After its successful launch in April 2010, the NIU World Music Festival is back again in 2011. In this one-week long event, six full-length concerts featuring various world music traditions will take place in the NIU School of Music building. The Middle Eastern Music Ensemble, a newly established student group added to the NIU World Music curriculum in Fall 2010, will kick off this year’s Festival by performing Pan-Arabic art, folk, and pop music with special guest Nay (the Middle Eastern flute) artist Naeif Rafeh, in a concert on April 5 at 8:00pm in the Boutell Concert Hall. On April 8 at 6:30pm in the Recital Hall, the “Dima & Friends” Concert will feature three Syrian-born musicians, guest vocalist Dima Orsho along with NIU's talented graduate students in world music program, drummer Omar Al Musfi and ud player Aboud Agha, performing Syrian folk and art music. Also on the same evening, under the direction of Dr. Greg Beyer, the NIU Latin Jazz ensemble will let the audience explore various Latin dance rhythms in a jazz concert at 8:00 pm in the Concert Hall. This vivid and energetic rhythm will continue to resonate on April 9 at 7:00pm with the guest appearance of Chris Washburne, the renowned trombonist, and his award-winning group, S.Y.O.T.O.S. The highlight of the World Music Festival is the annual World Music Concert on April 10 at 3:00pm in the Concert Hall. As usual, a showcase of world music performances will be featured at this concert. Invited guest groups include the Thai Classical Music Ensemble of the Thai Fine Arts and Culture Institute in Chicago and S.Y.O.T.O.S. Students groups featured at the concert are the Samba Batucada group, Chinese music ensemble, Latin Jazz ensemble, Middle Eastern music ensemble, and African Gahu drumming troupe. A “Meet the Musicians” lecture will be held at 2:00 in the Concert Hall prior to the concert program. Guest artists and directors of each the ensemble will give a brief talk about their performance and group. The audience is encouraged to attend this pre-concert talk sponsored by the NIU Lifelong Learning Institute. To conclude this kaleidoscopic 2011 World Music Festival, on April 13 at 8:00pm in the Concert Hall, Chinese Music Artist-in-Residence, Ms. Yung-Hsin Chen, will conduct the Chinese music ensemble in a concert featuring a mix of traditional and modern Chinese music repertoire. All events are free and open to the public. Children of all ages are welcome. For more information, please contact Dr. Jui-Ching Wang at jcwang@niu.edu or call 815-7537979.
