Saturday, November 18, 2023, 8:00am
In returning to a songbook that is decades — if not centuries — old, a new generation of performers is expanding the definition of what their traditional art form can be. Contemporary audiences still tend to associate the banjo with white Southern traditions of bluegrass, old-time and what record labels used to market as hillbilly music, but its roots are in Africa, in stringed instruments like the akonting, the buchundu and the ngoni. To read more visit: Adam Bradley's article, nytimes.com
Thursday, April 6, 2023, 10:00am
By Miles Davis
BBC News Online
The remarkable life of a former (enslaved African) who became a pioneer of classical music has been commemorated. The "genius" violinist Joseph Emidy, from West Africa, was enslaved for two long periods of his eventful life. But having finally gained his freedom in 1799, Emidy became "Britain's first composer of the African diaspora".
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Friday, March 24, 2023, 10:00am
Saint Cecilia, an early Christian martyr, is famous for being the musician’s saint. From artistic depictions of her playing instruments to musical societies and festivals named in her honor, St. Cecilia’s association with music has a rich and very long history. Yet the story of how she gained her status as patron of music and as a musician herself is fascinating. --by Emily Thelen, Early Music America.
Read more at: https://www.earlymusicamerica.org/web-articles/virgin-martyr-to-musician-cecilia-as-patron-saint/
To learn more read Saint Cecilia in the Renaissance: The Emergence of a Musical Icon by author John Rice published in 2023 by the University of Chicago Press....
Saturday, December 3, 2022, 9:00am
Palm wine music began to attract its first audiences at the turn of the 20th century with a name liberated from a regional drink transformed into a hybrid folk-like style. Nevertheless, it remains an integral part of the region's cultural heritage, serving as an accepted musical currency for the KRU people.
Saturday, November 26, 2022, 9:00am
Wassoulou music, takes its name from its geographical birthplace, is a form that fuses traditional and contemporary elements authored by women vocalists. The style is set within a pentatonic scale using a hunter's harp and exhibited by womanist-centered vocals that are passionate, pointed, and delivered in a call-and-response pattern.
Thursday, October 27, 2022, 10:00am
The study of African music is a study at once of unity and diversity. The range of indigenous musical resources and practices found on this vast continent is as wide and varies as its topography. In this informative and highly readable book, Professor Nketia provides an overview of the musical traditions of Africa with respect to their historical, cultural, and social background, their organization and practice, and delineates the most significant aspects of musical style. Introduction by W.W. Nortonm Publisher, 1974
Thursday, October 27, 2022, 10:00am
Saturday, October 22, 2022, 9:00am
Helping to make the country of Cornwall unique, is the integral aspect of Music in everyday life where brass compositions, choral works, dance, and jingles, small and large, reveal the existence of a sweeping musical landscape with a rich, and diverse musical legacy.
Saturday, October 15, 2022, 9:00am
Ctesibius, whose discoveries include elasticity, the water clock, and the water organ, a type of pipe organ the third century BCE, created an instrument called the hydraulis, a mechanical flute that used wind pressure regulated by water pressure on a set of pipes played in the arenas of the Roman empire. This laid the foundation for the invention of the organ.
Saturday, October 1, 2022, 9:00am
Flutes, after the human voice, are the earliest identifiable musical instruments, as paleolithic examples with hand-bored holes. Several flutes dating from about 43,000 to 35,000 years ago were discovered in Slovenia. Wisconsin and First Nation - Indigenous people have a long historical relationship with the flute.
Saturday, September 24, 2022, 9:00am
The charango is among the most honored and exalted instruments in all of Andean culture. It has a long history dating back to the late 1400s, sometime after Christopher Columbus first came in contact with the people-populated islands of the Bahamas. What was discovered was an ancient world, despite notions that Columbus and his crew of early Spanish explorers had found a new world.
Tuesday, February 15, 2022, 10:00am
This text is well-suited for the serious student of Hindustani Classical Music. I was gifted a copy from a colleague while conducting research on the genre in Udaipur, Rajasthan, India in March of 2017. It remains a fascinating narrative on the wealth of styles from the distant past that influences and informs many genres across the globe. --Jonathan
From the publisher:
North Indian or Hindustani art music has a wealth of vocal genres and instrumental styles, some of them rooted in the past and others of
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Friday, September 3, 2021, 10:00am
Some years ago my appetite for all things old introduced me to vintage books and those that centered on world music were most appealing. From that love affair came the hunt for books about travel and not just your tourist friendly reference books which are generally excellent (I use them all the time when traveling). Here are two that are perched behind my desk.
