Chicago has one of the most ethnically diverse populations in the world, but while celebrations of ethnicity go on here all the time, they tend to be isolated: Indians, Iranians, and Italians alike end up celebrating themselves by themselves. The city’s first World Music Festival brings many of the traditions represented in these enclaves together–not under a single band shell, as with the jazz and blues festivals, but under a single banner. About a quarter of the 40 some acts performing are local, like Palestinian oud player Issa Boulos or the Romanian Gypsy group Pralas Rroms; they play all year round in their given communities, but over the next week and a half they’ll get a chance to perform for all of Chicago.
Noon Old Town School
Sorrow infuses the gorgeous music of Waldemar Bastos–and as an Angolan he has plenty to be sad about. The West African nation has been wracked by civil war since it gained independence from Portugal in 1975. Bastos mourns the fate of his homeland from afar: he’s been based in Lisbon since 1982. Yet on last year’s Pretaluz (Luaka Bop), his fourth album and first U.S. release, his songs display a cautious, poetic optimism: “Kanguru” is a heartfelt plea for peace, and in “Morro do Kussava,” an Angolan hill that’s been the site of brutal battles becomes a symbol of hope, scarred but still standing.
6:30pm Cultural Center (cafe)
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Frifot, whose forthcoming ECM album tops even the powerful mix of originals and standards on the Northside compilation SummerSong, is a trio: virtuosic fiddler Per Gudmundson, intuitive multi-instrumentalist Ale Moller (mandola, hammer dulcimer, flutes), and Lena Willemark, whose clean powerful croon recalls British folk legend Sandy Denny–although when she demonstrates kulning, a cattle-calling technique, on the traditional herding song “Tjugmyren,” her high-pitched wail puts her in a league with Diamanda Galas. Willemark’s also a fine fiddler, and the trio’s instrumentals are as good as the vocal pieces, particularly when fiddles and mandola (a mandolin with extra frets to accommodate the quarter tones common to the Swedish tradtion) tangle on deliriously fleet-fingered runs and labyrinthine riffs.
12:30pm Cultural Center (MBC Studio)
