Wednesday Folk Traditons
Summer 2010
Performances are held Wednesday evenings at 6:30pm in the Sunken Garden. Admission is $10, $2 for children 16 and under. Season tickets available at the door. Picnickers are welcome on the museum grounds beginning at 5:00 prior to the concert. The museum with its grounds is a smoke-free site.
Wednesday Folk Traditions is 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; and with generous support from many local businesses.
Please support our sponsors
June 23
Jose Gonzales and Criollo Clasico-
contemporary rhythms of Puerto Rico, Cuba, and the Dominican Republic led by one of today’s foremost exponents of Caribbean music. Gonzalez has been acclaimed for his original compositions featuring the cuatro.
“Full of rhythms, flowing melodies and masterly guitar playing.”
– Union News
press release
June 30
Tim Eriksen-
the leader of the “shape-note” tradition, experimentalist and ethnomusicologist performs traditional ballads from the Appalachians to the Pioneer Valley and original pieces that have been described as “magical realism in song.”
“A storyteller at heart, with a distinctive, unvarnished voice.”
– The Washington Post
press release
July 7
Mawwal-
perform original and traditional Middle Eastern music and dance in a spirited and beautiful trance-inducing acoustic ensemble. Mawwal weaves inventive vocals in English and Arabic with the laouto (Greek lute), violin, tabla, dumbek, frame drum, and riq in what has been called a “new genre” by Progression magazine.
press release
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July 14
The Horace Clarence Boyer Memorial Gospel Concert
Goodwin Memorial African Methodist Episcopal Zion Choir -
RAIN FORCAST
The concert has been moved to the Wesley Methodist Church in Hadley.
Directions: 98 North Maple Street, north of Home Depot, across from the UMass farm. -
The tradition continues with our 29th annual Gospel performance with Amherst’s premier gospel ensemble performing spirituals and contemporary gospel.
press release
July 21
Wholesale Klezmer Band- July 21
Traditional Yiddish folk songs and dance music and Yiddish theater and vaudeville songs become the universal language that speaks to your feet and makes them want to dance.
“Music to bridge the gulf of war.”
press release
July 28
Gokh-Bi System- African hip hop ambassadors from Dakar, Senegal, perform music that is both ancient and contemporary. They combine traditional drums with the forgotten ekonting, a beautiful and haunting string instrument from southern Senegal, adding unique four and five language rhythm-poetry, village dance styles, and urban hip storytelling.
“Hip hop takes a joyful, respectful place alongside traditionalism.”
– The New York Times
press release
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August 4 (Rescheduled from June 16)
Viva Quetzal -
World/Afro-Andean/Latin/Jazz Fusion ... an astonishing array of exotic and familiar instruments and folkloric themes that creates a link among the rain forests of Central and South America, the carnivals of Brazil, the high plateaus of the Andes, and the urban barrios of Latin America and the United States.
“ more than eclectic or rhythmic, it’s spiritual, it’s all cultures existing as one. That’s universal music!”
– Rafael Charres, Cashbox magazine (NYC) -
press release
