WEDNESDAY FOLK TRADITIONS
presents
AFRO-SEMITIC EXPERIENCE
July 16 at 6:30pm

HADLEY – The Porter-Phelps-Huntington Museum will continue the 27th season of WEDNESDAY FOLK TRADITIONS on July 16, 2008, with Afro-Semitic Experience, a band dedicated to preserving, promoting, and expanding the cultural and musical heritage of the Jewish and African diaspora. The concert will be held in the Museum’s sunken garden beginning at 6:30 p.m., and picnicking on the grounds is welcome beginning at 5 p.m. Admission is $10 for adults, and $2 for children under 16.
The Afro-Semitic Experience, featuring African-American jazz pianist Warren Byrd, and Jewish-American jazz bassist David Chevan, presents a unique musical program that merges the two distinct cultures and heritages and delivers a positive and meaningful message about Black-Jewish relations. The band weaves stories and music together as they interpret and explain pieces from the Jewish and African-American sacred traditions. The combination of their sophisticated jazz artistry, wit, and reverence for the material makes for a moving, one-of-a-kind musical experience.
The music of The Afro-Semitic Experience is too jazzy to be labeled folk, but too inter-cultural to be labeled just jazz. The band interprets music from the rich traditions of their two cultures, including Gospel, Klezmer, Nigunim, Spirituals, Bebop and Swing, framing the music with stories and explanations about what the pieces embody. The New Haven Advocate has called the band’s music a “danceable, trance-causing flurry of notes with godly underpinnings.

 

Underneath all the oomph you feel the warmth, wealth, fury and pain of whole nations, repressed cultures, challenged beliefs.”
The Afro-Semitic Experience originally centered on the musical and cultural backgrounds of pianist Warren Byrd and bassist David Chevan, the duo releasing two albums together. The band has since expanded to include the talents of saxophonists Will Bartlett and Mixashawn, percussionist Alvin Benjamin Carter Jr., African drumming master Baba David Coleman, and steel slide guitarist and violinist Stacy Phillips. The group released a live recording in 2001 called This is the Afro-Semitic Experience.
The band’s performances are both dynamic and inspirational, with the music and storytelling providing a positive cross-cultural experience. Played with passion, dedication and meaning, The Afro-Semitic Experience’s performance on Wednesday will prove to be a fantastic celebration of diversity.
WEDNESDAY FOLK TRADITIONS continues on July 23 with McTalla Mor, a group who performs a dynamic mix of Celtic, Roots Rock, Calypso, Blues and Jazz, and concludes on July 30 with MarKamusic. Come celebrate over a quarter century of music!
Wednesday’s performances are funded, in part, by grants from: the Marion I. And Otto C. Kohler Memorial Fund at the Community Foundation of Western Massachusetts; The Hadley Cultural Council, a local agency, supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency; The New England States Touring Program of the New England Foundation for the Arts, made possible with funding from the National Endowment of the Arts Regional Touring Program and the six New England state arts agencies; and with support from many local businesses.
The Porter-Phelps-Huntington Museum is located at 130 River Drive (Route 47) in Hadley, two miles north of the junction of Routes 9 and 47 North. The Museum is open for guided tours Saturday through Wednesday from 1 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. and by appointment. For further information about the tours and the WEDNESDAY FOLK TRADITIONS series, call the Museum at (413) 584-4699.