port-au-Prince, Haiti,” she responded, “attending Catholic schools as well as practising Vodou within my family, learning to drum [in that context] when I was five years of age.”

So how does this joint spiritual and musical practice influence how she sees the relationship between sound, music and spirituality? “In Vodou there’s no separation between sound, sounds and prayers to the ancestors, as in the case of Guédé, in the spiritual realm,” she explains. [Fête Guédé, the Festival of the Dead, is celebrated on November 2, All Souls’ Day]. “It’s something that has to be experienced. I practise it to sustain life … not in order to produce a commercial music product.”

And her drumming practice since childhood and its echoes in her electronics? “There’s not a conscious connection between Vodou drum patterns and my electronics, but [rather a path I find] through improv. I trust the spirit to help me via the looper [digital looping station].”

In one track I listened to (“V-iPod #222” on Soundcloud) it’s hard to tell if the track features a machine or an acoustic tabla. “Whatever it is, it sounds convincing,” I say to her. “I played that on the Roland HandSonic HPD-20, a kind of drumpad, a digital hand percussion device. With practice (and understanding of hand drumming) you can transfer your personal energy into the machine. In the end such tools are just tools, carrying the spirit. Bypass skin colour, distance, language and what you’re left with is spirit,” she concludes.

“[The spiritual in music] … is speaking to the soul … feeding the soul … I’m not trying to connect the spirit to music – but rather it’s trying to do me – it’s doing the work! [Let’s not forget that] everyone around the world has a spirit.”

In our chat, Val-Inc’s all-embracing universalist vision came clearly into focus for me: spirit transcending perceived human distinctions such as skin colour, race, geographical origin, religious affiliation and other potentially divisive cultural factors. Makes sense to me.

Pura Fé highlights African-Native American music: Jim Merod, in his 1995 essay Jazz as a Cultural Archive, proposed that jazz is not only a reflection of North American culture but also serves as an archive of that culture. The work of singer, guitarist, songwriter, activist and teacher Pura Fé extends that notion to other vernacular music genres, presenting a rich fabric woven of many cultural strands and colours, so that it is near-impossible to unravel them all: namely the role of indigenous peoples in African-Native American contact, cohabitation, cultural sharing and performance practice.

It is something which occurred in multiple intimate and sometimes complicated and layered ways, arising from shared histories over several hundred years and reflected in various features of the music their descendants created and make today.

I spoke to Fé via Skype, one frigid January afternoon (she now makes Northern Saskatchewan her home), to discuss her upcoming Friday, February 26, concert at the Music Gallery. Long active in transcultural music making and touring in Europe, her album Follow Your Heart’s Desire won the 2006 l’Académie Charles-Cros Award for Best World Album.

During the course of our conversation Fé’s expansive knowledge and passion about indigenous influences on the blues, jazz, country, rock, gospel and other vernacular American musics was infectious. It’s an intensely personal subject for her. She traces the roots of her family and personal musical culture to indigenous North Carolina Tuscarora, Tutelo, as well as Corsican ancestors, the latter via Puerto Rico. (Her name given by her father means “Pure Faith” in Spanish.)

“On my mother’s side we’ve got eight generations of Tuscarora singers. While my mother was a gifted Wagnerian soprano it was difficult to make a career as a woman of colour in classical music in her generation. She also performed in several of Duke Ellington’s Sacred Concerts and my grandmother sang gospel.” Growing up in New York City, sampling her parents’ Native music record collection and participation in Pow Wows gave her the sense of identity she sought as a teen. “I found myself the day I was able to reconnect with my indigenous roots.

“People generally aren’t very aware of it yet, but Native peoples have played a major role in the development of American music, whether it’s jazz, blues or rock ‘n’ roll,” observes Fé. “This includes a typical blues rhythm, the shuffle, a rhythmic feel which is much like certain Native drumming.”

In Fé’s own intense bluesy and other times jazzy singing, she makes an eloquent case for the close and productive relationship between the African and indigenous people of the American South, a union that gave birth to a rich new culture blending religion, dance, food and music. “Many of their grandchildren became influential musicians,” she says, “like Charley Patton (Choctaw) and Scrapper Blackwell (Cherokee). We can continue the roll call with Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker, Don Cherry, Miles Davis, Jim Pepper and Don Pullen in jazz. Let’s add Little Richard, Jimi Hendrix, Tina Turner, Link Wray and Jesse Ed Davis for good measure.”

Early in her career singing with rock bands in NYC, her role models - in addition to her mother and grandmother - were the leading female singers of the previous generation: Joni Mitchell, Buffy Sainte-Marie and Aretha Franklin. Fé was “drawn by their spirit and style.”

All this is the rich hybrid motherlode extensively mined by Fé. Aiming to explore the bluesy voice of Native Americans as well as their self-determination, in 1987 she formed the singing trio Ulali with Soni Moreno and Jennifer Kreisberg, a project which continues as a quartet. Seven albums followed. Her latest, Sacred Seed (2015) for Nueva Onda Records, captures those multi-faceted influences, featuring her multi-tracked voice with a backup studio band consisting of guitar, banjo, piano, percussion and cello. The tracks resound with references to the Tuscarora Nation whose musical traditions she carries with indelible ardour.

At her February 26 Music Gallery concert, however, Fé will present her music more intimately with just her voice, accompanying herself “with guitar, drum and a loop station which gives me the choral background I crave.” Her repertoire will focus on her Sacred Seed set list: her own songs like “Idle No More,” plus jazz classics like Duke Ellington’s “In a Sentimental Mood.” Roots blues legend Taj Mahal glowingly summed up Fé’s music: “With her voice soaring, foot stomping, this beautiful songbird transcends time and brings the message of our Ancestors who have sown this beautiful seed [through her] powerful music.” 

Andrew Timar is a Toronto musician and music writer. He can be contacted at worldmusic@thewholenote.com

During the month of May, Toronto’s Latin music mecca, Lula Lounge on Dundas St. W., is the destination for world music aficionados. This year its ambitious festival LULAWORLD 2011: The New Canadian Songbook, runs from May 12 to May 22 and encompasses 15 concerts. While Lula’s focus does not abandon its Latin American musical roots, programmers make a case for showcasing the diversity all around us. Judging from the line-up, what they call “The New Canadian Songbook” is sung in Spanish, Portuguese, Yiddish, French as well as English. The festival highlights the contribution of Canada’s newcomer musicians, whose compositions, performances, and recordings constantly serve to refresh and redefine the Canadian musical landscape, enriching our cultural fabric by incorporating traditions from across the globe. And isn’t that what world music should be about?

The concert series kicks off May 12 with the celebrated Latin jazz vocalist Amanda Martinez, joined by her guest, the Colombian-born Grammy nominated guitarist/singer-songwriter Fernando Osorio. With her 2009 release Amor reaching #1 on iTunes, recent performances at the FIFA World Cup in South Africa and at New York’s prestigious Blue Note, Canada’s Martinez is riding high.

The festival continues later that evening with the Columbian group Bomba Estéreo, no doubt living up to their explosive moniker with an eminently danceable sound that often expands into trippy electronica territory. Bomba Estéreo was formed in 2005 by Simon Mejia, building on an already active underground electronic dance music scene in Bogotá, Colombia. The group expanded its sound and enhanced its live show by recruiting the fierce singer Liliana Saumet. Bomba Estéreo plays an explosive fusion of electronic dub and hip-hop styles which commentators have likened to M.I.A. and Santigold, but underscored with Colombian dance rhythms of cumbia and champeta. Afro-Colombian rhythms and the folk music of the coastal city Santa Marta, where the group leader Saumet grew up are especially important to Bomba Estéreo’s music.

Singer Patricia Cano was raised in Sudbury, Ontario, but is of Peruvian heritage. She headlines LULAWORLD on May 13. Moving early in life into the international spotlight, this young singer worked and studied in Paris and Brazil. In 2009, Cano recorded her debut album, showcasing traditional South American folk songs, including samba and Afro-Peruvian forms driven by jazz grooves and the soulful sound of the blues. Blessed with a mellifluous and oft intense voice, the album has a strong Brazilian lilt thanks to Brazilian guitarist Carlos Bernardo and percussionist/producer Luisito Orbegoso. Cano is emerging as one of Canada’s leading vocal talents.

In the second set on May 13, one of Canada’s leading salsa bands releases its third album Looking from the Top. Caché’s signature vibraphone-inflected sound that the group has been developing for nearly a decade features the irresistible vocals of frontman Juan Carlos Cardenas. Under the leadership of percussionist Wilson Acevedo and bassist Richard Morales, vibraphonist Randy Stirtzinger and conguero Daniel Stone contribute compositions that have become standards for Toronto salsa dancers. A favourite of CBC and campus radio stations, Caché may be the most in-demand salsa outfit in the country. I may be there trying out my floor moves too.

Speaking of dance, on May 14 at 1pm, Café Con Pan will be holding a free Mexican fandango workshop for families. Accompanied by the son jarocho music of Southern Veracruz, you too can learn the basics of zapateado dancing. At 3pm, the all-ages theme continues with Family French World Café hosted by Quebecois singer-songwriter Joanna Moon, with Donné Roberts. Both are LULAWORLD events.

Continuing with the LULAWORLD New Canadian Songbook theme, at 10pm on Saturday, May 14, an all-star band performs salsa works by noted Canadian composers including Luis Mario Ochoa, Hilario Durán, Jesus El Nino and Mario Allende. The musical direction is co-chaired by Luisito Orbegoso and Sean Bellaviti. The following day, join guitarist Luis Mario Ochoa, one of Canada’s best known Cuban voices, in “Lula’s Sunday Family Salsa Brunch,” hosted by CBC Radio’s Mary Ito; seatings at 11am and 1:30pm. The brunch includes a beginner salsa lesson and Ochoa’s Cuban Quartet. What better way to dance off your eggs benedict?

Sunday evening, May 15, LULAWORLD showcases David Buchbinder’s Odessa Havana featuring Hilario Durán and Maryem Tollar. Yes, you guessed it, this Jewish-Cuban mash-up was predated but not predicted by the Jewish-fuelled American mambo craze of the 1950s. This band is comprised of award-winning trumpeter and composer David Buchbinder, JUNO award-winning pianist/composer Hilario Durán and topped up with Canada’s top jazz and world musicians.

