The Barbary Coast Jazz Ensemble, Dartmouth’s resident creative music big band, is joined by three acclaimed guest artists: tuba legend Joseph Daley, who’s played with Taj Mahal, Charlie Haden, Stevie Wonder and others while also leading his own celebrated projects; pianist Kris Davis, 2018 DownBeat “rising star” pianist who’s burning up international jazz circles as a bandleader and side player; and Bill Cole, former Dartmouth music faculty and renowned innovator on non-Western wind instruments. The concert takes place Friday, November 2, 8 pm, in Spaulding Auditorium of the Hopkins … [Read more...]
Grammy-winning “king of African pop” delivers his magic
Senegalese superstar, singer-songwriter and activist Youssou NDOUR brings his rousing music and message to the Hopkins Center for the Arts at Dartmouth College on Tuesday, October 23 in Spaulding Auditorium. For 30 years, NDOUR has been a beacon within African music, “a singer with a voice so extraordinary that the history of Africa seems locked inside it” (Rolling Stone). He and his band concoct a sublime mixture of compulsive rhythms, jangling guitars, traditional Senegalese sound, Cuban-influenced jazz and funk. His supple, golden tenor—named one of the world’s 50 great voices by NPR—not … [Read more...]
An appreciation: Ragamala Dance Company’s “Written in Water”
By Archita Harathi '22 Archita is a member of Arts Ambassadors, Dartmouth First Year students who attend Hop performances together. The Arts Ambassadors attended Written in Water. Archita has studied Indian classical dance. Interested in Arts Ambassadors? Find out more here. This past Tuesday and Wednesday, September 18th and 19th, the Dartmouth community experienced the cultural spectacle of the Ragamala Dance Company’s production, Written in Water. Ragamala Dance Company is a well-known and highly esteemed practitioner of one of India’s oldest classical dance forms, Bharatanatyam. … [Read more...]
Habanero, habanera, what’s the difference?
Afro-Cuban jazz sensation Daymé Arocena, performing at the Hop Thursday, April 12, is the quintessential habanera - a female resident of Havana, which she sings about in "Me lleva la Habana (I come to Havana)": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1RksfBsu6w Habanera also refers to a 19th-century Cuban dance rhythm. Here's a classic habanera: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jebIpYs2UUI The habanera infused early jazz - the first of many times American jazz would be saturated with Afro-Cuban musical elements - such as Scott Joplin's Solace … [Read more...]
A dazzling voice of young Cuba, April 12
Daymé Arocena, one of Cuba’s most dazzling singers to burst onto the international stage, makes her Hopkins Center for the Arts debut on Thursday, April 12, 7 pm, in Spaulding Auditorium. Her Hop appearance is part of a tour that takes her to cities throughout the US, including April 8 in Burlington, Vermont, and April 13 in Boston. While at Dartmouth, she also will take part in a free artist talk titled “Using Your Voice,” on Wednesday, April 11, at 5 pm, a conversation with Taylor Ho Bynum, director of the Barbary Coast Jazz Ensemble. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvyTWRB4l4w From … [Read more...]
Silk Road Ensemble and cellist Yo-Yo Ma give world premiere April 5
The first world premiere of the Hop's spring term takes place on Thursday, April 5, when the Silk Road Ensemble performs with its illustrious co-founder, cellist Yo-Yo Ma. In its 20 years of existence, the ensemble’s sublimely virtuosic members have created an extraordinary flow of gorgeous, impassioned music seamlessly joining disparate musical traditions, new and ancient. Much of that music has been heard at the Hop, thanks to musicologist and Dartmouth music professor Theodore Levin, who helped create the ensemble two decades ago. The performance includes the premiere of a work by Jia … [Read more...]
Unpacking the music of Riyaaz Qawwali
By Ugur Yavuz ‘21, Hopkins Center Arts Ambassador On the night of January 19, we had the pleasure of having Riyaaz Qawwali, a qawwali group based in Austin, Texas, on the stage of the Hopkins Center for the Arts. A music not very well known by Western audiences, qawwali is a form of devotional music that originated in Northern India and Pakistan, stretching back for more than 700 years. It has its roots in the Sufi tradition. Sufism represents a mystical aspect of Islam characterized by asceticism and music that has a doctrine of spiritual intuition of the divine truth at its center. As … [Read more...]
The new sound of East Asian winds, February 18
It's wonderful to hear fresh interpretations of well-known pieces of music, but it's also important to hear the music of the here and now. That's the emphasis of the Dartmouth College Wind Ensemble: music by living composers, as well as those older works that represent significant periods of change or development for the wind ensemble. The wind ensemble has gone a step further this season, bringing to its audiences the work of composers who are usually underrepresented in United States. In fall, the ensemble celebrated the great work of four outstanding women composers. This term, the wind … [Read more...]
A Muslim Musical Tradition With A Home in The Heart of Texas
By Rik Abels '21, Arts Ambassador People take their seats and the lights are dimmed, on the evening of January 19, in the Hop's Spaulding Auditorium. A group of men in traditional South Asian dress walk onto the stage. A silence overtakes the auditorium. The leader of the group, a charismatic 33-year-old from the heart of Texas, invites the audience to join him on a “spiritual journey.” This is Riyaaz Qawwali. Qawwali is a form of devotional music founded in Sufism, which is often referred to as Islamic mysticism. Its roots trace back to the late 13th century, when it … [Read more...]
Exit interviews: World Music Percussion Ensemble, October 25
The student and community musical group World Music Percussion Ensemble played in Spaulding Auditorium of the Hopkins Center for the Arts on Wednesday, October 25, with guest ensemble LADAMA. The groups collaborated to play a concert celebrating the cycle of the seasons. The performance was dynamic, high-energy and above all, fun. It was clear the audience was having a great time. I talked to a few audience members after the show who enthusiastically described their impressions. One of the students, a ‘20 majoring in biomedical engineering, described the show as upbeat and rich with … [Read more...]
