World Renowned Malian Musician, Lasssana Diabate!

Dear Colleagues, Friends,

Please note that world-renowned Malian musician Lassana Diabate will be returning to Sydney next week for a series of presentations. I have included his itinerary below. It includes some intercultural music-making and performances, lecture-demonstrations, a film screening, and workshops including one for music educators. Please share the news of Lassana’s visit and these upcoming events, widely.

Itinerary for Lassana’s Visit (Updated Thursday, Feb 17th at 8:15 am)

Wednesday, Feb 22nd at 1pm – Lassana will perform to introduce and close the CBU Library presentation “Viola Desmond’s Canada” with Wanda Robson and Dr. Graham Reynolds. Find more information about this event HERE. If you are unable to attend in person, you can join us via livestream at this link: https://youtu.be/vC14rV1xlf0

Thursday, Feb 23rd (daytime) – Lassana will work with Cape Breton youth in a workshop, “Intercultural Performance Laboratory” at the Centre for Sound Communities Studio.

Thursday, Feb 23rd at 4pm – Lassana will provide a music educator’s workshop at the Centre for Sound Communities Studio! Please bring any instruments such as wooden xylophones and mallets (for you and other workshop participants).

Friday, Feb 24th at 5pm – Lassana will engage in intercultural music-making with local musicians, as a means of “Celebrating African Musical Traditions!” Join us for this special event in honour of African Heritage Month. (Livestreaming may be available – stay tuned!)

Sunday, Feb 26th at 2pm – Lassana will perform in a house concert! Join him and local community members at A Paradise Found Bed & Breakfast (62 Milton Street, Sydney NS), and enjoy a chance to meet and chat with this extraordinary musician. $20 at the door; all proceeds go to the musician.

Tuesday, Feb 28th at 7pm– Lassana will be presenting The Sunjata Story: Glimpses of a Mande Epic – the first in a series of films as part of the Global Musics – Local Connections FILM FESTIVAL at the Cape Breton Regional Public Library, McConnell Branch!

This series of intercultural learning events is a partnership with Global Musics – Local Connections and the Centre for Sound Communities at Cape Breton University.

For more information about Lassana and his Cape Breton visit and events, please visit write us at sound_communities@cbu.ca or call Dr. Marcia Ostashewski at (Mobile) (780) 264-7624!

World Renowned Malian Musician, Lasssana Diabate!

Dear Colleagues, Friends,

Please note that world-renowned Malian musician Lassana Diabate will be returning to Sydney next week for a series of presentations. I have included his itinerary below. It includes some intercultural music-making and performances, lecture-demonstrations, a film screening, and workshops including one for music educators. Please share the news of Lassana’s visit and these upcoming events, widely.

Itinerary for Lassana’s Visit (Updated Thursday, Feb 17th at 8:15 am)

Wednesday, Feb 22nd at 1pm – Lassana will perform to introduce and close the CBU Library presentation “Viola Desmond’s Canada” with Wanda Robson and Dr. Graham Reynolds. Find more information about this event HERE. If you are unable to attend in person, you can join us via livestream at this link: https://youtu.be/vC14rV1xlf0

Thursday, Feb 23rd (daytime) – Lassana will work with Cape Breton youth in a workshop, “Intercultural Performance Laboratory” at the Centre for Sound Communities Studio.

Thursday, Feb 23rd at 4pm – Lassana will provide a music educator’s workshop at the Centre for Sound Communities Studio! Please bring any instruments such as wooden xylophones and mallets (for you and other workshop participants).

Friday, Feb 24th at 5pm – Lassana will engage in intercultural music-making with local musicians, as a means of “Celebrating African Musical Traditions!” Join us for this special event in honour of African Heritage Month. (Livestreaming may be available – stay tuned!)

Sunday, Feb 26th at 2pm – Lassana will perform in a house concert! Join him and local community members at A Paradise Found Bed & Breakfast (62 Milton Street, Sydney NS), and enjoy a chance to meet and chat with this extraordinary musician. $20 at the door; all proceeds go to the musician.

Tuesday, Feb 28th at 7pm– Lassana will be presenting The Sunjata Story: Glimpses of a Mande Epic – the first in a series of films as part of the Global Musics – Local Connections FILM FESTIVAL at the Cape Breton Regional Public Library, McConnell Branch!

This series of intercultural learning events is a partnership with Global Musics – Local Connections and the Centre for Sound Communities at Cape Breton University.

For more information about Lassana and his Cape Breton visit and events, please visit write us at sound_communities@cbu.ca or call Dr. Marcia Ostashewski at (Mobile) (780) 264-7624!

Global Musics Local Connections Film Festival

Please join us in attending the Global Musics Local Connections Film Festival.

McConnell Library, 50 Falmouth Street, Sydney, Nova Scotia.