The young BC fiddler Jaron Freeman-Fox’s music dances the line between the soulful and the ridiculous. With his recent album Manic Almanac: Slow Möbius, and a new fiery band, The Opposite of Everything, he displays his own fusion of folk and experimental instrumental music on Tuesday, May 17, at LULAWORLD.

On May 19, singer-songwriter and 2010 Juno award winner, Dominic Mancuso, performs both originals and contemporary treatments of Italian songs and folk melodies joined by celebrated Toronto bassist Roberto Occhipinti. On the second set, Socalled (presented in association with Small World Music) performs his genre-bending collaborations melding funk, Klezmer, hip hop, lounge and classical music. Described as a “klezmer hip-hop maestro,” Socalled (aka Josh Dolgin) is a Montreal-based musician, producer, composer, arranger, magician, filmmaker and photographer.

Book-ending the LULAWORLD festival are several local acts. On May 20, Samba Squad makes a welcome appearance with guest vocalist Luanda Jones. Directed by Rick Lazar, Samba Squad gathers diverse global influences and produces raw, drum-heavy original compositions that are certain to rock the Lula! Lazar presents a night of new compositions and Samba Squad originals with a good measure of funked-up covers of traditional Brazilian favourites. Then on May 22, the Brazilian-born singer, percussionist and composer, Aline Morales, launches her solo CD Flores, Tambores e Amores. Accompanied by album producer David Arcus, percussionist Maninho Costa and the Heavyweights Brass Band, Morales provides a contemporary Canadian perspective on those quintessentially Brazilian genres, samba, tropicalia and maracatu.

Elsewhere in Toronto, the Toronto Tabla Ensemble performs on May 18 and 19 at the Harbourfront Centre’s Enwave Theatre. Featuring North Indian rhythms combined with original loops, samples and sequencing, Ritesh Das directs from the tabla. Guest musicians include Evan Ritchie on drums and percussion, and Ian de Souza on bass.

Further afield, in London, Ontario, the “Year of India in Canada 2011” touches down at the Delta London Armouries on May 1. This year-long, Canada-wide cultural and trade show features dancers and musicians from across India. Represented is Carnatic music from the south, Hindustani music from the north, Rabindra Sangeet (songs of Rabindranath Tagore, Bengali’s favorite son), as well as folk and Bollywood songs. Nor have Indian dance fans been neglected: Odissi and kathak dance traditions are well represented too.

Back in Toronto, Quebec’s renowned folk trio, Genticorum, plays on May 19 at Hugh’s Room. Featuring songs from their new album Nagez Rameurs, the Juno and Felix nominated Genticorum’s performances are marked by stirring three-part harmonies, a high-level of musicianship, an engaging sense of stage humour and a joie de vivre, all of which have earned the band a growing international fan base. They impressed me a few years ago at the Cambridge Millrace Folk Festival and then again at the Mariposa Festival in Orillia. Their current show has more interplay than before between traditional songs and original compositions. Original reels are fused to traditional songs and traditional songs are performed to original lyrics. In my humble opinion this is what living folk music should be like.

Andrew Timar is a Toronto musician and music writer. He can be contacted at worldmusic@thewholenote.com.

To quote the chorus of a 1980s song, Up Where We Belong,“Love lifts us up where we belong/Where the eagles cry on a mountain high.” Substitute the word “Spring” for “Love” and I’m singing along at this season with its onset of new green growth, and with its promise of renewal. All it takes is the first stretch of warm weather to melt even this crusty scribe’s professorial attitude. So seasonally activated, my mind wanders easily far beyond my concrete condo to the wilds of the mountain high, to the sound of the soaring eagle’s cry – the song’s haunting metaphor for human love surmounting obstacles.

Though those lyrics seem to evoke a geo-spiritual alpine terrain far removed from our urban landscape, yet the two-metre wingspans and the morning cries of the majestic bald eagle are making a regional Ontario comeback. Along the vast stretches of the northern shores of the Great Lakes, hundreds of confirmed breeding pairs have been reported in the past decade. It’s a heartening sign that efforts to rehabilitate our near-urban local environment appear to be bearing fruit. Mind you, I don’t feel compelled to personally witness those high-flying raptors in action; even the thought of their living presence nearby is enough to make this confirmed urban Torontonian’s heart soar.

Abida Parveen, “My audience is my God”: This season is full of human music too. May 15 the voice of Abida Parveen, unequivocally described by The Guardian as “the greatest female Sufi singer in history” – an opinion shared by many others by the way – will echo in the cavernous aerie of Roy Thomson Hall, her voice expressing the various colours of our species’ yearning for union with the divine.

The Pakistani singer is an acclaimed Sufiana kalaam (Sufi music) exponent. Her primary mode of expression is through two poetic song genres, ghazal and kafi (a solo genre accompanied by drums and harmonium that uses a repertoire of songs by Sufi poets in Urdu, Sindhi, Saraiki, Punjabi and Persian). Taught by her father, Ustad Ghulam Haider, and by Ustad Salaamat Ali Khan, she has amassed legions of fans in her four-decade international career. The Icelandic diva Björk, a shrewd judge of both extreme vocalism and passion,  counts herself among them.

Co-presented by the Aga Khan Museum and Roy Thomson Hall, this concert is undoubtedly a special one. RTH’s director of programming and marketing, Chris Lorway, has dubbed it a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for Toronto.” In his comments prepared for this column, Lorway emphasized its inter-institutional dimensions. “The chance to present an international icon like Abida Parveen is a thrill for us, and we could not have done it without the partnership with Amir and his team at the Aga Khan.”

Lorway also underscored the importance of reaching out to the diverse enthic, national and faith-based communities in the city. “As we strive to make our venues more reflective of the city of Toronto, these collaborative initiatives are the only way forward. They allow us to combine our collective audiences of music lovers and the culturally curious in a way that has long-term benefits for both organizations.”

For his part Amirali Alibhai, head of performing arts at the Aga Khan Museum, noted that Abida Parveen “has taken the kafi form of musically rendering the poetry of great mystics to new heights, which is quite significant for a practice that is traditionally dominated by men. Performing in several languages, Parveen’s interpretations cross barriers of understanding through her passionate and possessed vocal expression.” Making a bold comparative leap across cultural boundaries, Alibhai aptly observes that “she is to Sufi music what Aretha Franklin is to soul.”

In addition he makes a well-observed case for the important role concert venues can play, “to bring such presentations out of less-than-ideal stadium and make-do venues into respectful spaces, bespoken for art and possessing exceptional acoustics, as is fitting for esteemed artists such as Abida Parveen.”

A respectful space is what Parveen’s spiritually motivated performance deserves. “My culture – our culture – is rich in spirituality and love,” she told The Guardian reporter Nosheen Iqbal in 2013. “Sufism is not a switch, the music isn’t a show – it’s all of life, it is religion. If I want to be recognized for anything, if we should be recognized for anything, it’s the journey of the voice. And that voice is God’s.” Parveen has been known to enter an altered consciousness while deep in performance. As The Guardian article observed, “she regularly sends her audiences in Pakistan and India into swaying raptures, swooning and fainting being quite standard reactions.”

And her fans admire and adore her as much as they do her fellow compatriot singers, the late Mehdi Hassan (1927-2012) and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan (1948-1997). She freely returns that love. “Poor people, rich people – we are all God’s servants…I’m lucky. My audience is my God.”

Lulaworld: From June 1 to 11 is the annual Lulaworld festival, presented by and at the Lula Music and Arts Centre. Now in its 11th year, Lulaworld is a showcase for Toronto’s world, jazz, blues and Latin musicians, providing them a welcoming stage to present their latest work to local audiences, and encouraging collaboration, this year with more than a dozen celebrated international guests. The goal of the festival is to highlight “the incredible breadth and calibre of the Toronto world and Latin music scenes.”

In addition, the festival will also include a day of free outdoor programming as part of Dundas West Fest on June 11, plus family workshops and a Brazilian parade that anyone can participate in. As in years past there’s just too much going on during the festival to weigh in on every concert, so I’ll just have to be satisfied with providing a little colour swatch of the entire 11-day tapestry.

Kicking things off June 1 is “Lulaworld: Opening Night Party,” a night chock-a-block with Latin, jazz, pop, blues and world music, co-presented with the Toronto Blues Society. Added bonus: arrive before 8pm and you’re joining the party for free. Headliners include Cuban-born, Toronto bassist, Yoser Rodriguez, whose debut album, Pollen, employs the talents of some of Toronto’s finest Latin jazz players. Rodriguez has been touted as “the next generation of genre-defying Cuban singer-songwriters.” Taking the stage next is Hamilton-based Laura Cole, her soulful and bluesy voice reflected in her debut album, Dirty Cheat. The album was crafted by Grammy-winning producers Steve Bigas (Taj Mahal), and longtime multiple top-tier album producer Daniel Lanois.

Rounding out the night is the guitarist, singer-songwriter Cécile Doo-Kingué. While her parents were from Cameroon, she was born and raised in NYC. Now based in Montreal, she blends blues, soul and jazz with her African roots with a sure hand, having shared the stage with the Blind Boys of Alabama and opened for Angélique Kidjo and Youssou N’Dour.

June 3 the Gabriel Palatchi Trio and Charangón del Norte take over the Lula Music and Arts Centre. Led by Toronto-based multi-instrumentalist Wilver Pedrozo, his 13-piece ensemble Charangón del Norte fuses Eastern Cuban changüí with other Caribbean music-dance genres including merengue, calypso, soca and Latin jazz. The group boasts a distinctive triple trombone section reflecting bandleader Pedrozo’s upbringing in Southeastern Cuba where influences from Colombia, Mexico and Jamaica are part of the region’s everyday musical fabric.

Evergreen: Whenever it comes to writing about concerts by the Evergreen Club Contemporary Gamelan, Canada’s pioneer ensemble exploring common grounds between world and avant-garde musics, I mention, in the interests of full disclosure, my career-long involvement with the ensemble. There. Just did it again.

