Upcoming Events

NEWS: Thanks to everyone who helped us make our June 3rd benefit, A Journey to South America, a great success! We're still gladly accepting donations post-event, click here for more details.

Visit our new Yiddish Song of the Week blog edited by folklorist Itzik Gottesman, Ph.D.

Saturday, September 18 - Monday, September 20: CTMD Touring Artists Sounds of Korea perform at the Chihuahua International Festival in Mexico. For more information click here.

September 19 - 26, 2010
The New York World Festival: Music Around the Black Sea

CTMD and World Music Institute are pleased to present the fourth New York World Festival, which this year presents a week of events celebrating the city's cultural diversity through the exploration of musical connections between communities surrounding the Black Sea and their New York immigrant populations.

Sunday, September 19 [Music Around the Black Sea]: Strings of the Black Sea: A Celebration of Lutes and Fiddles from Bulgaria, Ukraine, Crimea and Turkey. Featuring violinist Nariman Asanov, a leading exponent of the musical tradition of the Crimean Tatars, who will be joined by Patrick Farrell on accordion; Beth Bahia Cohen, a Turkish yayli tanbur player who has performed with masters of bowed instruments from the Balkans and the Middle East; Ahmet Erdogdular, Turkish tanbur player and singer who is one of the most important musicians of the new generation in Turkish classical music; Nikolay Kolev, a virtuoso gadulka player hailing from the village of Karavelovo in the Rose Valley of Bulgaria; Julian Kytasty, one of the world's premier Ukrainian bandura players; and the extraordinary Christos Tiktapanidis, one of the few musicians in the US who plays the Pontic Greek lyra. Presented in partnership with the Metropolitan Museum of Art. At the Museum's Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium, 1000 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. Admission $30 (includes entrance to the Museum galleries), $15 for students on day of performance with ID. Tickets can be reserved at 212-570-3949 or online at the Met's box office. (3:00PM)

Monday, September 20 [Music Around the Black Sea]: The Hidden Musical Treasures of Romania. For three decades, fiddler Bob Cohen has roamed Romania like Indiana Jones with a tape recorder in search of remnants of lost Jewish musical traditions through field research with elderly Roma (Gypsy) musicians. From his work as a cultural dragoman, recordings with the Budapest-based ensemble Di Naye Kapelye, and popular blog exploring traditional music and grilled meat, Cohen has become a guru to many leading musicians in New York's klezmer and Balkan music scenes. A fascinating polyglot with an encyclopedic knowledge of Eastern Europe's minority ethnic populations, Cohen will inspire, educate and entertain during this special multi-media presentation. This presentation is part of CTMD and the Center for Jewish History's An-sky Institute for Jewish Culture Series. At the Center for Jewish History, 15 West 16th Street in Manhattan. A reception will follow the event. (7:00PM)

Saturday, September 25 [Music Around the Black Sea]: Special Ukrainian Vechornytsi (Carpathian dance party) featuring Técsöi Banda with dance leader Tamara Chernyakhovska. Making its US debut, Técsöi Banda is a spectacular family fiddle band from Tyaciv, Ukraine (Técsöi in Hungarian), a small city nestled along the Tisza River in a broad Carpathian mountain valley. The quartet - violin, accordion, tsymbaly (hammered dulcimer) and bass drum - brings a richly diverse repertoire representative of the ethnic mix of the Carpathians, and was profiled in the recent film The Last Kolomeyka. Tamara Chernyakhovska is our much-loved dance leader, a former principal with the G.G. Veriovka Ukrainian National Dance Ensemble, who spent many years learning regional dances while touring Ukraine. A program of CTMD's Ukrainian Wave Community Cultural Initiative, presented in collaboration with Lotus Fine Arts. At the Ukrainian East Village Restaurant, 140 Second Ave in Manhattan between 8th & 9th Streets. Admission is $10, youth $5. (7:30PM)

Sunday, September 26 [Music Around the Black Sea]: The Black Sea Roma Festival - A Celebration of Gypsy Music from Turkey, Bulgaria, Ukraine and Romania. New York’s Roma (Gypsy) music concert of the year! Featured are the US debut of Mahala Rai Banda, a wild 12-member Roma band comprising musicians from the famed Clejani and Zece Prajini Romanian villages (home of Taraf de Haidouks and Fanfare Ciocarlia repectively); the great Turkish Rom clarinetist Selim Sesler, "the Coltrane of the clarinet" (Guardian) famed for his masterful improvisations, funk-driven wedding songs and dance melodies, joined by the NY Gypsy All-Stars; Técsöi Banda, a raucous family fiddle band making its US debut, providing a rollicking ride through the Ukrainian Carpathians with its multi-ethnic mix of spinning dance tunes, magical improvisations and haunting shepherds' laments; the Yuri Yunakov Ensemble with its electrifying sax solos and dizzying polyrhythmic beat of Bulgarian wedding music; and DJs Wonderlust, which appeared at the 2009 New York Gypsy Festival. Presented in collaboration with NY Gypsy Festival and Central Park SummerStage. Workshops in Bulgarian and Turkish Roma Dance presented in collaboration with Lotus Fine Arts. Major funding provided by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Romanian Cultural Institute in New York and the Trust for Mutual Understanding. At Central Park SummerStage, Rumsey Playfield (enter the park at 69th Street & Fifth Avenue). $10 Suggested Donation. Rain or shine. (Bulgarian & Turkish Roma Dance Workshops from 1:30PM – 3:00PM, with the Concert taking place from 3:00PM – 7:00PM)

Monday, September 27: CTMD Touring Artists Near Eastern Music Ensemble perform Arabic music at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin. For more information visit the university's website.