Yes, the covers are worn, and the pages are yellowed and somewhat brittle, and yet I still really enjoy holding hands with
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Thursday, July 1, 2021, 10:00am
JAZZ begins in New Orleans, nineteenth century America's most cosmopolitan city, where the sound of marching bands, Italian opera, Caribbean rhythms, and minstrel shows fills the streets with a richly diverse musical culture. Here, in the 1890s, African-American musicians create a new music out of these ingredients by mixing in ragtime syncopations and the soulful feeling of the blues. --PBS Wisconsin
The accompanying set of CD recordings is superb. Those well-informed on the topic have a legitimate argument that the film doesn't fully capture the history
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Tuesday, November 10, 2020, 10:30pm
I still have a well-worn copy of this important introduction to music by Aaron Copland. My 3rd edition copy cost 35 cents and it was my 'go to' reference during my days as a vocal student at San Francisco State University. It was and remains in my view a solid mentoring 'guide to greater musical enjoyment' for students and professional artists.
Aaron Copland’s well-known and highly regarded compositions, performed and recorded extensively throughout the world, include the Pulitzer Prize–winning ballet Appalachian Spring, as well
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Tuesday, November 10, 2020, 10:30pm
One of the most impressive aspects of the history of spirituals is how a massive group of enslaved people was shackled against their will and inhumanely brutalized. Then separated from their immediate families, crammed in the belly of ships, were barely clothed, and forced to lay next to strangers during the infamous Middle Passage from Africa to North America. Finally, those fortunate enough to survive the journey were placed on auction blocks and sold like chattel.
In a new but unfamiliar land, these enslaved people were
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Monday, July 20, 2020, 10:30pm
It has long been my view that hosting a radio program is a gift. And one of the many benefits of doing so is the privilege and opportunity to introduce new music to listeners. In my case, that benefit extends to announcing upcoming events, concerts, topical album releases, and publications dedicated to music.
Today, I'm pleased to introduce the newly released 2020 publication, "The Heart Of A Women," The Life and Music of Florence B. Price. The book, written by the late Rae Linda Brown, and published by the University Of Illinois Press is "the first-ever" biography of Price....
Thursday, July 9, 2020, 10:30pm
From my earliest days growing up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in the U.S., I was 'surrounded' by music. My dad, who owned a jazz nightclub in Milwaukee, was a 'true-to-the-bone' jazz fan and live music enthusiast who managed to find a white baby grand piano which sat proudly in the back of the club. My mother played percussion in high school and was an unwavering disciple of all things rhythm and blues. Mama passed on to me her inspiration fostered by her mother, a concert artist
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Wednesday, July 8, 2020, 10:30pm
"This volume contains a wide-ranging survey of musics of the world in historical and social contexts, from ancient times to the present day. It begins by describing aspects of musical style and function in relation to the early developments of civilizations, as background to a study of later transformations. It then describes, in some detail, musical traditions of Africa and Asia, in relation to history/geography and to other aspects of culture. A compendium of information currently available as well as a dialectical examination of musical causation and function, this book
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Thursday, June 11, 2020, 10:30pm
From time to time, I've shared my love for Cuba, its people, and especially the island's music. In many ways, a profoundly rich music steeped in sacred traditions linked to Africa. In 2007, I found myself staring at the television at the airport while waiting for a plane during one of my excursions abroad. CNN was featuring a special on the Cuban legendary singer, bandleader, and arranger, Benny More. I was enthralled by what I learned about his life, and the historical influence he had on Cuban and North American music.
It took me nearly a year
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Friday, May 22, 2020, 10:30pm
March Issue features Devonian folk singer Seth Lakeman who talks about his Mayflower-inspired new project. We also feature Japan’s premier taiko-drumming group, Kodo, prior to their return to the UK. Other features include a piece on music’s role in keeping indigenous languages alive; an interview with the Sámi singer Marja Mortensson; a Beginner’s Guide to the Cuban composer, bandleader and pianist Omar Sosa, plus all the latest news, event listings and CD, book and world cinema reviews. As well as streaming excerpts from the Top of the World album, digital edition subscribers can download all 15 tracks which this issue includes Sam Lee, Yorkston/Thorne/Khan, Gyedu-Blay Ambolley and Michael Cleveland, plus an exclusive playlist by Italian composer Ludovico Einaudi, featuring music by Canzoniere Grecanico Salentino, Rokia Traoré, Taraf de Haidouks and others.