That being said, May 19 ECCG celebrates its latest CD, Higgs Ocean: New Music for Gamelan and String Quartet, in performance at the Music Gallery. The concert highlights its artistic director and soloist, Blair Mackay, plus its guest the Accordes String Quartet. Ten years in the making, ECCG’s CD is surely among the first albums dedicated to the striking combination of ECCG’s tuned percussion-rich gamelan degung indigenous to West Java Indonesia, and the string quartet indigenous to central Europe. The album contains Canadian composer Michael Oesterle’s powerful Higgs Ocean (2008) for that instrumentation. Innovative works by Mark Duggan, Ana Sokolović, Peter Klanac and Linda Catlin Smith round out this all-Canadian album by the Toronto ensemble. Audiences will hear samples of that repertoire.

In addition, the ECCG has commissioned a new work for this exciting transcultural sound combination: Canadian composer Linda Bouchard’s as yet untitled piece will receive its world premiere at the concert. A work for gamelan soloist and electronics by another Canadian composer Ronald Bruce Smith is also on the premiere docket.

World Fiddle Day: May 21 is the fourth annual World Fiddle Day Toronto, the second held at Toronto’s Fort York National Historic Site, at the Blue Barracks. Last year’s event hosted 96 players in the Around-the-World Jam – WFD’s signature concert featuring music from at least 25 cultures – accompanied by a top-level house band led by violinist, ethnomusicologist and WFD artistic director Anne Lederman.

Aiming to present a global musical perspective, last year’s “Fiddles at the Fort” featured both workshops and a concert with South Indian violinist Subhadra Vijaykumar and The Metis Fiddler Quartet, among others. The young violin students of Sistema Parkdale and Rosedale Heights School of the Arts participated in the workshops. This year’s roster includes fiddlers Rosalyn Dennett (Appalachia), Dan MacDonald (Cape Breton), Mark Marczyk (Ukraine) and Yosvani Castañeda (Latin America), each representing their own cultural practice as it has evolved in Toronto today. Dozens of fiddlers of all stripes have been practising tunes from around the world for the Around-the-World Jam, some for as long as three months. I expect moments of the jam will take some listeners soaring well beyond the confines of Fort York’s Blue Barracks.

Andrew Timar is a Toronto musician and music writer. He can be contacted at worldmusic@thewholenote.com.

Pick of the month:

The Silk Road was a series of trade routes linking ancient China to the Mediterranean and Europe. Not only were silks transported along these roads, but also ideas, technologies and cultures, linking East and West. The Silk Road Ensemble, a pet roject of world-renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma, seeks to do the same, in music.

Made up of around sixty or so musicians, composers, artists and storytellers from around the world, the ensemble, now celebrating its tenth anniversary, performs in various configurations, transcending musical genres. The ensemble’s mission is “to connect the world’s neighborhoods by bringing together artists and audiences around the globe”. “Every time I open a newspaper” writes Yo-Yo Ma, “I am reminded that we live in a world where we can no longer afford not to know our neighbours.”

Among the Silk Road Ensemble’s instruments is the Chinese pipa, a 2000-year-old pear shaped lute, played by virtuoso Wu Man. She has performed as soloist with many of the world’s great orchestras, and has an extensive discography, including several recordings with the Kronos Quartet. In addition to performing with Silk Road at their Roy Thomson Hall concerts on March 19 and 20 (they’re presenting two different programs), she’ll also be the soloist in the Canadian premiere of Tan Dun’s Pipa Concerto with the Toronto Symphony, as part of the New Creations Festival, March 7.

Here be dragons is an English translation of the Latin phrase “hic sunt dracones,” a notation gracing a few medieval manuscript maps and reflecting the wider period practice of drawing dragons, sea serpents and other mythological creatures to identify regions of the unknown and fearful, dangerous or unexplored territories. Some researchers suggest the term may be related to the existence of giant lizards called Komodo dragons indigenous to a few small remote Indonesian islands – and which are still a tourist draw, in the region and beyond, as when in 2003 the first Canadian Komodo dragon was hatched at the Toronto Zoo.

Tales of such creatures, morphed by repeated telling into hybrid beasts, were common not only throughout Asia but also much of the world, acquiring complex and conflicting transcultural rap sheets over the centuries. The great majority – although not all – of dragons depicted in European stories and iconography represent chaos and evil (think St. George and his confrontation with his alter beast).  In Chinese legend and lore, by contrast, they are generally considered beneficial and represent orderly government, potency, auspiciousness, strength and good luck for those worthy of it. The Emperor of China often used the mythical animal as a symbol of his imperial power; in a more philosophical vein the dragon represents the yang principle complementing the phoenix’s yin. In recent decades the term “descendants of the dragon” has become a self-identifying marker of national, ethnic identity among some Chinese, both in the Chinese homelands and throughout the extensive diaspora.

A case in point is the Sound of Dragon Music Festival making its Ontario debut in five Southern Ontario venues from May 20 to 24. Its artistic director, Vancouver-based Lan Tung, explained in a recent phone conversation that the first characters calligraphed in the festival’s descriptive Chinese title refer to dragons singing across the ocean. It’s a potent poetic metaphor for music deeply rooted in Chinese tradition but expressed with a characteristic Canadian inclusive accent. Tung’s instrument the erhu, as well as others such as the pipa, zheng, sheng and ruan will share the spotlight with the violin, viola, cello, bass, flute and clarinet, enlivened with world percussion instruments. Together they perform scores by composers of several nationalities.

Launched last year in Vancouver, the festival, Tung notes, “brings a unique approach to preserving traditional [Chinese] music, while promoting creativity and innovation.” The festival’s core contingent is made up of members of the Vancouver Inter-Cultural Orchestra (VICO), along with collaborating musicians from Taiwan and Toronto. VICO, founded in 2001, has been described as “the United Nations of music” (CBC Radio) and “music that sounds like Vancouver looks” (Georgia Straight). It’s a significant and I believe particularly Canadian music development — a professional orchestra devoted to the performance of newly created intercultural music. It was one of the first such ensembles in the world and is the only one of its kind in Canada, a testament to the spirit of cultural cooperation many of us like to think exemplifies the best in Canadians.

VICO’s core roster consists of 24 musicians, trained in many world music traditions. Its mission is to “act as a forum for the creation of a new musical art form, one in which all of Canada’s resident cultures can take part….”  It moreover “serves as a voice for Canadian composers and musicians of diverse backgrounds, and fosters the creation of musical works that fuse and transcend cultural traditions.” To date VICO has commissioned and performed over 40 new works by Canadian composers.

The Sound of Dragon Festival, Tung explains, aims “to intertwine diverse styles: ancient, folk and classical Chinese repertoire, as well as contemporary Canadian compositions … and creative improvisation.” By presenting musicians from different ethnicities, nationalities, and musical genres, it aspires to “re-define Chinese music and reflect Canada’s multicultural environment.”

Each concert of the festival has a slightly different focus. It kicks off May 20 with a free concert at the Blue Barracks of the Fort York National Historic Site where members of VICO, Taiwan’s Little Giant Chinese Chamber Orchestra and the Toronto pipa virtuoso Wen Zhao perform traditional and contemporary music written for Chinese instruments, joined in the second set by guest players from  Toronto’s creative music scene to collectively explore and improvise with multiple combinations of Chinese, Western and other instruments.

May 21, as part of Small World’s “Asian Music Series,” the Sound of Dragon Festival takes the Small World Music Centre stage, presenting an intimate evening with musicians from the Little Giant Chinese Chamber Orchestra and VICO, joined by Wen Zhao, pipa soloist. The concert finale features the Toronto premiere of Vancouver composer John Oliver’s Eagle Flies to Mountain, a work which animates notions of the four elements (earth, air, water, fire) through musical combinations, and which also invokes the essential complementary duality of the ancient concept of yin and yang.

The following day, May 22, the festival moves north of Steeles Ave. to the Flato Markham Theatre. Free Chinese instrument workshops in the afternoon will be followed by an evening concert featuring a 12-member chamber orchestra conducted by the Taiwanese maestro Chih-Sheng Chen. The orchestra, consisting of VICO core instrumentalists augmented by musicians from Taiwan and Toronto, will perform Lan Tung’s 2014 signature work Sound of Dragon, a lively blend of the well-known Chinese piece Crazy Snake Dance infused with North African rhythms and sprinkled with improvised solos.

Saturday May 23, the festival shifts to the Aeolian Hall in London presented in a concert by Sunfest, formally known as the London Committee for Cross-Cultural Arts Inc. Members of VICO and Little Giant Chinese Chamber Orchestra join forces once again to present a program of Chinese folk music arrangements and commissioned Canadian works, including  “Indian, klezmer, Persian, Chinese and Taiwanese,” and no doubt Euro-North American essential features too.

May 24 the Sound of Dragon Festival completes its Southern Ontario tour with a concert at The Jazz Room, Huether Hotel in Waterloo, produced by Neruda Arts, K-W’s world music presenter.

Meden Glas: May 2 Toronto’s Meden Glas releases its debut album Balkan Mixologies at the Music Gallery. The group is directed by ethnomusicologist Irene Markoff, a specialist in Balkan and Turkish vocal styles and the bağlama (long-necked lute). Members of its expanded group and Bulgaria’s virtuoso kaval (end-blown flute) player Nikola Gaidarov will join the core quintet. Together they present a journey into the vocal styles, intricate rhythms and instrumental music of Croatia, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Greece, Turkey, Sardinia, Russia, as well as that of the Kurds and Roma. They promise an “adventure that will bend your ears and get the evening kicking with your dancing feet!” I’m in.

Footsteps of Babur: May 8 the Aga Khan Museum in conjunction with the Aga Khan Trust for Cultural Music Initiative present “Footsteps of Babur,” referring to Babur, the founder of the Mughal Empire, and the legendary lavishness of 16th-century Mughal court life in which music of many kinds and from many regions and performance genres played a prominent role. Musicians Homayun Sakhi (Afghan rubab), Salar Nader (tabla) and Rahul Sharma (Indian santoor) evoke the light refined music that filled the palace rooms of Mughal India and Afghanistan in centuries past. Sharma is the son of the important Northern Indian santoor player Shivkumar Sharma, often credited as the man who established his instrument in Hindustani classical music performance.

