New York Guitar Festival – 25th Anniversary: Marc Ribot & Leyla McCalla, Yasmin Williams, Neel Murgai & Kunal Prakash
Co-presented with New York Guitar Festival and Kaufman Music Center
Hosted by WNYC’s John Schaefer
The New York Guitar Festival’s 25th Anniversary begins with a typically eclectic event. The duo of Marc Ribot, the New York guitarist, and Leyla McCalla, the New Orleans cellist and banjo player, may seem unlikely at first. Ribot is known for his work with Tom Waits, Elvis Costello, his own avant-noise trio Ceramic Dog, and much more; McCalla writes songs that draw on the African-American string band tradition, Cajun music, and her own Haitian heritage. But Ribot was also a student of the Haitian classical guitarist/composer Frantz Casseus, and the two musicians share a strong genre-agnostic streak.
Joining them on this first of two nights celebrating a quarter century of the NYGF is Yasmin Williams. She has extended the “tapping” technique into a whole new way of approaching the guitar, and occasionally adds tap shoes and kalimba to the sound, becoming a literal one-woman band.
And the NYGF has long presented related instruments from around the world; for this event, it’s sitarist Neel Murgai, co-director of the globally-inspired Brooklyn Raga Massive, accompanied by Jeff The Brotherhood guitarist Kunal Prakash.
About New York Guitar Festival
Exploring virtually every aspect of the guitar’s personality, the New York Guitar Festival, since 1999, has presented many of the world’s most influential guitarists at Carnegie Hall, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Sawdust, (Le) Poisson Rouge, 92nd Street Y, Brookfield Place Winter Garden, and other iconic venues, large and small. From multi Grammy-winners to emerging artists, NYGF performers have included masters of the classical repertoire (Pepe Romero, Christopher Parkening, Ana Vidović, Nigel North) as well as blues & jazz (Taj Mahal, Bucky Pizzarelli, Bill Frisell, Sonny Landreth), pop & indie rock (Vernon Reid, Bruce Springsteen, Bon Iver, Andy Summers, Thurston Moore), and folk & Americana (Levon Helm, Emmylou Harris, Cindy Cashdollar, Leo Kottke) as well as sounds of Central & South America (Badi Assad, Yamandu Costa, Vinicius Cantuária) and genre-defying innovators (Kaki King, David Torn, Daniel Lanois, Bryce Dessner). The New York Guitar Festival: music from across the centuries... and music yet to be.
The New York Guitar Festival is made possible by the generosity of a grant from the Augustine Foundation.
$45 | $55 | $65 – WMI Members: $36 | $44 | $52
