On today’s show, we’ll learn about the ancient Persian instrument, the santur – a 72 stringed dulcimer that dates back to 500 BCE with one of its leading masters – Amir Amiri His latest CD is called Ajdad – Ancestors, Echoes of Persia. One of the themes the album explores is the connection between Persian and Arabic culture. Those connections between Persian and Arabic culture were severed in Iran in the 1980s because of the Iraq-Iran war.
This week on Cafe International: our guests are Fran & Flora. They’re a magnificent award-winning string duo (cello & violin) from England, dedicated to klezmer and East European folk music. We’ll hear about their new CD, “Precious Collection” and their trip to Romania to research music for the album. With host Dan Rosenberg
On this week's program, an interview with Marousia Bouvery, from the group Abaim. They are from the island of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean. On the show, we will learn about how Abaim is using music to fight to preserve the endangered Bhojpuri language, and their work to raise awareness about climate change. Recorded at the Ethnoport Music Festival in Poznan, Poland With host Dan Rosenberg
On this week’s Café International, we look back at the incredible career of Zimbabwe’s Oliver Mtukudzi, who passed away on January 23, 2019 at the age of 66 after being treated for a heart condition. Oliver Mtukudzi was born in 1952 in Harare, in the era of British colonial rule, when it was known as Salisbury, Rhodesia. His music played an important role in Zimbabwe’s fight for independence. In a career that spanned more than four decades, Mtukudzi recorded over 60 albums, and became a giant in the music world. On the program, we look back at how Mtukudzi used music to confront conspiracy theories and educate the public to protect themselves during a pandemic from a prior generation, HIV.
A special episode recorded in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil with legendary sambista, Jorge Aragão Jorge Aragão was the first composer to have his music played on Mars. Here on earth, he has created songs that have become anthems in Brazil, with lyrics that speak about human rights, Black identity and the horrific legacy of slavery Special thanks to Alan Tigay from World Listening Post who translated this interview
On this week's Cafe International, our guest is Alan Tigay, from the website, World Listening Post. We'll speak about his new project: The 500 Greatest Global Songs of All Time, a remarkable list that he curated. We'll count down the top ten, which includes music from Aretha Franklin, Fela, Miriam Makeba, Juan Luis Guerra, and more!
Our guest this week on Cafe International is is Ukrainian singer Jamala. She has a new album called QIRIM – or Crimea, dedicated to the folk music of Crimea. In 2016, Jamala won the Eurovision Song Contest with her song, 1944, about the ethnic cleansing of the indigenous Crimean Tatar population from that peninsula that year. One of those deported and sent to Central Asia was Jamala’s Great-Grandmother. We will also hear from professor Maria Sonevytsky (Bard College) about the history of Crimean Tatar music. With host Dan Rosenberg
On this week's episode of Cafe International, recorded in Bern, Switzerland, our guest is award winning singer and yodeler, Christine Lauterburg. In 1994, she became the first woman to win the Bäredräckpris from the City of Bern. With host Dan Rosenberg
On today’s show, we visit Neuchatel Switzerland, a beautiful lakeside town – that in the middle of every August, is transformed by a remarkable buskers festival. But there aren’t jugglers or acrobats on unicycles, Instead, its pedestrian zone in the centre of the city becomes a huge global music festival – and on our show, we’ll hear music from Georgia, Sardinia, Syria, and Brazil. Our guests include founder of the Neuchatel Buskers Festival Georges Grillon plus members of the Lusophone group Ayom, the Sardinian polyphonic quartet Andhira and more!