Jayme Stone’s Lomax Project: Also May 8, “Jayme Stone’s Lomax Project,” also the title of their delightful new album takes the Koerner Hall stage. Two-time JUNO-winning banjoist, composer and band leader Stone has distilled and reinterpreted songs made by the American ethnomusicologist and folklorist Lomax, along with his distinguished instrumental and vocal collaborators. Lomax is justly celebrated for his field recordings conducted over the 50 years straddling the middle of the 20th century. The project revives for our century the voices and spirit of that era’s rural Americana. We hear stirring renditions of sea chanties, fiddle tunes, work songs, moving Georgia Sea Islands African-American a cappella singing and Appalachian ballads. It’s an important roots revival album, and audiences can expect Stone at the core of his tight ensemble at Koerner Hall adding deft touches of his musically nuanced, never superfluous, banjo playing.

Asian Heritage Month at the TPL: May is Asian Heritage Month in Toronto. As in previous years the Toronto Public Library is celebrating it in various ways, including free music performances given by select musicians from Toronto’s Asian music diaspora. May 16 at 1pm the Richview, Etobicoke branch presents Andrew Timar (yes that’s me moonlighting as a musician) and dancer Keiko Ninomiya in a program of “Southeast Asian Dance and Music Fusion” set within a North American aesthetic. North York Central Library’s Auditorium’s stage will be particularly musically active this month. May 21 “The Music of China” takes to its intimate stage with a program of “regional, contemporary, and Western music.” For “An Afternoon of Persian Music” on May 23 the polished Shiraz Ensemble performs music from the Persian Qajar dynasty, plus works by the important composer and santur player Farāmarz Pāyvar (1933—2009), as well as improvisations.

Pedram Khavarzamini and Shawn Mativetsky: May 16 Pedram Khavarzamini and Shawn Mativetsky headline at the Music Gallery in a program titled “East Meets Further East.” The concert’s goal is to highlight Iran and India’s deep drumming traditions. Montrealer Mativetsky, performing with bassist George Koller, is an accomplished tabla performer and educator, an exponent of the Benares gharana and disciple of the tabla maestro Pandit Sharda Sahai (1935—2011). Mativetsky teaches tabla and percussion at McGill University and is a passionate advocate of tabla in contemporary music of many genres. Khavarzamini, who was among the most sought-after tombak teachers and players in Teheran when he was a resident there, will perform with tar virtuoso Araz Salek. He has co-authored several books on the drum’s technique and repertoire. In the early 2000s he was invited to join the Greek music innovator Ross Daly’s group Labyrinth and moved to Europe to pursue his music career. He has toured the world with musicians such as Dhruba Ghosh, Dariush Talai, Vassilis Stavrakakis, and others.  Last year he relocated to Toronto, a move which is our city’s and our country’s gain. These two outstanding Canadian drummers will explore much of the range of their respective instruments and rhythmic vocabularies, culminating in a collective performance.

Lulaworld Festival: The Lulaworld Festival is celebrating its tenth anniversary, and this year it’s a whopper. More than two dozen concerts, family workshops, Brazilian parade and other events at the Lula Lounge and environs between May 27 and June 6 work the theme “Celebrating the Music and Dance of the Americas!” Presented by Lula Music and Arts Centre, it’s billed as the summer’s Toronto 2015 PAN AM Games pre-party, guaranteed to “get Toronto dancing to the music of the Americas.” Even if you don’t dance in public, you can expect a healthy serving of Toronto’s finest world, jazz and Latin musicians, often collaborating with international guest artists on Lula’s intimate stage. With a festival on such a vast scale, I can only hint at the musical – and dance – wealth to be discovered. 

May 27, the festival’s opening night, Toronto’s leading Brazilian dance company Dance Migration is joined by guest Sao Paolo-based percussionist Alysson Bruno and Irineu Nogueira.

May 30 the Lula All Stars release their new CD. The group of musicians with roots from across the Americas plays at Lula Lounge’s weekly live salsa series, co-led by Sean Bellaviti and Luis Orbegoso.

Saturday, June 6, the Lulaworld stage at the Dundas West Fest will be chockablock with Latin jazz, salsa, Jamaican ska, Afro-Caribbean jazz, Spanish rock and pop, Canada’s biggest participatory Brazilian drumming parade and “family-friendly workshops.” Best of all, it’s all free.

Andrew Timar is a Toronto musician and music writer. He can be contacted at worldmusic@thewholenote.com.

A recent article, “The five types of music discovery” by Stuart Dredge (The Guardian March 19, 2014), examines current ways some people “find new bands and songs.” He wonders what future search methods may be employed and his answer appears to centre on the smartphone holding the key to such searches. Dredge argues that the popular music industry is anxious to discern consumers’ tastes and choices in order to deliver what it feels listeners want, characterizing it as “music discovery.” It’s a process driven by commercial interests increasingly tied to mobile apps. Dredge proposes five platforms for music discovery. They are “friends, the crowd, curators, algorithms and serendipity,” all of which he links to smartphone and tablet platforms. Some of these domains use social networks as a “music discovery funnel.”

Dredge’s extended discussion of the role of digital music discovery in the commercial environment may puzzle, disturb, fascinate or elicit a combination of those responses from readers of this column. I have my own reservations. First of all there are clearly many more kinds of music and many more ways to discover them than he cares to deal with. Yet it got me thinking. Are there/will there ever be apps with the potential to create new audiences for world music, opening ears to a transnationally coloured musical palette?

Can commodified music discovery serve as a possible metaphor, or even a model, for the expansion of awareness of musics seen from a global perspective? How can various world musics grow their participants and audiences in our multicultural and multiethnic society? In addition to apps, which currently focus on the search and acquisition of popular commercial music genres, I can think of many other platforms through which this process occurs. They include: recordings on vinyl, tape, CD and other digital media; broadcasts of various types; the online blogosphere and social media; the live concert hall, pub, club, community centre; Meetups, hands-on playing workshops and community groups meeting in consulates and embassies.

Those interested can seek, discover and experience music from outside one’s culture of birth by all these means and I’ve touched on activities at many of them over my years at The WholeNote. Even faith-based congregations present an opportunity for such discovery: see the end of this column for an example.

Yet another platform for world music discovery is the performance courses offered at Canadian schools, conservatories, colleges and universities. Once a rarity and to a degree a novelty in the 1970s and 1980s, they are slowly becoming embedded in an increasing number of music schools alongside the received canon of classical Western music offerings.

Gamelan: I’m going to examine this process through a case study of the introduction of the instruments and repertoire of the gamelan begun in Canada in the 1980s. Emblematic of interactive communal music making, at its core gamelan is orchestral music indigenous to several regions of Indonesia. It’s played on multiple types of tuned and untuned percussion instruments but also often features wind and string instruments, as well as solo and group vocals. The source of this music is about as geographically removed as possible from Toronto, but it’s a subject close to my heart. For over three decades its study, performance and teaching have been my musical staples. During that time I’ve witnessed the incremental growth of the gamelan scene which in 1982 had no resident Canadian performers. Then only a handful of LPs and the very occasional Indonesian touring group booked in our larger halls gave any hint of the musical treasures awaiting our discovery.

In the U.S. gamelan music touched down earlier. Theatrical gamelan performances were staged daily by a visiting group at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, of which audio recordings still exist captured on early cylinder technology. The inauguration of the formal study and performance of gamelan music by Americans however dates from the mid-1950s when Mantle Hood began teaching Javanese gamelan privately in his California home. One of the founders of ethnomusicology, Hood first offered the course “Music and Dance of Java” at UCLA in the 1964-65 academic year; the Javanese musician Hardja Susilo taught the dance component. From that single course today dozens of academic gamelan programs flourish in North American colleges in addition to up to 200 active community groups.

In Canada several of gamelan music’s trailblazers were composers. They introduced it to both concert halls and universities. In 1983 the Toronto-based composer Jon Siddall formed the independent professional group Evergreen Club Gamelan playing on a Sundanese gamelan degung named Si Pawit. Three years later composition professor José Evangelista founded the Atelier de gamelan de l’Université de Montréal, its students playing in Balinese angklung and gong kebyar ensembles. Around the same time Vancouver composer Martin Bartlett brought a complete Central Javanese gamelan to Simon Fraser University and used it to conduct the “Music of Two Worlds Summer Music Intensives.” Participants not only learned the techniques of Indonesian gamelan and dance, but also that of interactive computer music, culturally disparate elements which Bartlett provocatively had students combine in composition and performance.

At the Faculty of Music, University of Toronto, Dr. Annette Sanger, an ethnomusicologist specialist in the music of Bali, has directed her Balinese gamelan semar pegulingan performance course for over two decades. Spreading the music to new audiences in the 1980s I found myself among the first in Canada to lead occasional gamelan music workshops. They were held in Toronto on the Evergreen Club Gamelan’s set of degung instruments. In the 1990s and 2000s my teaching increased exponentially, introducing Torontonians to the Javanese gamelan at York University, the Royal Conservatory of Music and to many thousands of students at the Toronto District School Board, among several other institutions. This year the Evergreen Club Contemporary Gamelan is celebrating its 30th season and most of the other gamelan ensembles and courses mentioned are still active, with other universities located on both east and west coasts introducing their own courses in the last decade.

The Grebel Gamelan: The discovery of gamelan music by playing it is still taking place in Ontario. I was pleased to read recently that Conrad Grebel University College at the University of Waterloo established a Balinese gamelan and a course in the 2013 fall term. Dr. Maisie Sum, the newly appointed faculty member in Global Music and the university’s first ethnomusicologist, teaches the course titled “World Music Ensemble: Gamelan Music of Bali” casually known as the Grebel Gamelan. Moreover Sum’s incoming mandate includes the expansion of “the study and performance of ‘world music’ in the music program.” Music students can expect to be introduced “to unfamiliar sounds, to [discover] global music by actively participating as listeners and music makers, and to encourage them to ask questions and make connections with their own beliefs, values, and practices.” Will such wide-ranging – idealistic even – goals articulated in this mission statement attract students, regional community engagement and listener participation?

