If you’ve ever seen a life-changing concert of music from a far-flung place around the globe in New York City, there’s a good chance it was produced by the World Music Institute. On Thursday, October 16, WMI celebrated 40 years of tireless work to bring the very best of global music to New Yorkers. Through wars, recessions, a pandemic, and now a government hostile to the arts in general and foreign culture in specific, WMI has endured.
WMI’s 40th Anniversary Gala honored key donors and artists, but the principle focus was on the original founders of the organization Robert and Helene Browning, who were present with tales to tell. Gaby Sappington and Brice Rosenbloom head the organization today, and they brought a tone of unity, solidarity and resistance to the evening.
There were two superb musical performances. Mehrnam Rastegari, and Iranian kamancheh player and singer who has quite recently arrived in New York was accompanied by two other women, Camila Celin on sarod & guitar and Roshni Samlal on tabla. It was a central Asian, all-female powerhouse. Absolutely beautiful.
Then New York-based Malian kora player Yacouba Sissoko performed two pieces with South Indian (Carnatic) violinist Arun Ramamurthy. These two musicians, playing together only for the third time, delivered pure magic. The first piece unfolded with the peaceful, propulsive lope of Mande music, with the two artists exchanging delightful improvisations. The second, a composition by Ramamurthy, required Sissoko to retune his kora to an Indian scale, and fireworks ensued.
DJ Nickodemus provided a tasty and appropriately varied music throughout the night.
It was a superb evening of celebration. Long live WMI! 40 more years, please!
Here are some images from the occasion.
