The Sixth San Francisco World Music Festival 2005
We presented 6 main stage concerts and 6 community outreach events at the Sixth Annual San Francisco World Music Festival (Sept. 26 - Oct. 16, 2005) highlighting musicians from Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Chile, China, Crete, Iran, Iraq, Kurdistan, Nigeria, Portugal, Taiwan, Turkey, Ukraine and more. The centerpiece of Festival 2005 was the "Nowruz Project", a festival commissioned world premiere at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts created as an international music experiment and an artistic statement for global peace. Combining traditional and newly composed music, poetry, dance, and film, this production was led by a core group of traditional artists from abroad as well as those rooted in the Bay Area's Middle Eastern and Central Asian communities.
Performances at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts:
Featuring legendary master from Crete Ross Daly with Kelly Thoma,
Periklis Papapetropoulos, and Pejman Hadadi; and the "Nowruz
Project", featuring Azerbaijani pianist Chingiz Sadykhov, Azerbaijani
kamancheh soloist Imamyar Hasanov, Afghani dutar and rubab player Aziz
Herawi, Persian ney master Hossein Omoumi, Persian percussionist
Pejman Hadadi, Kurdish singer Ozden Oztoprak, composer Ross Daly
; Kurdish filmmaker Nizamettin Aric, Kurdish community leader and
poet/singer Mustafa Kart, Kurdish dance group Koma Gowend and
Bay Area lighting/scenic designer Matthew Antaky - the binding thread in bringing
them together was the observance of the vernal equinox of Nowruz, whose pre-Islamic origins are
embraced in different ways throughout the Caucasus, Central Asia, and the Middle East.
Performances at Brava Theater:
Women Singers of the World, featuring seven women singers from different countries of the world,
including Dona Rosa (Portugese), Ozden Oztoprak (Kurdish),
Barbara Chookasian (Armenian), Lichi Fuentes (Chilian),
Mariana Sadovska (Ukrainian), Gulare Azafli (Azerbaijani Asiq),
and a film about Yang Xiu Qing (Taiwanese); An Evening of Chinese & World
Percussion, featuring Master Wang Wei with Faisal Zedan (Middle Eastern
Percussionist); I Made Terip, I Wayan Budiarsa and
Wayne Vitale (master musicians of Indonesian ensemble Gamelan Sekar Jaya);
Liu Hecheng (Chinese Pipa Soloist); and Guo Wanpeng
(Chinese Sheng Soloist), and African percussionist Pope Flyne.
Performances at Ashkenaz Music & Dance Community Center:
Coming to the Bay Area from Portugal and Azerbaijan, world renowned singers made US debuts at
San Francisco World Music Festival. Included pre-concert discussion/ lecture.
Performances at Croatian American Cultural Center:
Cemali & Guests Featuring Cemali, two brothers Cem and Ali are consummate musicians, singers,
composers, poets and arrangers of their own music. Their progressive musical sense has actually
made them Turkey's first alternative pop group in it's history.
Performances and Master Classes at the Asian Art Museum:
To deepen our roots in local youth communities, the 2005 Festival presented the third annual
Youth World Music Showcase at the Asian Art Museum, featuring elementary and
high school students of some of the many world music masters in the Bay Area. Youth ensembles
included Alice Fong Yu Chinese Percussion Troupe; Berfin Oztoprak singing Kurdish songs; Nejad
Persian music and Drum Ensembles; Capoeira Mandinga students singing songs from Brazil; Echo of
the Motherland performing music of Vietnam; and Na Lei Hulu I Ka Wekiu performing kahiko hula;
and A Closer Look At Kurdish Music Lecture, centering on Kurdish cultural and
musical perspectives, Kutay Derin Kugay demonstrated the many different styles of Kurdish music
through video and CD recordings, covering various regions of music from Kurdistan of Iran, Syria,
Turkey, and Iraq. Musicians of the Kurdish community demonstrated their music. World Premiere of
festival commissioned film by Nizamettin Aric.
Residency and Performance at Alice Fong Yu Alternative School:
We conducted a school assembly/artist residency program at Alice Fong Yu Elementary School,
featuring members of the Nigerian Brothers (premiere African ensemble), where the group will
performed an assembly program in the afternoon for the school, worked with the school percussion
troupe, and performed an evening concert for parents and the community.
Outreach to UCSF Pediatrics Hospital:
The 2005 Festival featured a special free performance by Bay Area world musicians at UCSF
hospital in the pediatrics ward.
Lecture at the Community Music Center:
Nowruz Lecture, a demonstration and discussion of Nowruz cultural perspectives from the
Zoroastrian community; and Ross Daly Lecture-Demonstration, Cretan Music Lecture & Demonstration.