Seeking background on the story of the arrival of Waterloo’s first gamelan I spoke to Sum at her office on a cold and rainy March 19 afternoon. It turns out she is a product of the Canadian gamelan scene: “I’m a member of a Balinese gamelan in Montreal and received my PhD in ethnomusicology from the University of British Columbia.” In Vancouver she studied (Balinese gamelan) gong kebyar with Michael Tenzer followed by years of music field work in Bali. “Conrad Grebel’s gamelan semaradana, a kind of seven-tone Balinese instrumental ensemble, is currently rented from its New York owners,” she noted, “but the university is exploring the purchase of its own set for the long term.” There’s also the ever-pressing matter of where to permanently house a full gamelan which takes up considerable real estate, an issue that’s been problematic for many institutions. Sum seems confident, however, that solutions will be found given the very positive, enthusiastic reception of the Grebel Gamelan course and its performances by faculty, students and audiences: “Enrolment for the ensemble doubled in the winter term, so we currently have two groups.”

What does having the first resident gamelan at Grebel/UW mean for music discovery in the Kitchener-Waterloo region? “It is important to us in many ways, some of which include broadening our students’ musical and cultural awareness, and expressing our core values such as community building, creativity, and global engagement,” Sum replied. While the new ensemble is not yet playing all the various types of instruments of the gamelan semaradana the Conrad Grebel Gamelan Ensemble video clip from its November 27, 2013 noon-hour concert exudes confidence. Enthusiastic smiles abound and a standing ovation greets the musicians. The clip is on YouTube awaiting your discovery. The group demonstrates a performance level belieing less than three months’ prep time between introducing the students to the instruments to the gig itself. This speaks volumes about their dedication but also about the embedded quality and power of the community musical tradition they passionately convey. It also speaks highly of the teaching skills of Sum and her expert Balinese guest musician, I Dewa Made Suparta.

Sum provided one more demonstration of music discovery, one which extends to transcultural community interaction. On February 2 this year her Grebel Gamelan was invited to take part in a church service at the Rockway Mennonite Church in Kitchener. The members of the congregation heard Grebel music theorist Carol Ann Weaver deliver a cross-cultural sermon titled, “Gamelan as Gospel: Creating Communities of Peace,” exploring parallels between communal musicking embedded in the performance of Balinese gamelan and Mennonite notions of community.

You can catch the Grebel Gamelan’s youthful energy at their concert on April 1 at 1:30pm in the Great Hall of the Student Life Centre at UW and the next day at noon at the Conrad Grebel chapel.

A few other concert picks:

April 1 at the Musideum, a fascinating blend of voices brings “Songs of Gaia meets the FreePlay Duo” to downtown Toronto’s living room concert hall. Vocalist Saina Singer and bassist George Koller meet the FreePlay Duo (Suba Sankaran and Dylan Bell) in improvisations borrowing from many global music traditions. While the other illustrious musicians are no strangers to this column, Saina is. She’s from the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) in the immense Siberian region of Russia. Saina began singing in a local pop idiom but then shifted focus to learn songs of Siberian indigenous peoples directly from them, thereby deepening her understanding of her ancestral culture. These musicians have not performed together before, so this concert promises to be full of fresh Northern musical spontaneity.

April 2 again at the Musideum two Toronto groups, The Horables and the Friends of Markos perform “From Freygish to Phrygian, A night of Klezmer and Greek music.” The Friends of Markos brings a rambunctious and unpretentious energy to tunes rendered in the Greek rebetiko style, while The Horables play the self-described “celebratory dance music of Eastern European Jews, as well as Gypsy dance tunes and some Django-style jazz.” Sounds like a fun evening though the dance floor will be tight.

Also on April 2 – and bringing us back to our theme this month of world music discoveries in an educational setting – the University of Toronto Faculty of Music presents their semi-annual “World Music Ensembles Concert” at Walter Hall, Edward Johnson Building. This edition features the African Drumming and Dancing Ensemble directed by Kwasi Dunyo, Mark Duggan’s Latin-American Percussion Ensemble and the Steel Pan Ensemble directed by Joe Cullen.

April 29 Small World Music presents the CD release of Autorickshaw’s edgier-than-usual fourth album The Humours of Autorickshaw at Lula Lounge. Mastermind producer Andrew Craig has woven an exciting studio musical tapestry with a solid (and often cheeky) South and North Indian seam deftly employing the considerable and diverse talents of Autorickshaw-ers vocalist Suba Sankaran and tabla wallah Ed Hanley. Thickening the rich arrangements is the glitter of Canadian instrumentalist talent including bassist Rich Brown, guitarists Justin Abedin, Kevin Breit and Adrian Eccleston, violinist Jaron Freeman-Fox, accordionist Gordon Sheard, master drummer Trichy Sankaran, drummer Larnell Lewis, dilruba player George Koller, percussionist Patrick Graham. Will they all be performing at Lula?

Andrew Timar is a Toronto musician and music writer. He can be contacted at worldmusic@thewholenote.com.

There’s a new music presenter on the block which also chooses to keep details of its concerts on the down-low. It’s the Toronto iteration of the Sofar Sounds international franchise, begun in 2009 in London, UK, a sort of a Meetup for music concerts. It initially came to my attention because the series has significant world music content, and it’s the primary reason I’m visiting it in this column.

Meet Jonathan Campbell of Sofar Sounds Toronto (SST). He began to organize covert alternate space concerts in the city’s core last year. “SST has regular concerts twice a month. Our secret, intimate shows in alternative locales showcasing the talent and diversity of the city aspire to bring the magic back to live music. We advertise online a [concert] date and the neighbourhood in which it will take place. Yes, we keep the artists secret but [I feel] they will definitely be up the alley of many WholeNote readers.” SST intends to stay: “We’re booked well into 2017.”

I asked about SST’s mission. Campbell explained, “It’s the local branch of the global Sofar Sounds movement, now in nearly 300 cities worldwide. We produce our concerts in alternative locales – offices, studios, galleries, living rooms, backyards and more – celebrating the wealth, diversity, breadth and depth of the artists working and living in or passing through our city.”

By choosing hyperlocal venues with individual curators - they sign up on the SST website for the experience of “hosting a gig”– rather than more typical mainstream halls or commercial pubs, Campbell identifies an important feature of his endeavour: the honouring of cozy “spaces, neighbourhoods and places.” Rather than being a secondary element, a lifestyle soundtrack, he argues that in such intimate, personalized settings, music can be savoured for its own sake. He explicitly referred in our interview to placemaking, a multi-faceted approach used by urban planners and human geographers to the planning, design and management of public spaces with the intention of creating spaces that promote people’s health, happiness and wellbeing.

Placemaking is a philosophy and a process with political resonance due to its close relationship to the notion of place identity. Place identity is not purely a theoretical issue, however. It informs a worldwide movement to protect places of significant local heritage in the face of the powerful forces of cultural globalization. Interestingly, it has direct parallels themes in musical themes I occasionally explored in this column: local and regional vs. transnational identities as reflected in music performance, production, mediation, and in audience and critical reception. SST is exploring aspects of this in Toronto. It’s about the room and how the audience feels in it, as much as about the music being performed.

I asked Campbell about SST’s core audience and its incorporation of various global musics. He referred to programming goals including a commitment to ethnically diverse music and raising SST’s profile among world music audiences.

“I think these two issues are deeply related. Geographically, we’ve been downtown directed, but that reflects the nature of our core demographic. The typical person that has signed up [to attend our concerts] is a hip young urbanite in their 20s or 30s, a person whose experience of live music [has been mainly relegated] to the bars, clubs and other venues of the indie, rock, punk and folk scenes. On one hand we love the idea of having performers of every colour, shape, size, musical style, form, discipline. But, because the bulk of our audience feels at home in the indie, rock, punk and folk genres, it’s been a harder sell to book artists outside of those scenes. On the up side, I think that the more people hear about or experience what our rooms feel like, the more that’s going to change, leading to greater variety in the music genres on offer.”

Campbell’s programming, in line with most Sofar Sounds events around the world, as reflected in their numerous YouTube videos (more on that later), primarily appears to reflect mainstream vernacular music. Great Lake Swimmers, Royal Wood and The O’Pears have presented polished sets. On the other hand, SST has also sought to stretch preconceived hipster notions of the live music experience by expanding what’s on offer. For example, Pocket Concerts presented an authoritatively played program of J.S. Bach string trios. Last December, indigenous cellist/composer Cris Derksen, a 2016 Instrumental Album JUNO nominee, singlehandedly built from layers of powwow-ready sounds with her cello, Western classical music chops and new school electronics.

To ramp up audience anticipation, SST has fun holding back the names of the musical acts it presents, yet it does something few other presenters do: it sends follow-up messages to individual ticket holders. Titled “Thanks for Coming! You were watching...” the email messages offer a thumbnail of each artist on the roster. Campbell notes that “we also track alumni artists’ future gigs and link to them on our Facebook page for the benefit of our followers.”

I’m not at liberty to disclose the identity of future performers – remember the lure of the “secret” concert, the cultivated air of mystery and the element of exploration in SST’s mandate? I can, however, speak about a few of the world music performers who have animated its low-keyed venues. On a hot July 2015 evening in the backyard of a private Toronto home, the Rajasthani Barmer Boys raised their voices in praise to perform songs steeped in the Manganiyar Sufi music tradition. Earlier this year Burkina Faso griot Amadou Kienou animated the dreary March weather in a downtown walkup with songs accompanied by kora and jembe. Sections of all these sets can be viewed on the SST YouTube channel.

A few weeks ago the Dilan Ensemble directed by kamancheh specialist Shahriyar Jamshidi played a program of Kurdish music. On another show, the ten-piece Toronto band Zuze, mashing up Iranian folk melodies with Afrobeat rhythms, shared the snug Small World Music Centre space (eschewing its modest stage for floor space under the spacious windows) with IVA, aka Kathleen Ivaluarjuk Merritt. The Inuk singer-songwriter was accompanied by the Southern Ontario indie-folk band Ptarmigan in a set combining Inuktitut song and poetry.

