Lakshmi Shankar
Lakshmi Shankar’s performance style is often described as mesmerizing, spellbinding her audiences with her extraordinary voice. Born in Northern India, Mrs. Shankar began training as a dancer when she was young, but was forced to stop dancing due to a serious illness, and began a singing career at the age of 25. Mrs. Shankar first […]
Felipe Garcia-Villamil
Felipe Garcia-Villamil was born in Matanzas, Cuba into a well-known family of musicians and spiritual leaders. He is the master of a set of three drums called bata that are central to the Santeria cultural and spiritual traditions brought to Cuba from the Yoruba people of West Africa, synthesizing song, drumming and dance. Garcia has [...] Ivan Varimezov
Ivan Varimezov was born and raised in a small town in eastern Bulgaria. As a young child he began to play the most important traditional folk instrument of the country, the bagpipe, called the gaida. It consists of a melody pipe, a drone pipe, and a blow pipe, all tied into a goatskin bag. Varimezov [...] Eleanor Academia
Eleanor Academia is a master of Kulintang, the ancient gong and drum music of the Southern Philippines. She was the first “outsider” and American to be allowed in the legendary village of Kulintang masters in the ancient city of Dulawan in Minadanao, Philippines. A direct mulit (lineage holder) of recognized Philippine Kulintang master artists, Academia […]
Pejman Hadadi
Pejman Hadadi is a virtuoso Iranian tombak and daf (frame drum) player who has been hailed as "the finest Iranian percussionist living in the West" (KPFA Radio, Berkeley, CA). Hadadi began playing tombak at the age of ten under the masters of the instrument Asadollah Hejazi and Bahman Rajabi. In 1990, upon immigrating to the [...] Mani Bolouri
Mani Bolouri is a composer and virtuoso player of the kamancheh (spiked fiddle) and gheychak (bowed fiddle). Mr. Bolouri began his musical studies at the age of ten under the guidance of his grandfather who was an ashough (a popular, traveling musician) and who taught him Armenian folk music. He has also studied with many […]
Clora Bryant
Born and raised in Texas, Clora Bryant came to Los Angeles in 1945, where she became part of the swinging music scene on Central Avenue. An accomplished jazz trumpet player and vocalist, Bryant was the only female horn player ever to perform with saxophone legend Charlie Parker. In the early 1950s, Bryant was a member […]
Ciro Hurtado
Ciro Hurtado is a Peruvian guitarist/composer who has been actively performing since the early 1970s as a soloist and as a member of various groups in Peru, Mexico, Cuba, Europe and the United States. He studied in Peru with guitar master Augusto Portugal. Hurtado is currently the musical director and has produced several albums for [...] Cesar Castro
Cesar Castro both plays and builds the requinto jarocho or guitarra de son, the melodic lead instrument of traditional music from Veracruz Mexico known as son jarocho. Son jarocho is a mix of indigenous Mexican, African, Spanish and Arabic sounds. Mr. Castro began training in son jarocho at age 11, joining the pathbreaking group, Mono […]
Abdoulaye Diabate
Abdoulaye Diabate was born in Guinea, West Africa, to a long lineage of Mand jali-musicians, practitioners of a musical tradition that dates back to the 13th century. The rise of modern Mand music began in the 1920s with the introduction of the acoustic guitar to an instrumental repertoire that had previously included balafon (xylophone), nkoni [...]