Thurs, May 17
Aurelio Martínez (Honduras)
Underground Jazz Cabaret
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
$25 General Admission

The Cabaraet opens with Garifuna singer, composer and guitarist Aurelio Martínez bringing a bittersweet vocal style to the guitar-accompanied paranda ballad and other traditional Garifuna song forms.

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Fri, May 18
Idris Ackamoor (USA)
Underground Jazz Cabaret
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
$25 General Admission
Shared bill with Takfarina

Cabaret host, composer/multi-instrumentalist Idris Ackamoor is one of the Bay Area's most exciting and respected performers. The evening will feature a CD release party and a musical retrospective including some of his recent work with the Idris Ackamoor Ensemble, but highlighting a reunion of members of the legendary group, “The Pyramids.”

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Fri, May 18
Takfarinas (Algeria)
Underground Jazz Cabaret
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
$25 General Admission
Shared bill with Idris Ackamoor

One of the most significant trends in modern Algerian music comes from the region of Kabylia, the most important center for the country's substantial Berber minority. Singer, songwriter and guitarist Takfarinas comes out of the Kabyle tradition.

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Fri, May 19
John Santos Quintet (USA)
Underground Jazz Cabaret
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
$25 General Admission
Shared bill with Pepe Vasquez & Grupo Rompe y Raja

The John Santos Quintet brings together an explosive group of talented Bay Area musicians with a long history of collaboration to play classic Latin Jazz from Cuba, Puerto Rico, Mexico and the U.S. as well as original compositions featuring Orestes Vilato (timbales, bongos) with special guest Karl Perazzo (congas) and John Calloway - flute, percussion, Saul Sierra – bass and Marco Diaz – piano.

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Sat, May 19
Pepe Vasquez (Peru) with Grupo Rompe y Raja (USA)
Underground Jazz Cabaret
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
$25 General Admission
Shared bill with John Santos Quintet

The Cabaret concludes with Pepe Vasquez, the leading Peruvian singer and composer of his generation. Mixing Afro-Peruvian folk forms such as the lando and festejo with dynamic Afro-Caribbean salsa grooves has catapulted Vasquez to the top of Peru's music scene.

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SAN FRANCISCO CHAMBER ORCHESTRA
WITH WAYNE WALLACE (USA)
The Cuba Variations
Sun, May 20, 3:00pm
Brava Theater Center
Presented by San Francisco Chamber Orchestra

Wayne Wallace says of the Cuba Variations, “The piece is influenced by Sunday afternoons in Habana Viejo listening to the Havana Symphony playing works of western European composers as well as Cuban classical composers. I was deeply impressed by the works of Amadeo Roldán and Alejandro García Caturla. In both these composers I found interests similar to my own.”

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EARPLAY ENSEMBLE (USA)
Dancing with the Shadow featuring the music of Eleanor Alberga (Jamaica)
Mon, May 21, 7:00pm
Herbst Theatre
Presented by Earplay

The Earplay ensemble will present Jamaican born composer, Eleanor Alberga's composition, Dancing with the Shadow, which was originally commissioned by British performing ensemble Luntano who also specialize in twentieth century music.

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Nawal (Comoros Islands)
Music of the Comoros Islands
Fri, May 25 9:30pm
Sat, May 26 11:00pm
African American Art & Culture Complex
$15 General Admission

Celebrating the release of her second CD titled Aman (peace of the soul), singer and composer Nawal kicks off her US tour on the AfroSolo stage. Nawal originates from the Comoros Islands located in the Indian Ocean off the eastern coast of Africa. Between traditional and contemporary, her music weaves a rich dialog of cultures, a reflection of the diverse character of life in her native islands. Indo-Arabian-Persian music meets Bantu polyphonies, the syncopated rhythms and Sufi trance of the Indian Ocean.

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LINDA TILLERY & THE CULTURAL HERITAGE CHOIR (USA) WITH BLACK VOICES (ENGLAND) AND A BAY AREA COMMUNITY CHORUS
A Long Journey Home: Concertizing the Golden Triangle

Fri, May 25 Providence Baptist Church, 8:00pm

Sat, May 26 Brava Theater Center, 8:00pm
$25 General Admission

Sun, May 27 Grace Cathedral, 8:00pm
$25 General Admission

Presented by SFIAF, Brava Theater Center,
Friends of Negro Spirituals, Queer Cultural Center
and Tabernacle Community Development Corporation

A Long Journey Home: Concertizing the Golden Triangle is a collaboration between the Bay Area a'cappella group, Linda Tillery and the Cultural Heritage Choir and the British Choir, Black Voices (musical director, Carol Pemberton). The artists have been commissioned to present a 90-minute concert that will frame the artistic, cultural, and social implications of their shared and divergent histories - from their common origins in Mother Africa to the parallel realities of North American and Caribbean slaves to subsequent migrations across the Diaspora.

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