Francisco Aguabella
Music has been a part of Francisco Aguabella’s life since he was a child growing up in Cuba. Since his beginnings of playing drums with his friends on discarded Carnation cans, Mr. Aguabella has become one of the world’s premiere Afro-cuban drummers. He has been honored by the City of Los Angeles, City of San […]
Lillian Nakano
Lillian Nakano is a master of the Japanese shamisen, a long-necked, three-string lute that is the main instrument of kabuki theater and other classical narrative ballad forms of music. Nakano was raised in Hawai’i and began studing shamisen and classical dance at the age of eight. Her studies were interrupted by World War II and […]
Carlos de Oliviera
Carlos de Oliviera has been playing the Brazilian pandeiro for over 50 years, primarily with the renowned samba school of Mangueira. The pandeiro is a frame drum played with the hands and is one of the most important instruments in Brazilian folkloric music: samba, chorro, forro and the more modern pagodge. It is also an [...] Francis Awe
In Nigeria, the unique style of drumming known as the talking-drum traditionally has been played by commoners for royalty. But Francis Awe, prince of the Yoruba tribe, broke with tradition and adopted this unique instrument, mastering it and teaching others this rich tradition. Mr. Awe has performed throughout the world, and been a part of […]
Katsuko Teruya
Katsuko Teruya began studying kutuu (Okinawan koto, a stringed instrument), under master Nae Kochi of the Naha Koyokai in Japan. Katsuko moved to Hawai’i in the mid-1950s, and earned a Senior Teaching Certificate in 1965. In 1975 she established the Hawai’i chapter of the Teruya Shokyoku Kenkyukai. She has served as lead kutuu player in […]
Sambath Pich
Sambath Pich first trained on his instrument, the takhe, in a Thai refugee camp after fleeing the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. Pich had studied other instruments and learned many songs from his grandfather, Dr. Los Sourn Mar, a teacher and musician in the royal palace, until the war separated him from his family. Passed down […]
Souhail Kaspar
Souhail Kaspar is a highly acclaimed performer on Near Eastern percussion instruments. Born in Lebanon, Mr. Kaspar received his early musical training in Syria, where he studied the basic theory and technique of Arab percussion playing with established artists. In the United States, Mr. Kaspar and his partner Ali Jihad Racy have performed in major […]
Ho Chan
Ho Chan plays every instrument of the pin peat ensemble, a form of percussive Cambodian classical music. He began study at age 16 with his grandfather. In 1975, under the Khmer Rouge regime, Chan was forced into slave labor camps; he fled to Thailand in 1979 where he joined a pin peat ensemble headed by [...] Pirayeh Pourafar
Pirayeh Pourafar began her musical life at the age of nine when she entered the Royal National Music Conservatory of Tehran. In addition to her study of the radif, the basis for traditional Persian music, Pourafar chose the tar as her instrument. Made of mulberry wood with a double-bellied body, its two and a half […]
Cecil James (Big Jay) McNeely
Cecil James (Big Jay) McNeely, a legend of the R&B and jazz music scene, is known as the “King of Honking Tenor Saxophone. ” Mr. McNeely has been performing his pioneering style of music since the 1940s, touring with other well known performers such as Billie Holliday, Dizzy Gillespie, Nat King Cole, Chuck Berry, and […]