Tag Archives: world music

Ani Cordero’s Querido Mundo

Ani Cordero is a Puerto Rican-American singer, songwriter and musician (and a Latin American music researcher) living in New York. I became a fan of her eponymous alt-Latin indie-rock band in the early 2000s, which led me to the Mexican … Continue reading

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Jon Balke and Amina Alaoui’s Siwan

People sometimes remark on my taste in music (as in “What on earth are you listening to now?”), and I’ll be the first to admit it’s rather broad. I figure it’s all just music, and half the fun of it … Continue reading

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Various Artists’ Gamelan of Central Java XIV: Ritual Sounds of Sekaten

Ritual Sounds of Sekaten is a pendant to Volume II in the series Gamelan of Central Java, presenting three more examples of the music played for the Islamic religious festival of Sekaten in Java. The first two tracks are the … Continue reading

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Various Artists’ Gamelan of Central Java XII: Pangkur One/XIII: Pangkur Two

“Pangkur” denotes a kind of music in the Javanese classical canon that can take many forms — sung poetry, court dances, and many other idioms — and can be performed in either slendro or pelog scales. It is perhaps the … Continue reading

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Pandit Ram Narayan’s Raga Puria-Kalyan

Pandit Ram Narayan was born in 1927 in Rajasthan, the fifth generation of a family of musicians. At the age of seven he began formal training on the sarangi, a bowed string instrument traditionally played to accompany singers. Narayan was … Continue reading

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Various Artists’ Gamelan of Central Java, XI: Music of Remembrance

This volume of the series Gamelan of Central Java presents an interesting conundrum: in a cultural tradition that has ideas of death, dying, and commemoration that differ radically from those we in the West hold, what is music suitable for … Continue reading

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Antonio Carlos Jobim’s Symphonic

Antonio Carlos Jobim, known widely as “Tom,” was one of the key figures in the popularity of the bossa nova, a style he and his fellows — particularly Joao Gilberto, Luiz Bonfá, and Vinícius de Moraes — created from the … Continue reading

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Marcel Khalife’s Andalusia of Love

Reams have been written about Lebanese musician, composer and singer Marcel Khalife, who is one of the most popular and controversial musicians in the Arab world today. He’s made his name by expanding the possibilities of the Arabian lute, called … Continue reading

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Carol J. Oja’s Colin McPhee: Composer in Two Worlds

The music of the East, particularly the gamelan of Indonesia, and even more particularly that of Bali, has a longer history of interaction with the music of the West than many might imagine. Claude Debussy first encountered the gamelan in … Continue reading

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Various Artists’ Gamelan of Central Java, X: Sindhen Trio

“Sindhen” refers to the solo part in a gamelan, usually sung by a woman pesindhen (soloist). In this collection, part of the extensive series produced by John Noise Manis on the gamelan of Central Java, we are presented with two … Continue reading

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