Tuesday and Thursday  7:00 pm – 9:00 pm. 

February 28 –The Sunjata Story: Glimpse of a Mande Epic 

  • The life of Sunjata Keita, the prince who founded West Africa’s greatest empire almost 800 years ago, has been passed down for generations… Witness this special Cape Breton performance featuring two master musicians from Mali: singer Hawa Kasse Mady Diabate accompanied on balafon by Fode Lassana Diabate, with poetic translation by Professor Cherif Keita. FILM PLUS PANEL DISCUSSION & MUSICAL PERFORMANCE BY LASSANA DIABATE  

March 7 –Dominion– an iCreate Cape Breton project

  • Finn Yarborough– Once attracting a diverse population from around the globe, Cape Breton Regional Municipality struggles to recover from the collapse of the industry that fueled its growth and contributed to one of the worst environmental disasters in North America. The departure of Dominion Steel & Coal Corporation also triggered an economic disaster, fracturing the region’s vibrant social mosaic and tempting many to dream of its return… When dominion over nature becomes oppression of the human body and soul, the key to social and environmental resilience may be turned by the same hand.

March 21 – Zurkhaneh: The House of Strength Music and Martial Arts of Iran 

  • Professor of ethnomusicology at the University of Cologne, Germany, Federico Spinetti has conducted extensive ethnographic research in post- Soviet Central Asia, Iran, and Italy. An active documentary filmmaker, he directed The Enemy as part of a broader study of the memorialization of the WWII antifascist Resistance in today’s Italian popular music, and Zurkhaneh as part of his research into the intersections of music, ritual, and architecture in Iran.

March 23 – The Enemy: A Partisan Hymnbook 

March 30 – Kosovo through the Eyes of Local Romani Musicians 

  • Svanibor Pettan is professor and chair of the ethnomusicology program at University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. His many publications are concerned with music in the context of politics and war, multiculturalism, music of minorities, ethnomusicology of Central and S.E. Europe. He lectures at universities world- wide and is President of the Cultural and Ethnomusicological Society Folk Slovenia and Secretary General of the International Council for Traditional Music.

Lassana Diabate in Cape Breton on February 2017

Fodé Lassana Diabaté is a virtuoso balafon player who comes from Guinea, where the balafon originates. The balafon as an instrument played by griotsdates back at least to the 13th Century. Lassana began playing balafon at the age of five at home in Conakry with his father, Djelisory Diabaté, a master balafon player, from Kindia. Lassana makes his own balafons out of the finest rosewood from Guinea’s forests, and cultivates a round, resonant tone, earning the reputation from an early age amongst his peers of having ‘sweet hands’.

Lassana settled in Mali in the late 1980s after being invited to join the band of the diva Ami Koita, and has since recorded with many of Mali’s top artists such as Toumani Diabaté, Salif Keita, Babani Koné, Tiken Jah Fakoly, and Bassekou Kouyaté. He has collaborated with Taj Mahal and participated in Bela Fleck’s Grammy-winning Throw Down Your Heart project; with several world-class artists including American bluesman Taj Mahal and jazz singer Dee Dee Bridgwater.  He is also a member of the Grammy-nominated Mali-Cuba collaboration, Afrocubism.

Itinerary for Lassana’s Visit (Updated Thursday, Feb 17th at 8:15 am)

Wednesday, Feb 22nd at 1 pm – Lassana will perform to introduce and close the CBU Library presentation “Viola Desmond’s Canada” with Wanda Robson and Dr. Graham Reynolds. Find more information about this event HERE. If you are unable to attend in person, you can join us via livestream at this link: https://youtu.be/vC14rV1xlf0

 

Thursday, Feb 23rd (daytime) – Lassana will work with Cape Breton youth in a workshop, “Intercultural Performance Laboratory” at the Centre for Sound Communities Studio.

 

Thursday, Feb 23rd at 4 pm – Lassana will provide a music educator’s workshop at the Centre for Sound Communities Studio! Please bring any instruments such as wooden xylophones and mallets (for you and other workshop participants).

 

Friday, Feb 24th at 5 pm – Lassana will engage in intercultural music-making with local musicians, as a means of “Celebrating African Musical Traditions!” Join us for this special event in honour of African Heritage Month. (Livestreaming may be available – stay tuned!)

 

Sunday, Feb 26th at 2 pm – Lassana will perform in a house concert! Join him and local community members at A Paradise Found Bed & Breakfast (62 Milton Street, Sydney NS), and enjoy a chance to meet and chat with this extraordinary musician. $20 at the door; all proceeds go to the musician.

 

Tuesday, Feb 28th at 7 pm– Lassana will be presenting The Sunjata Story: Glimpses of a Mande Epic – the first in a series of films as part of the Global Musics – Local Connections FILM FESTIVAL at the Cape Breton Regional Public Library, McConnell Branch!

