DISCOVERY KEY TO WORLD MUSIC FEST SUCCESS
By Howard Reich, [email protected]
Chicago Tribune
September 22, 2008
United States
Why does the World Music Festival surpass the other city-sponsored
music fests?
At least two reasons: It consistently dares to present the unfamiliar,
and it does so with unmatched production values.
Both factors came into play over the weekend, when the 10th annual
World Music Festival attracted thousands of Chicagoans to venues across
the city. As always, a heady sense of discovery defined the festival,
at least in its opening weekend.
Consider the two attractions that played to a packed house at the
Museum of Contemporary Art late Saturday night.
Though now based in New York, vocalist-bandleader Gaida Hinnawi long
has championed music of Syria and neighboring cultures. Yet on this
night she unabashedly re-imagined music of her birthplace, Damascus,
by incorporating sounds of the West.
Nowhere did she obliterate cultural barriers more boldly than in an
extended improvisation built largely on jazz technique. With former
Chicagoan Amir ElSaffar producing Miles Davis-inspired sighs on muted
trumpet, Hinnawi improvised incantatory lines as an accomplished jazz
vocalist might have done.
If Hinnawi’s plaintive, gauzy vocals effectively disarmed listeners,
vocalist-bandleader Mamak Khadem’s next set brought operatic intensity
to music of Iran, where she was born. Khadem’s vocal methods, which
involved intricate ornamentation and a virtuoso technique, would have
been alluring to hear if she were onstage alone.
But her band gave this music an unmistakable jazz sensibility,
especially whenever Ole Mathison played clarinet and
saxophones. Building on John Coltrane one moment, Benny Goodman the
next, Mathison helped Khadem transcend epochs, with ancient Syrian
music brought firmly into the 21st Century.
On Friday evening, the World Music Festival opened strongly at the
Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park, with more than 6,000 listening
raptly to sounds not often encountered in a mainstream setting.
The oud master Richard Hagopian and his Kef Time Band dispatched
Armenian music that was texturally complex, yet accessible enough to
inspire line dancing in the audience.
But the most magical moments came with the next set, when the
otherworldly, Arabic chants of Sheikh Hamza Chakour rang out across
the park.
That thousands of listeners paid such fervent attention to music as
challenging as this underscored the enduring value of the World Music
Festival, which illuminates the unknown.
The World Music Festival continues through Thursday; for schedule,
visit cityofchicago.org/worldmusic.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