On our program this week, our guest is Noam Vazana – or as she’s better known, Nani. She’s one of the very few artists in the world composing new songs in the nearly dead Ladino language – this is the language originally spoken by Sephardic Jews in Spain and Portugal before the time of the Spanish Inquisition in 1492 – and today, it’s spoken rarely, except for some communities in the Sephardic diaspora. Nani’s grandmother was one of those speakers, but Nani’s father prohibited them from speaking the language during Nani’s childhood. We’ll hear music from Nani’s new album "Ke Haber" ("What's New"), featuring new music – often about contemporary subjects in Ladino – the language she was banned from speaking as a child. Later in the show, we’ll hear how Nani discovered an ancient poem that describes the transformation of a transgender teenage girl who came out to her parents, and wanted to be recognized as a boy. Nani found the poem when she was looking for material in an old library within a synagogue in Leiden, in the Netherlands. With host Dan Rosenberg
On today's program, we speak with Marko Halaneyvich and Iryna Gorban of the Ukrainian group DakhaBrakha. After Russia’s full scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, DakhaBrakha has performed over 200 concerts around the world in the past 500 days, including six concerts in Ukraine as its cities were being bombed. We recorded this interview at the Sunfest in London, Ontario – much more than a typical summer arts festival, its mission includes presenting music that is threatened. With host Dan Rosenberg
Our guest this week is Alfredo Caxaj, founder of the Sunfest in London, Ontario. We’ll learn how Afredo Caxaj came to Canada in 1985 as a refugee from Guatemala, and founded the Sunfest, Canada’s largest free world music festival. We’ll also hear music from some of the performers at the 2023 Sunfest, including Bejuco from Colombia, The Garifuna Collective from Belize, Sara Curruchich from Guatemala, DakhaBrakha from Ukraine, Jupiter and Okwess from the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Frander from Sweden. With host Dan Rosenberg
An interview and samba guitar workshop with Roge: He was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and now lives in Los Angeles. We'll hear music from his new album Curyman, learn how to play samba on guitar - and how he created "Samba Funk." with host Dan Rosenberg
On this week's episode of Cafe International, we will learn about preserving Garifuna history, culture and music from Emilio Thomas and Al Ovando – members of the Belizean group, The Garifuna Collective, and how until as recently as the 1990s, Garifuna children were discouraged from speaking their language in school. The Garifuna are descendants of escaped African slaves – in 1635, a slave ship crashed near the Caribbean Island of St Vincent. The survivors mixed with the local indigenous community – but in 1796, the British ethnically cleansed the island, deporting the population to Central America. With host Dan Rosenberg
An interview with qanun virtuoso Maya Youssef. She grew up in Syria and has become one of the world’s leading performers of this 78-stringed instrument. On the program, a special radio workshop on how to play the qanun. We will also learn what it has been like for Youssef living in London, England, separated from her family amidst a horrific war and the devastating recent earthquakes.
Host Dan Rosenberg interviews singer Lena Chamamyan about creating music in exile. She was born in Damascus, with Syrian and Armenian heritage. When Chamamyan arrived in Paris in 2011 after civil war broke out in Syria, she was already a star, having performed in many of the world’s top concert halls, her videos had millions of views on YouTube, but none of that mattered, as she, like so many Syrians, was defined by her passport.
We look at the question of what is the harm of giving a megaphone to fascists? In the wake of Donald Trump’s dinner with a neo-nazi, with twitter welcoming back white supremacists to their platform, we revisit an interview with klezmer singer and composer Daniel Kahn that we recorded just after the Unite the Right march in Charlottesville Virginia. One of his most powerful songs, originally written 90 years ago is, “Embrace the Fascists” which deals with this very subject: the debate over free speech when that speech is calling for genocide. With host Dan Rosenberg
On this week's show, an interview with the legendary Senegalese singer, Baaba Maal. We will hear how he began his career in West African folk music. After completing his education in Senegal in 1981, Baaba Maal travelled across West Africa with his friend, blind guitarist Mansour Seck, going village to village to learn the region’s folk music. In 2 years, they visited to more that 300 places in Mali, Senegal, Guinea, Mauritania and Ivory Coast In the decades since, the Grammy nominated singer has used his voice to fight against female genital mutilation, worked with the United Nations Development Program to combat the spread of AIDS/HIV, served as an Oxfam global ambassador to combat the food crisis in the Sahel region of West Africa and is now a UN Ambassador to combat desertification.
On this week’s Cafe International: “Snorkeling in Belize!” We revisit a very fun show, when I first met Ivan Duran of Stonetree Records - and we went swimming with the sharks and talked about Garifuna music (they were small sharks)
We speak with Daniel Hamar of the group Muzsikás about what it was like performing Hungarian folk songs in Eastern Europe under communist rule when some politicians feared folk music could be subversive and lead to nationalist revolutions. And later, we’ll hear how Muzsikás travelled to Transylvania in the 1990s to research Jewish music – songs nearly lost to history after Transylvania’s Jewish community was massacred during the Holocaust. Muzsikás collaborated with elderly Romani musicians from the region who still remembered pre-war Jewish songs. With host Dan Rosenberg