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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
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
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:
Special Events:
COVERED IN SALTWIRE MARCH 11, 2024! "Tea and conversation with elders at Cape Breton University":

ARCHIVE OF NEWSFLASH ANNOUNCEMENTS:
TransAtlantic Pilgrimage - Celebrating African Heritage 2024
Watch this space for more details to come! This exciting festival includes film showcases plus dance & music workshops, to be held in multiple locations around Unama'ki: Sydney, Chéticamp, Glace Bay, Membertou Heritage Park, on campus and off — and every event is FREE and OPEN TO THE PUBLIC, so come and join in! We are honoured to feature dub poet/performer/historian Dr. Afua Cooper and Afropop/jazz/rhumba musician Mark Lenini Parselelo in this colourful celebration. For more information, or to register for the Teacher Professional Development Workshops, please e-mail sound_communities@cbu.ca or call 902-563-1696.
More details to be found under Events.

1) ICTM DIALOGUES Digital Publication ‘DIALOGUES: Towards Decolonizing Music and Dance Studies’ https://ictmdialogues.org/
2) International Council for Traditional Music (ICTM) http://ictmusic.org
3) The Centre for Sound Communities (CSC) https://soundcommunities.org
4) Canadian Society for Traditional Music (CSTM) https://cstm-sctm.ca
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Bandura Master, Kobzar & Composer of Ukrainian Descent:
JULIAN KYTASTY IN CONCERT ~ two dates!
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ICTM PRIZE-WINNERS! Congratulations to our esteemed research collaborators & co-authors* at Membertou First Nation on being awarded the 2021 ICTM Article Prize ~ announced last Saturday at the General Assembly of the International Council for Traditional Music.

The first session of this course took place Thursday, July 22 ~ inspiring and uplifting. If you’d like to join in the second / final session taking place next Thursday, July 29 at 6:30 p.m. Atlantic Time, register here. We hope you’ll join us!
The Centre for Sound Communities congratulates Dr. Sheila Christie on her recent appointment as Chair of the Department of Literature, Folklore and The Arts, and we also thank her for her many contributions to the CSC as she leaves the post of Associate Director. Dr. Christie has exerted truly magnanimous effort in support of faculty and student researchers. She operates on the basis of scholarship and a teaching practice based on care; her thoughtful, dedicated service to the CSC, CBU and wider communities is greatly appreciated by many, as is her commitment and drive, and her impressive ability to get things done. We wish her well in her next chapter!
Join the Summer Celebration! Zoom link is here!
Welcome, Dr. Shauna MacDonald, and thank you, Dr. Sheila Christie! Watch this space for word on a special virtual event coming July 15 to which all are invited!
Registration now open for the Summer Institute 2021 Cantoring Course!
Both sessions of this course take place at 6:30 p.m. Atlantic time.
Session 1 - July 22: Register here
Session 2 - July 29: Register here
Check out the CSC YouTube Channel here to watch a recording of the panel from our June 10 event: Disrupting the Legacies of Colonialism and White Supremacy in Music Schools ~ with thanks to all the participants and registrants in this stellar workshop, as well as to Dr. Dylan Robinson and Dr. Jeremy Strachan for organizing this inaugural DIALOGUES event. [In the coming weeks, we will re-post the video with transcribed text in the hopes of making this ~ and future DIALOGUES events ~ as accessible as possible. Be sure to visit our FB page for news of upcoming events!]
*Coming this Fall 2021!*
Stay tuned for a series of Anti-Racist Pedagogies workshops happening this fall, which will feature a stellar lineup of international scholars and practitioners! For details and registration links, keep checking in on the CSC Facebook page for updates.
New DIALOGUES project workshop to be presented June 10, 2021! Find out more here!
On Friday, May 14, 2021, the Canadian Studies Center, Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies at the University of Washington, Seattle presented ‘Singing Sunjata’s Story in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia: A Mali-Canada Musical Collaboration’. The event featured CSC Director Dr. Marcia Ostashewski and research colleague, culture-bearer and internationally renowned musician Lassana Diabaté in conversation and concert. A link to the event video will be released later in May, but for further information about the project, please refer to the Projects menu selection on this website, or find out more on the Bala website: https://balafondiabate.ca/