 

This series of intercultural learning events is a partnership with Global Musics – Local Connections and the Centre for Sound Communities at Cape Breton University.

 

For more information about Lassana and his Cape Breton visit and events, please visit write us at sound_communities.ca or call Dr. Marcia Ostashewski at (Mobile) (780) 264-7624!

 

LINKS:

An excellent page with sound files, supported by Kronos Quartet:
On the Singing Storytellers project page, including a short video:
Some information about Afrocubism:
More on Afrocubism, directly referring to Lassana, the “balafon virtuoso”:

Interview with Kassé Mady Diabaté

This interview and recital was shot in September 2015 at Carleton College, Northfield, Minnesota, where Kassé Mady Diabaté performed with his group composed of his cousin, Lansiné Kouyaté(balafon), Badjè Tounkara(nkoni) and Balaké Sissoko(Kora), all jaliw or Mande oral artists. This exchange illustrates the process by which they change the repertoire they inherit from their forebears and adapt it to their time and needs. Chérif Keita is seen in the role of the host(patron) or jatigi of the visiting artists. As a noble or horon, he is expected to be as generous as his own ancestors in their patronage(jatigiya) for the artists. This is all the more necessary as Kassé Mady’s family has been connected to Chérif’s family for decades.

Digital Intern Orientation

Today our ten digital interns began their orientation at the Centre for Sound Communities. We would like to congratulate and thank them for being a part of this project. We are really looking forward to getting started with such a great team!

The orientation began with a warm welcome for our interns, an overview of the project, and then introductions, as well as icebreakers. Our Coordinator and Assistant Coordinator, Amy and Matt, took the interns on a tour of CBU campus to get to know the university. After lunch, interns took photographs and created biographies that can be found under the digital interns tab of our website. Later in the afternoon, the interns met one on one with their coordinators.

Good luck to everyone who will be starting their WordPress training tomorrow, continuing through the week until Friday.

Excited to be in Kazakhstan at ICTM World Conference!

I’m thrilled to be participating in the International Council for Traditional Music World Conference that opened today in Astana, Kazakhstan at the Kazakh National University of Arts! I’m here with more than 400 delegates from over 100 countries, sharing research and engaging in exciting discussions about music and culture from around the world. We began our first day, welcomed by Kazakhstan’s Deputy Prime Minister, as well as the Rector of the University who is a world-class violinist! The official opening ceremony was followed by a youth music concert, a plenary on safeguarding musical traditions, afternoon panels of exciting new research, a reception (including a traditional Kazakh drink, horse milk), and a spectacular showcase of students and faculty of the National U of the Arts. Follow me on twitter @m_ostashewski (find my twitter feed on my website at marciaostashewski.ca) to see photos and videos of conference events, and my adventures in Astana – a city that is only 20 years old yet has astounding monumental architecture! I’ve also posted more information and photos about Kazakh bardic performances that were on stage tonight on the singingstorytellers.ca project website!

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MUSICultures (41-2) on “Connecting with Communities” now online!

The most recent issue of MUSICultures (41-2), a special issue on “Connecting with Communities” guest edited by Dr. Marcia Ostashewski (Cape Breton University), is now online!

 

The contents of this issue include:

MARCIA OSTASHEWSKI
Engaging Communities and Cultures in Ethnomusicology: An Introduction

KLISALA HARRISON
The Second Wave of Applied Ethnomusicology

MICHAEL B. MACDONALD with ANDRE HAMILTON
Aesthetic Systems Theory: Doing Hip Hop Kulture Research Together at Cipher5

BOB W. WHITE
Listening Together, Thinking Out Loud: Popular Music and Political Consciousness in Congo-Zaire

CAROLINE MARCOUX-GENDRON, ARIANE COUTURE, FLAVIA GERVASI and MICHEL DUCHESNEAU
L’enjeu des communautés en sociomusicologie : Le cas du projet de recherche sur le développement des publics de la musique au Québec

GLENN PATTERSON and LAURA RISK
Digitization, Recirculation and Reciprocity: Proactive Archiving for Community and Memory on the Gaspé Coast and Beyond

MICHAEL B. BAKAN
The Musicality of Stimming: Promoting Neurodiversity in the Ethnomusicology of Autism

JEFF TODD TITON
Flight Call

JEFF TODD TITON and MARCIA OSTASHEWSKI
A Context for the Story: A Conversation

…as well as Book Reviews and Recording Reviews! This issue is available to current subscribers of the Canadian Society for Traditional Music here (non-subscribers can freely access issues more than 3 years old): http://journals.hil.unb.ca/index.php/MC/index. For membership/subscription information, please visit the website of the Canadian Society for Traditional Music: http://www.yorku.ca/cstm/. Or check your institutional library for access.