Our Partners

Manoochehr Sadeghi began to study classical Persian santur (a 72-string hammer dulcimer) in Tehran when he was seven years old under the master Ustad Abol Hassan Saba. When he was 17, he joined Saba’s orchestra, and enjoyed many years as a master performer and teacher in Iran before coming to the U.S. in the late 1960s. He has been recorded for A&M Records, the Bomar Company, and for broadcast on Iranian television and radio. He received a master’s degree in music from California State University, Los Angeles, and has pursued a Ph.D. in ethnomusicology at UCLA. In 2003 he was named a National Heritage Fellow of the National Endowment for the Arts.

Jorge Lechuga is the founder and lead singer of the Wildhorse Singers and Dancers, a Native American northern traditional pow wow ensemble that performs and tours throughout Southern California, the United States and internationally. Mr. Lechuga began singing and playing the traditional Native American drum over 25 years ago with the help of other community singers and elders. Mr. Lechuga and the Wildhorse Singers and Dancers perform traditional ceremonial songs at Native American events and gatherings, often singing in various indigenous languages as they keep cultural and spiritual traditions alive for the multi-tribal Native American community in the Los Angeles area.

Tom Sauber is a multi-instrumentalist and singer who is teaching traditional Southern fiddle. In the 45 years that Mr. Sauber has devoted to playing traditional music, he has performed with extraordinary musicians in old-time, bluegrass and Cajun music. He is particularly known for his long-time partnerships with Oklahoma fiddler Earl Collins and North Carolina banjo picker Eddie Lowe. Mr. Sauber‰’s contributions to traditional music also include hosting a radio show for 12 years on KPFK in Los Angeles. He holds a masters degree in folklore and is a performer and teacher in demand at major traditional music festivals and workshops across the country and internationally.

Francisco Aguabella is one of the world’s most respected drummers. Born in Matanzas-Cuba, an area well-known for the richness of its African traditions, Aguabella immigrated to the U.S. in 1957. He is recognized as a high priest of the religious Afro-Cuban bata percussion, which has its roots among the Yoruba people of West Africa. He has been honored by the cities of Los Angeles and San Francisco, and in 1992 received a National Heritage Fellowship for his contribution to the arts. He has performed and recorded with such artists as Carlos Santana and Tito Puente, among others, and is the subject of a documentary directed by Les Blank for Zoetrope Studios.

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 U.S., he began his professional career as a performing and recording artist with ensembles of Persian classical music as well as Indian, Turkish and American musicians. In 1995, Hadadi joined Dastan, a West Coast-based ensemble of Iranian musicians, which has toured extensively throughout the U.S., Europe and Iran.

Mehrdad Arabi plays and teaches the kamanche, the chief bowed instrument in Persian classical and folk music dating back to antiquity. A very popular instrument, the kamanche is almost always present in the make-up of all sizes of classical Persian ensembles. Arabi has been playing his instrument for more than 25 years. He studied the instrument as well as the Persian radif at the Center for the Preservation of Music in Tehran with master musicians Mohammad Moghadassi, Davoud Ganjeie and Reza Rahimi Jafari. In addition to the kamanche, Arabi plays the tombak, daf, and violin. Arabi has performed extensively throughout the world and has made over 20 recordings.

Ian Whitelaw plays the Great Highland bagpipe, an instrument deeply embedded in Scottish culture. His teachers include Andrew Wright, president of the Piobaireachd Society, and Robert Nicol, former piper to King George VI. Mr. Whitelaw has performed for many film and television programs, and has performed at the Mormon Tabernacle, at The Universal Amphitheatre with Sting, and with the Chieftains at the Hollywood Bowl, among many others. He has received top awards at numerous piping championships including the United States Gold Medal for Piobaireachd and the Spokane Piper’s Society Banner of the Mountains six times. He is the musical director of the University of California-Riverside Pipe Band, and is also a senior judge for piping competitions in the U.S. and Canada.

Ciro Hurtado is a Peruvian guitarist/composer who has been actively performing since the early 1970s as a soloist and 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 the group Huayucaltia, which performs contemporary music from Latin America. He has also recorded three solo albums, and created scores for both television and films. He has been conducting workshops on Latin American guitar in the Los Angeles area for the past several years.

Charles Kaimikaua Jr. comes from a family of legendary Hawaiian musicians and has learned to play several instruments. He is a master of the Hawaiian slack key guitar, a unique style of picking and tuning a guitar that was created by the early Hawaiians sometime after 1850. Kaimikaua has been playing and teaching the slack key guitar for the past 59 years, including extensive tours with the USO. The author of several definitive books on playing the instrument, he is dedicated to the preservation of this Hawaiian art form. In addition to the slack key guitar, Kaimikaua is also accomplished on the ukulele.

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 Francisco and received a 1992 National Heritage Fellowship for his contribution to the arts. He has worked with such artists as Carlos Santana, Tito Puente, and is the subject of a documentary directed by Les Blank for Zoetrope Studios.

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 by her family’s internment in Jerome, California and Heart Mountain. Upon release in 1945, she resumed her studies, and in 1955, under the tutelage of Madame Kineya Shofuku of the prestigious Kineya School, received the “natori” certificate and a professional name, Kineya Fukuju. In 1996, she co-created the SanMi Ensemble with her late nephew Glenn Horiuchi.

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 events such as the California Institute for the Arts World Music Festival and the Watts Tower Drum Festival.