In another concert, the accomplished Toronto-based Arabic and Jewish musician-singers Maryem Tollar and Aviva Chernick joined Iranian percussionist Naghmeh Farahmand in a new music project dubbed Walking East Trio. In addition, sharing the bill with two other acts, singer-songwriter Dieufaite Charles sang, accompanying himself on guitar, music reflecting a mix of Haitian roots and African rhythms. That concert, held in a private home in the Trinity Bellwoods neighbourhood (yes, marked “secret!” in the invitation), was also part of Toronto’s Third Annual Festival of House Culture, yet more evidence of several layers of placemaking in action.

Campbell confirms that “of the three or four acts at every show, at least one will be a surprise to many in our audience – and that’s our intention. I can’t emphasize enough how awesome it’s been to watch audiences react to something clearly completely out of their wheelhouse. Whether it’s Bach played by a chamber trio, a griot singing traditional Burkina Faso songs accompanied by a kora, a rapper backed by live musicians, experimental electronic post-rock, or a solo singer-songwriter, audiences recognize that these are amazing musicians. Before SST, they might see a listing in a magazine or walked by a venue with a sign, but would never imagine going to their concerts. But the in-person experience is a powerful one. It says ‘this is for anyone who wants to hear it.’ It’s been so rewarding for us to be able to introduce artists who don’t generally have access to audiences outside of their own ethnicities. We [imagine that we] live in a city that houses every ethnicity, culture, or tradition on earth, yet we [nevertheless] tend to live in our own local worlds. What’s been amazing to behold is that by creating an air of mystery around audiences not knowing who they’re going to see, we’re able to demonstrate how silly it is that we’re not [culturally] more intermingled. Because great music is great music. Period.”

That’s why, he says, a well-known artist like Lena (aka Anastasia Tchernikova) of Musica Reflecta can entrance a room full of people with a program of solo minimalist piano pieces by Philip Glass and Arvo Pärt as much as a well-known folk group like Great Lake Swimmers, who followed that performance. “There is so much going on in this city, and, to use the old adage, there’s so much that people don’t even know they don’t know about. We want to help change that.”

While Campbell makes a strong case for an era of post-genre concert experiences, what’s in it for the individual musician or group? SST promises an attentive audience, an unusual, unexpected, fun, intimate venue with social media follow-ups on Facebook and Instagram. Each act gets a very modest honorarium. More valuable perhaps, SST provides a high-quality edited video of an item in their performance, uploaded directly to the international Sofar Sounds YouTube channel.

For newly formed groups, it’s an opportunity to connect with an enthusiastic young adult audience in an attentive listening “quiet room” environment. For bands used to gigging in noisy bars where the focus is not necessarily on the music they’re making, the latter is a precious quality. For more established musicians, SST facilitates a connection with a young adult audience demographic, to listeners who may not be familiar with their careers, repertoire or even the genre of music they play.

While mum’s the word on the identity of the global musicians appearing in SST’s December and January concerts, I can divulge two of the locations it has already announced. One is the hip Boxcar Social at Harbourfront Centre overlooking Lake Ontario and the other is “a secret location” in Evergreen Brick Works nestled in the neo-bucolic post-industrial setting of the Don River Valley.

After speaking with SST producer Campbell, I am confident that SST’s programming will continue towards its goal of genre diversity. Gongs, ukuleles and dulcimers will undoubtedly share future SST rooms with guitars, drum kits and keyboards.

Andrew Timar is a Toronto musician and music writer. He can be contacted at worldmusic@thewholenote.com.

Looking to expand your own musical horizons but don’t know where to start? Below is a short list (by no means comprehensive) of commuity education organizations offering classes in a variety of world music traditions.

But first, some concert highlights for this month. The 8th Annual Small World Music Festival runs September 24 to October 4 at various venues, and features 23 artists from 20 countries, including Zakir Hussain with Béla Fleck and Edgar Meyer (September 29, part of the Grand Opening concert series at the RCM’s new Koerner Hall), Tasa, Bajofondo, Electric Gypsyland, Beyond the Pale, Omnesia Live, to name just a few. See our listings, or visit www.smallworldmusic.com for full details. The Klezmer Kids, from Winnipeg, perform September 12 at the Winchevsky Centre, 585 Cranbrooke Ave., followed by a workshop the next day. (www.winchevskycentre.org or call 416-789-5502); and KlezFactor, Toronto’s “alternative” klezmer band, performs at the Tranzac Club, September 29. Finally, Bernardo Padron and his band are at Hugh’s Room, October 1 (Venezuelan influenced jazz, with Alan Hetherington, Mark Duggan, Marylin Lerner and Andrew Downing).

Arabesque Academy

1 Gloucester Street, Suite 107

416-920-5593

www.arabesquedance.ca

In addition to being one of the best places in the city to study the art of belly dance, (including an auditioned professional course), Arabesque Academy offers classes in Arabic instrumental music. At the time of writing, the fall schedule was not available, but check their website for updates. Music classes are offered by noted local Arabic musicians Dr. George Sawa, Bassam Bishara and Suleiman Warwar on a variety of traditional instruments including dumbek, Qanoon, Naye, Oud, Voice, Violin, Saz, as well as history and theory.

Clapping Land – songs, movement and rhythm for young children

Sophia Grigoriadis

416-220-8161

sophia@clappingland.com

www.clappingland.com

“Through moving, singing and instrument play, music opens those crucial pathways for your child’s language and social development and physical coordination, giving opportunities for creative thinking and exploration.” Classes begin soon in the following age ranges: Newborn to 18 months; 18 months to 3 years; 3 to 5 years. Check the website for schedules and registration.

Gamelan Degung Sora Priangan

“Voice of the Spirit of the Ancestral Mountains”

Arraymusic studio, 60 Atlantic Ave. Suite 218 (rehearsal location)

atmar@istar.ca (Andrew Timar, contact)

Sora Priangan is the Evergreen Club Contemporary Gamelan’s community group, directed by Andrew Timar. The instruments and repertoire are indigenous to the highland Sundanese people of West Java, Indonesia. Sora Priangan’s mission is to foster an understanding and appreciation of the gamelan degung music of West Java, and the unique repertoire commissioned by its parent group, the Evergreen Club. Membership is open to the public, and the group presents concerts and workshops. Rehearsals are Tuesdays 6-9 pm.

Kathak Dance

355 College St., second floor

416-504-7082

joanna@mdo-tte.org

www.mdo-tte.org

In partnership with the Toronto Tabla Ensemble, Joanna de Souza offers classes in North Indian Kathak dance, from beginner to professional levels, in the Kensington Market area. For full schedule and registration, visit the website.

Koffler Centre of the Arts

Prosserman JCC’s Donald Gales Family Pavilion

4588 Bathurst St

416-638-1881 x4269

registration@kofflerarts.org

www.kofflerarts.org

In addition to a number of music classes and workshops offered by the Koffler Centre, new this fall is the opening season of the Toronto Jewish Chorus, under the direction of Judy Adelman Gershon. Auditions to be held in the fall.

Miles Nadal JCC

750 Spadina Ave., at Bloor

416-924-6211

info@mnjcc.org

www.milesnadaljcc.ca

In addition to a vast array of recreational and cultural activities, the Miles Nadal Jewish Community Centre offers a number of music classes, including a Community Choir, Women’s Chorus, and Klezmer Ensemble. See their website for schedules.

RCM Conservatory School

273 Bloor St. West

www.rcmusic.ca

Back in their newly renovated old location, the Royal Conservatory offers a number of community classes in world music traditions, inbcluding Brazilian Samba, Celtic-Canadian Fiddling, Latin Jazz, Taiko Drumming, and a World Music Chorus. Visit their website, click on “brouse courses,” then “world music” for schedules and registration.

Samba Kidz

Drum Artz Studio, 27 Primrose Ave. (Dupont/Dufferin)

416-538-6342

info@drumartz.com

www.sambakidz.com

www.drumartz.com

Run by Drum Artz Canada, the Samba Kidz fall 2009 session begins September 29, Tuesdays from 5:30-7:30pm. This multi-arts programme for kids aged 7-14 encompasses group-inspired world drumming, steel pan, dance and visual art projects culminating in performance opportunities throughout the city.

Samba Squad

Drum Artz Studio, 27 Primrose Ave. (Dupont/Dufferin)

slamdog@sympatico.ca

www.sambasquad.com

Lead by Rick Lazar, Samba Squad offers workshops in Brazilian Samba (beginners welcome) most Sundays all year round from 11:30am to 1:30pm. No need to sign up in advance. Instruments are provided. Bring your own ear plugs and a tape recorder if you wish. Some “graduates” become members of Samba Squad itself.

Toronto Tabla Ensemble

355A College St. West

riteshdas@tablaensemble.com

www.tablaensemble.com

416-504-7082 x1

Ritesh Das offers classes in North Indian tabla drumming, from beginner to professional levels, in the Kensington Market area. See the website for full schedule and registration.

Worlds of Music Toronto

416-588-8813

info@worldsofmusic.ca

For years, Worlds of Music has been a wonderful source of world music classes and workshops in a wide variety of traditions. At time of writing, the fall schedule does not appear to be in place; but do check their website or call for details.

Not that long ago, June in Toronto meant a slow slide into summer, accompanied by an inevitable wind-down of concert activity. Over the last half decade, however, Luminato has enriched this time of the year by infusing the performing arts into the lifeblood of our city, entertaining and inspiring citizens and visitors alike. Luminato has swiftly established itself as one of North America’s preeminent arts festivals, having commissioned over 50 new works, and presented 6,500 artists from over 35 countries. This year “Luminato 6” takes place from June 8 to 17 in various downtown venues. Many performances are free; most are staged at the Luminato venue they’re calling the “Hub,” at David Pecaut Square.

