Amjad Ali Khan is one of the undisputed masters of the music world. For many, he takes on a celestial avatar when he is playing the Sarod. Born to Sarod icon Haafiz Ali Khan, he gave his first performance at the age of six. Over the course of his career, he has delivered his music in a flexible instrument line that is vocal in its expressiveness. He has reinvented the technique of Sarod playing which today is distinct in its nomenclature. He has won numerous accolades including a Grammy nomination, the Crystal Award by the World Economic Forum and has performed at venues the world over including Carnegie Hall and the Royal Albert Hall. Amaan Ali Khan and Ayaan Ali Khan represent the 7th generation of a musical lineage, as sons and disciples of the sarod icon,Amjad Ali Khan. With him they have performed across the globe at the Kennedy Center, and Smithsonian and WOMAD festivals on many continents. They have also collaborated with guitarist Derek Trucks of the Allman Brothers Band, among others, and established themselves as a duo, carrying forward their musical legacy in sync with both tradition and contemporary times. In 2014, Amjad Ali Khan, Amaan Ali Khan and Ayaan Ali Khan performed at the prestigious Nobel Peace Prize Ceremony in Oslo, Norway on as well as the Nobel Peace PrizeConcert along with the lineup of Queen Latifa, Steven Tyler, Nuno Bettencourt and Laura Mvula. They present traditional Indian Classical Ragas and Indian Folk Music that will be interpreted on their Sarods.
Cuncordu Sas Bator Colonnas perform at Outpost
Sas Bator Colonnas is a multipart singing group from the Scano di Montiferro, a mountainous region in central Sardinia, Italy. Antioco Milia, Antonio Carboni, Stefano Desogos and Francesco Fodde started singing together in 2002, carrying on the vernacularmultipart singing practice, one of the most representative cultural forms of their village and their island, which is performed by four male singers and called cuncordu.
Different Rivers: Sardinian Hill Country and the DIY Ethos of River of Gennargentu
In the summer of 2014, the Bluesman “River of Gennargentu” released, on his SoundCloud page, three songs of hill country blues, sung in English and played with a technique like those of historical Delta blues artists, recorded in low-quality sound. Within a few months, the web page collected dozens of comments from users who were amazed by this new “discovery” and demanded the real artist’s origin, as-yet-not-specified.
Decolonizing Strategies in Ethnomusicology, Teaching, and Performance
Perspectives from the US Southwest and Latin America featuring performances by J.D. Robb Trust. This symposium consists of an initial roundtable centered on decolonizing strategies in ethnomusicology followed by two shorter sessions: the first focusing on decolonizing pedagogies and the second on performance and activism.