Friday, April 3, 2020, 10:30pm
March Issue features Devonian folk singer Seth Lakeman who talks about his Mayflower-inspired new project. We also feature Japan’s premier taiko-drumming group, Kodo, prior to their return to the UK. Other features include a piece on music’s role in keeping indigenous languages alive; an interview with the Sámi singer Marja Mortensson; a Beginner’s Guide to the Cuban composer, bandleader and pianist Omar Sosa, plus all the latest news, event listings and CD, book and world cinema reviews. As well as streaming excerpts from the Top of the World album, digital edition subscribers can download all 15 tracks which this issue includes Sam Lee, Yorkston/Thorne/Khan, Gyedu-Blay Ambolley and Michael Cleveland, plus an exclusive playlist by Italian composer Ludovico Einaudi, featuring music by Canzoniere Grecanico Salentino, Rokia Traoré, Taraf de Haidouks and others.
Monday, March 30, 2020, 12:30pm
Years ago, while a voice student at San Francisco State University, I fell in love with spirituals and included at least two in all of my required recitals. And, whenever my wallet would allow, I'd trek off to one of several used bookstores and spend hours flipping through old groupings of dusty sheet music in pursuit of unearthing a used collection of operatic arias for baritone with the hope of unearthing a collection of spirituals too. On one such expedition I stumbled upon a first edition paperback copy of "Walk Together Children". I paid the full price of $2.95 cents.
As I turned the pages, I...
Monday, March 23, 2020, 12:30pm
by Terry E.Mille and Andrew Shahriari, Routledge, 2016
This book offers readers both listening guides and resources for instructors, and students with interest world music. I celebrate it for its humanistic embrace of people, and their approach to music-making. In all, this is a solid text to consider as an addition to your world music library.
World Music: A Global Journey, Fourth Edition takes students around the world to experience the diversity of musical expression and cultural traditions. It is known for its breadth in surveying the world's major cultures in a systematic study of world music within a strong pedagogical framework....
Friday, March 8, 2019, 12:30pm
The Oxford American Magazine offers insights on a host of important literary and cultural topics to which I find edifying, educational and entertaining. Their recent publication the "Southern Music Issue" with a CD of music featuring Nina Simone, my mother's favorite singer, is one I'm looking forward to airing later this this March for Women's Heritage Month. Moving forward the Oxford is going to be a valuable resource to TRTHG largely because of its diverse, cultural, and artistic inclusion. Obviously, my concentration is on music and yet I'm intrigued by the publication's dedication to what I call "good community" in...
Friday, March 8, 2019, 12:30pm
Ned Sublette's book is by no means, a 'quick' read. It is not written from a scholars point of view. However, it is indeed scholarly, and experientially - voiced through the lens of a practitioner. Before traveling to Cuba, read this book.
"This entertaining history of Cuba and its music begins with the collision of Spain and Africa and continues through the era of Miguelito Valdés, Arsenio Rodríguez, Benny Moré, and Pérez Prado. It offers a behind-the-scenes examination of music from a Cuban point of view, unearthing surprising, provocative connections and making the case that Cuba was fundamental to the evolution of...
Thursday, March 7, 2019, 12:30pm
Want to learn how to play West African guitar style? To be sure, there are many online courses to consider. Among them is one lead by West African guitarist Zoumana Diarra. I'm attracted to his story because of the important role Griots play in the lifeblood of African culture, storytelling and of course, music making.
Diarra is also and educator born in Mali in a family of Griots: West African praise singers, musicians, poets and storytellers. He has been making music since the age of four, when he manufactured his own guitar from an empty can and fishing thread. Diarra's...
Thursday, March 7, 2019, 12:30pm
I am delighted to partner with Smithsonian Folkways Recordings with the airing of some of their most diverse, informative, and celebrated releases over the last handful of years. This spring tune-in, hear, and enjoy them as each will be blended with other world music works from "lands near and far". What's more, I predict that this recording will be come a valuable resource for future study related to womanist music making.
Among the recordings I'll share is, "Songs Of Our Native Daughters", Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, 2019. I am particularly honored to air this album as a womanist tribute to Women's...
Friday, August 3, 2018, 12:30pm
First published in 1980 and now available only from the University of New Mexico Press, this classic compilation of New Mexico folk music is based on thirty-five years of field research by a giant of modern music. Composer John Donald Robb, a passionate aficionado of the traditions of his adopted state, traveled New Mexico recording and transcribing music from the time he arrived in the Southwest in 1941. -University of New Mexico Press
This publication is large in size, richly investigated on the topic of Hispanic folk music and, a tribute to musical contributions of Mexican Americans and those who...
Tuesday, April 17, 2018, 12:30pm
This is a welcomed addition to my library of world music resources and finally in paperback! At this post , I'm just beginning to turn the first pages and really thrilled to read the text's connection with humanity's sacred, cultural, and ethnic expressions. This is a rich read that hints early one as a source I'll lean on with enthusiasm. Here is the introduction to the book: "Scholars have long known that world music was not merely the globalized product of modern media, but rather that it connected religions, cultures, languages and nations throughout world history. The chapters in this...