Taking its cue from the rich diversity of the city’s numerous cultural communities, Luminato presents world music as part of its overall programming, its artist mix fostering a healthy, dynamic balance and even interplay between local and international performers. In an interview with The WholeNote, Luminato music curator Derek Andrews revealed that he has been working on some 30 music events this year, many which have world music connections. Andrews noted that Luminato aims to take risks by programming artists who are new to Toronto audiences, pairing them with local newcomers and favourites. Here are a few concert picks:

World music at Luminato launches on Friday June 8 with the double bill of K’NAAN and Kae Sun. Both are known primarily as hip hop, and sometimes “urban folk” performers, yet both were born on the African continent. They both maintain ties to their homelands. Born in Somalia, the singer, rapper, poet, songwriter and instrumentalist K’NAAN is a Canadian popular music phenomenon. He garnered global attention when his song Wavin’ Flag was adopted as the 2010 FIFA World Cup theme song, in due course becoming an international chart-topper. The singer-songwriter Kae Sun (Kwaku Darko-Mensah Jnr.), on the other hand, began his career performing in his native Ghana before immigrating in his teens to Canada, studying multimedia and philosophy at McMaster University in Hamilton. His debut album, Lion on a Leash (2009) blends folk, soul and hip hop idioms, and was followed, after a visit to Ghana for inspiration, by his impressive 2011 EP, Outside the Barcode, which was “recorded on 2-inch tape on a farm in Ontario.”

On the afternoon and evening of Saturday June 9, Luminato’s Hub is the site for a “Caribbean Summit” where veteran Jamaican and Trinidadian musicians celebrate their nations’ 50th anniversary of independence. Here are a few of the headliners: Guitarist Ernest Ranglin was called “the most important musician to emerge from Jamaica” by Island Records’ founder Chris Blackwell. Ranglin is also credited as the founding father of Jamaican ska, which paved the way for reggae music. He fronts the “Jamaica to Toronto” band which includes Jay Douglas and Everton “Pablo” Paul. Calypso Rose, “The Queen of Calypso,” began her singing career at 15 in her native Tobago. She has enjoyed a long string of calypso hits during her five-decade career. Another seasoned singer, the Jamaican-born Michael Rose, began his recording career with the important group Black Uhuru, which in 1985 won the first Grammy for reggae. He has since released more than 20 albums, including Last Chance, which reigned for weeks at number one on the UK reggae charts. Bringing it back home, the Trinidadian-Canadian group Kobo Town takes its name from the Port-of-Spain neighbourhood, the birthplace of calypso. Formed in 2004 by singer-songwriter Drew Gonsalves, the band’s lyrics explore issues such as immigration and war, while its music serves up compelling heart-pumping, booty-shaking reggae-calypso grooves.

The next afternoon, on June 10, the concert titled “Ethiopiques: The Horn of Africa” offers a double bill exploring the region’s folk, jazz and hybrid musical genres. The Boston-based nine-piece Debo Band mixes horns, strings and accordion along with voices. Their sound is a tribute to the exciting hybrid Ethiopian music being made by the bands of Haile Selassie’s era. The Debo Band has recently been signed to SubPop’s Next Ambience label. The other ensemble on the card is Abyssinian Roots. Produced by Toronto’s Batuki Music Society, the band features notable expats of Addis Ababa’s nightclub scene. Among the styles presented: “Azmaris” songs accompanied by monochord music with lyrics replete with social commentary, varied regional folk musics, as well as Ethio-jazz standards.

The evening concert on June 12, titled “Buena Vista West Africa,” comes with a world music back-story. The opening act is the Ivory Coast singer Fatoumata Diawara in her North American premiere. After a career as an actress and multi-instrumentalist, she released an album featuring her singing. Diawara also made significant contributions to other high-profile projects, including Herbie Hancock’s Grammy-winning Imagine Project. Now to the back story of the show’s title. In 1996, several of Mali’s finest musicians were scheduled to visit Cuba to record an album with local musicians. The Malians never arrived, however, and the veteran Cubans, not wishing to squander the scheduled studio session, recruited other musicians to partner with. That recording resulted in the global world music hit album Buena Vista Social Club. Fourteen years later the original Malian invitees, including Bassekou Kouyate, Toumani Diabate, Kassey Mady Diabate and Djelimady Tounkara, were finally united with the Cuban singer and guitarist Eliades Ochoa and his Grupo Patria. They produced the album AfroCubism. That this remarkable African-Cuban musical ensemble, which rarely performs live, is making its Toronto premiere at a free concert is a good argument for Luminato’s programming.

Then, on June 16 at 8pm, Toronto’s self-described “Balkan-Klezmer-Gypsy-Party-Punk-Superband” Lemon Bucket Orkestra, opens Luminato’s “Balkan Beat Blowout.” According to the festival promo the 13-piece Orkestra “grew out of a conversation between a Breton accordionist and a Ukrainian fiddler in a Vietnamese restaurant” — not an unlikely scenario in contemporary Toronto, I’d say. Even the title of their 2011 EP Cheeky gives away their folk party ways. Lemon Bucket is putting its imprint on the city’s urban-folk scene with their quirky arrangements of traditional Ukrainian, Yugoslavian and Romanian songs. The headline act scheduled at 9pm is the Bucovina Club Orkestar, making its North American premiere.

In addition to these (and many more) concerts, Luminato is also presenting free weekday noon hour discussions and concerts of world music interest at the Luminato Lounge at the festival Hub, under the rubric, “Lunchtime Illuminations and Concerts.” These events feature artists’ conversations, each paired with a custom-tailored musical performance. They look like an unparalleled opportunity to get a deeper peek into the artists’ m.o.

Please check the Luminato website (www.luminato.com), print media and of course The WholeNote listings for more details.

Other Picks

Contrary to appearances in my column thus far, Luminato is not the only world music game in town this month. On June 1, the Royal Conservatory presents Simon Shaheen at Koerner Hall. Among today’s most significant Arab musicians, performers and composers, Shaheen is a virtuoso oud and violin player, incorporating traditional Arabic, jazz and Western classical idioms. Of interest to fans and students, Shaheen will also lead a public masterclass on Friday June 1 at 10am, at Beit Zatoun, located on Markham St., just south of Bloor.

Also on June 1, Ensemble Polaris presents “Game On!” at the Heliconian Hall. This concert presents traditional Canadian and northern European songs and dance tunes linked thematically with sport and games of skill and chance. Self-described as an “Arctic fusion band” — and why not? — Ensemble Polaris also performs at 2pm on June 7 at the Toronto Public Library’s Orchardview branch.

June 6 at noon the COC’s World Music Series presents a concert of “Authentic Klezmer and Gypsy Swing” at the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre. The musicians include the Yiddish Swingtet: Jordan Klapman, piano; Jonno Lightstone, clarinet; Tony Quarrington, guitar and mandolin.

Further afield at the University of Waterloo, the Department of Music presents “Singing: East and West” on June 13 at Renison University College. The University of Waterloo Choir directed by Gerard Yun performs chant and (Tuvan, or Inuit?) throat singing. Guests include Marhee Park, soprano; Waterloo Chinese Philharmonic Choir; and the Bluevale Collegiate Choir.

Back in Toronto, on June 20, the Georgian choir Darbazi performs as part of the glittering lineup at the SING! Festival fundraiser hosted by star tenor Michael Burgess at the Green Door Cabaret on Ossington Ave. Darbazi will also perform sets on July 2, at the Canada Day Celebrations, outdoor SING! tent at Harbourfront Centre.

Andrew Timar is a Toronto musician and music writer.  He can be contacted at worldmusic@thewholenote.com.

I’ll begin where I left off last month, with a reminder about Nagata Shachu, Toronto’s own Japanese taiko drumming ensemble, who present a new programme titled “Iroha” (colour), directed by Aki Takahashi, with lighting by Arun Srinivasan, November 5 and 6 at Fleck Dance Theatre. Each piece on the programme is inspired by a colour. In addition to drumming and the use of other traditional instruments, the programme includes some choreography.

November 6 is also the date you can catch the Ukulele Orchestra of Britain, performing at the University of Toronto’s Convocation Hall. This ensemble of around eight players is on tour this year (they’ll be coming to us via New York’s Carnegie Hall and a concert in Erie Pennsylvania, before heading back home briefly, then departing to New Zealand). The name says it all – they play ukuleles of various sizes, and if you’d like a sampling of their music, check them out on YouTube! You can also visit their website, www.ukuleleorchestra.com. Check out their rendition of “Ride of the Valkyries”; and yes, they sing too!

Small World Music continues its regular programming this month with concerts at the Lula Lounge and elsewhere. (And speaking of Lula, their artistic director for the past decade, José Ortega, was recently awarded the Roy Thomson Hall Award of Recognition, one of the 2010 Toronto Arts Foundation Awards; more about Ortega next month.)

But to continue with Small World Music: Septeto Nacional, Cuba’s “son” band formed over 80 years ago, brings the spirit of Havana to the Lula Lounge on November 5; then, hailed as “the new voice of Brazil”, singer Luisa Maita performs there on November 12. On November 13 there is a co-presentation of Chhandayan, Small World Music and Creations India — devotees of Indian classical music can experience a traditional all-night concert at St. Andrew’s Church. Featured musicians include Swapan Chaudhuri, Samir Chatterjee, Shashank, Ramesh Misra, Pandita Tripti Mukherjee, Suman Ghosh, Alam Khan, Gauri Guha, Dibyarka Chatterjee and others. Finally, on November 26 “India’s first YouTube star” Wilbur Sargunaraj, who hails from Tamil Nadu, brings a combination of dance, drumming and humour to the Lula Lounge.

For more info on all of these, visit www.smallworldmusic.com.

Yiannis Kapoulas

Also at the Lula Lounge, multi-instrumentalist Yiannis Kapoulas performs selections from his self-titled debut CD, with a six-piece ensemble, November 14. His signature instrument is the “Ethno III” a 3-necked instrument designed by his father George Kapoulas, which combines sonorities of the Greek bouzouki with those of two Turkish instruments, the saz and cumbus. Born in Hamilton to Greek parents, Yiannis plays a number of instruments from this region, including bouzouki, tzoura, baglama, laouto, oud, as well and other Eastern stringed instruments, guitar, percussion and keyboard. He first began performing with his father and brother at the age of 5. Since then he has gone on to establish himself as a musician and award-winning songwriter in international competitions. His career has flourished in both Greece and Canada, where earlier this year he was named this city’s “Best Live Acoustic Act” by the Toronto Independent Music Awards.

Folk music lovers will also be interested to know that award-winning blues singer/guitarist Joel Fafard is on tour this month with the release of his new album “Cluck Old Hen.” Included are vocal covers of old Southern roots and blues songs, tunes by Muddy Waters, Willie Dixon, Richard Thompson, Lyle Lovett, and traditional Appalachian pieces. He’ll be performing at the Free Times Cafe (320 College St. just west of Spadina) on November 20.

And looking ahead to December: Pandora’s Box Salon is a new venture in Aurora put together by French horn player Katie Toksoy. There are 5 events planned this season (the first has just passed, as I write this). Each is on a particular theme; a variety of art forms are featured including music, dance, literature, film, and visual arts. It all takes place at the newly renovated concert space in the Aurora Cultural Centre. Each event also includes wine and finger foods during an extended intermission so that artists and audience can mix and mingle. Proceeds go to a local charity. The next event is on December 5, and is titled “Around the World in 80 Minutes”; it features music and dance from India, Egypt, Iran, Bali, Africa, and Europe. Performers include sitarist Anwar Khurshid (director of the Sitar School of Toronto), the Sonore Percussion Trio, Sabrina Nazar on wooden flute, a bellydancer, and others. For more information on Pandora’s Box, visit www.pandorasboxsalon.com.

Karen Ages can be reached at

worldmusic@thewholenote.com.

Since 2008 the Batuki Music Society has been tirelessly promoting African music and art in Toronto, seeking out local artists and working with them to book venues. It does much more than typical presenters however, providing the valuable service of advising musicians on career development, recording and touring. Moreover, Batuki appears to have an even larger social mission. As expressed on the society’s website, it provides “visibility and necessary publicity to artists who hail from minority groups by placing them in concerts and festivals in mainstream venues to help them integrate.” Incorporated as a non-profit community-based organization in 2008 by artistic director Nadine McNulty, Batuki’s artistic vision encourages local African musicians to participate in enriching the diverse arts and cultural scene through live music concerts, visual arts exhibits, film, spoken word/poetry, dance and festivals.

Spiritual Songs of Sub-Saharan Africa

Batuki Music Society’s programming usually heats up during Black History Month and this February is no exception. On February 14 it is presenting “Spiritual Songs of Sub-Saharan Africa” at the theatre of the Alliance Française de Toronto. Reflecting spirituality in African music, the songs are rooted in multiple genres performed across the vast continent, from Guinean griot and Ghanaian highlife and gospel, to South Sudanese spirituals, Ethiopian soul, back to Congolese rumba and Zimbabwean spirit music. 

The concert’s curatorial aim is to present the evolving nature of African music from its rural roots to its contemporary urban and transnational mediations, with an emphasis on its spiritual content. The performers have been drawn from Toronto’s rich pool of sub-Saharan African musical talent. Confirmed are seven of the city’s finest African singers, Frederica Ackah, griot Cheka Katenen Dioubate, Ruth Mathiang, Blandine Mbiya, Evelyn Mukwedeya, Memory Makuri, and Netsanet Melesse. The seven singers are backed by an impressive band consisting of Donne Roberts (guitar), Tichaona Maredza (rhythm guitar), Quandoe Harrison (bass), Fantahun Shewankochew Mekonnen (acoustic krar), Kofi Ackah (drums, percussion), Ruben Esguerra (congas), and Amadou Kienou (djembe). 

I’d like to sample the rich program for you. Performing the songs of the Shona people of Zimbabwe will be Evelyn Mukwedeya and Memory Makuri accompaning themselves on the mbira (sometimes called thumb piano), as well as hand clapping, hosho and dancing. The playing of the mbira dzavadzimu, which used to be a deeply entrenched male preserve, is an important ingredient in conducting healing ceremonies among Shona communities. In the 1970s Stella Chiweshe, also a traditional healer, challenged that male exclusivity, becoming one of the first female mbira players. She is now a role model for younger women like Mukwedeya and Makuri.

Blandine Mbiya, a singer and songwriter from the Kasai region of the Democratic Republic of Congo performs songs in the gospel-inspired rumba genre as well as those in the so-called bazombo trance music. The latter – the Bazombo are members of the much larger Bakongo group whose communities lie near the Angola and DRC borders – is a music genre reputedly associated with witchcraft and other ceremonies, though solid evidence of this is hard to locate for outsiders. On the other hand, the popular DRC rumba (aka African rumba, which also overlaps with soukous), exhibits Cuban and older Franco-Belgian missionary choral strains. Rumba’s rise to prominence has been directly linked to the suppression of the Congo’s indigenous spiritual music practices during the colonial period.

Cheka Katenen Dioubate is a Guinean griot whose job description includes storyteller, historian, poet, musician and praise singer. Griots are central to the maintenance of Mande traditions in West Africa. Serving as a living archive, they are keepers and singers of the oral history and culture of the people, performing at marriages, funerals and other rites of passage. Dioubate brings to the stage a powerful voice and commanding presence, as befits the griot who must serve as intermediary between generations of her ancestors and her living audience.

Our last stop in this incomplete concert preview is Ethiopia, as represented by the songs of Netsanet Mellesse. This singer has an impressive recording back catalogue, having produced traditional Ethiopian, pop and gospel albums back home. One of Ethiopia’s finest krar players and composers Fantahun Shewankochew Mekonnen will accompany Mellesse at the Alliance Francaise.

Vusi Mahlasela and Hugh Masekela: This is not Batuki Music Society’s only big presentation this month. On February 28, in association with Koerner Hall, they co-present “Vusi Mahlasela and Hugh Masekela: 20 Years of Freedom.” This concert is billed as “freedom songs honouring 20 years of democracy in South Africa and the official end of apartheid” and headlines the trumpeter, singer and composer Masekela and singer/songwriter Mahlasela. 

The award-winning Mahlasela, known as The Voice in his home country, is celebrated for his distinct, powerful voice and his poetic lyrics. He has released seven studio albums on Sony and worked with numerous international recording stars. His songs of hope with themes of struggle for freedom, but also forgiveness and reconciliation with enemies, inspired many in the anti-apartheid movement.

In his eighth decade, Masekela, the world-renowned multifaceted musician and defiant political voice, is still going strong. Credited as one of the founders of world fusion music, his global career began in the South Africa of the 1950s with stylist roots which tapped into jazz (ragtime, jive, swing, doo-wop, bop), musicals and pop, as well as multiple African genres including mbaqanga, South African music with rural Zulu roots. His group, the Jazz Epistles, released the first African jazz LP in 1959, followed by 40 more albums over his career. His 1986 anti-apartheid anthem Bring Home Nelson Mandela (1986) was an inspiration and rallying cry around the world at the time. After decades in exile, following the release of Nelson Mandela from prison in 1990, Masekela returned to live in South Africa. It may well be on the Koerner Hall program celebrating twenty years of South Africa’s democracy.

Other picks:

February 6 The Royal Conservatory’s World Music series presents Pavlo and his band at Koerner Hall. The Toronto native with two Juno Award nominations who goes by a single name, Pavlo may have coined the term “Mediterranean guitar sound” for his brand of music, but for his current tour Pavlo integrates “exotic instruments,” as the promotion notes. His fans can expect Pavlo’s signature sound with acoustic Spanish guitar upfront in the mix, but also infused with Chinese erhu, Portuguese guitarra, Arabic ney, Indian sitar and Greek bouzouki.

Also February 6 the Small World Music Centre’s still new intimate theatre is undertaking its first screening, rescheduled from last year. The Stirring of a Thousand Bells (2014) by emerging  American filmmaker Matthew Dunning is an experimental documentary consisting of two videos taking the audience on a kaleidoscopic visual and musical tour of life in Surakarta, a city in Java, Indonesia. It features footage of its centuries-old royal court gamelan music and dance culture, still vital today. A live music concert “Imaginary Soundtrack for Ambient Worlds: Indonesia meets Canada” by the Andrew Timar and Bill Parsons Duo, playing Indonesian kacapi and suling, will begin the program. (Yes I’m that Andrew Timar).

February 8, the Flato Markham Theatre audience will be in for a treat – a concert that showcases two generations of one family with a proud musical lineage, encompassing several strands of world music. Amjad Ali Khan, the renowned veteran maestro of the sarod (Hindustani plucked lute) is joined by his sarod-playing sons Amaan and Ayaan Ali Khan for this rare three sarod concert. Billed as “The Sarod Project,” percussionists Issa Malluf (Arabic/Middle Eastern percussion) and ace Toronto tabla player Vineet Vyas join the soloists.

Hindustani music is certainly Khan’s forte but in the first set he will demonstrate his affinity for an even wider sweep of musical geography, ranging from various regions of India to the Middle East. His sons Amaan and Ayaan will then demonstrate their traditional Hindustani music cred by performing a raga to be announced at the hall, exemplifying the living tradition that has been passed down from father to son for several generations “Music is the greatest wealth in our family,” confirmed Amjad Ali Khan. 

February 13 and 14 the Aga Khan Museum in partnership with the Aga Khan Music Initiative presents “Wu Man and the Sanubar Tursun Ensemble” at the AKM auditorium. This multicultural meeting of the Chinese pipa virtuoso Wu Man and the celebrated Uyghur singer Sanubar Tursun, explore ancient cultural links between Chinese and Central Asian music traditions. Wu Man, who has multiple Grammy Award nominations as well as the 1999 City of Toronto Glenn Gould Protégé Prize to her credit, is a cross-cultural collaboration veteran. She’s worked extensively with the Kronos Quartet and Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Project, among several others. Sanubar Tursun, who has become an iconic Uyghur cultural figure, employs her delicate, sensuous yet also athletic vocals in renditions of classical muqam and folk songs. The soloists are accompanied by an ensemble of Uyghur musicians.

If these concerts are any indication, it promises to be a rich and musically eventful February.

Andrew Timar is a Toronto musician and music writer. He can be contacted at worldmusic@thewholenote.com.