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Global Sound Live


 Live from the 2007 Smithsonian Folklife Festival
Enjoy the music of the 2007 Smithsonian Folklife Festival through live webcasts from Smithsonian Global Sound. The Smithsonian Folklife Festival, produced by the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, honors and celebrates traditional cultures and peoples during an annual living exhibition on the National Mall of the USA. At the Festival, people present their culture and speak for themselves. The 2007 Smithsonian Folklife Festival features the Mekong River, Northern Ireland, and Roots of Virginia Culture. More about the Festival.






Mekong River: Nine Dragons Stage Concert
Hat Boi Opera, Bahnar Gong and Drum Ensemble
Thursday, June 28, 3:00pm–5:00pm EDST

The Mekong River flows through regions of enormous ethnic and cultural diversity on its journey from the melting glaciers of the Tibetan Plateau, in China, to the Pacific Ocean in southern Vietnam some 3,000 miles away. The music of the more than 60 million people who live in the Mekong basin reflects this vast diversity. Hat boi, the classical Vietnamese opera, features distinctive vocal techniques and exquisite gestures. Bahnar gongs and drums, also from Vietnam, offer a more rhythmic sound. Find more music from the Mekong River here.

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The 13th Annual Ralph Rinzler Memorial Concert: A Concert of NEA National Heritage Fellows in Honor of Bess Lomax Hawes
Liz Carroll and John Doyle , John Cephas and Phil Wiggins, David and Michael Doucet, Mitchell Reed, and Nancy Sweezy
Friday, June 29, 6:00pm–9:00pm EDST

This year's concert will honor Bess Lomax Hawes, founder of the National Endowment for the Arts National Heritage Fellowships. The concert will include Piedmont blues duo John Cephas and Paul Wiggins, who met at the Folklife Festival in 1977 and have been performing together ever since. Also performing will be Celtic music instrumentalists Liz Carroll and John Doyle, Cajun guitarist and fiddler David and Michael Doucet, Mitchell Reed, and folklorist Nancy Sweezy. The NEA Heritage Fellowships celebrate their 25th Anniversary this year. Find more Fellowship winners here.

Watch Bess Lomax Hawes discuss the history of the Ralph Rinzler Memorial Concert.

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Sound Neighbours: Songs and Tunes from Northern Ireland
Patricia Flynn, Four Men and a Dog, Len Graham and Jack Lynch, Lee Lawson, Robert Watt, Mark Wilson
Saturday, June 30, 5:30pm–8:00pm EDST

Centuries old or recently penned, the diverse music of Northern Ireland’s best instrumentalists, composers, and songwriters shares a profound sense of regional pride and growing confidence in a shared future. The concert is a celebration of the new Smithsonian Folkways recording Sound Neighbours: Contemporary Music in Northern Ireland featuring the artists and their contemporary sound heard here.

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Roots of Virginia Culture: Mountain Laurel Stage Concert
Bou Counta Ndiaye Ensemble and The New Ballard's Branch Bogtrotters
Thursday, July 5, 1:00pm-3:00pm EDST

These two performances demonstrate the blending of English and Scots-Irish traditions with those of enslaved Africans, to create a New World sound in Virginia now called old-time music. Bou Counta Ndiaye is one of the foremost practitioners of Senegalese xalam (ancestor of the banjo) tradition. New Ballad Bogtrotters are one of the hottest string bands in the Galax, Virginia area. Their name comes from the original Bogtrotters, the famous Galax-area band of the 1930s featuring Wade Ward. Find more music from Virginia here.

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African American Sacred Music Concert
Spiritual Seven, Paschall Brothers, and Madison Hummingbirds
Friday, July 6, 6:00pm–8:00pm EDST

This concert showcases three Virginia groups representing the best in African American gospel music. Larnell Starkey and the Spiritual Seven are from Wirtz, Virginia and feature traditional and modern gospel sounds. The Madison Hummingbirds deliver high energy performances as part of the Virginia shout band tradition while the Paschall Brothers stand firmly in the great tradition of religious a cappella groups. Find more gospel music here.

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Mekong River: Nine Dragons Stage Concert
Kylin (Lion) Dancing, Hat Boi Opera and Flower Lantern Troupe
Saturday, July 7, 1:00pm-3:00pm, EDST

Kylin is a mythical monstrous creature known throughout East Asian cultures. This Vietnamese group uses colorful costume and dance to honor a creature that, for many, represents a good omen. Flower Lantern Troupe is from the mountainous region of Yunnan, China’s southernmost province where the Mekong River begins its journey. Find more music from the Mekong River here.

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SI Folklife Contact Copyright Privacy Credits
©2007 Smithsonian Institution

Produced with major support from The Rockefeller Foundation
Full Text Only Catalog

Smithsonian Global Sound

www.smithsonianglobalsound.org

"The ethnographic answer to iTunes" -- New York Times

Smithsonian Global Sound is an unparalleled experience of world music. Download music and sound from acclaimed international archives such as Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, the International Library of African Music, the Archives & Research Centre for Ethnomusicology in India, and Central Asian recordings from the Aga Khan Trust for Culture.

Many tracks at www.smithsonianglobalsound.org are rare, newly preserved recordings that are now extensively cataloged and easily accessible around the world. Royalties support artists and archives, honoring and establishing intellectual property rights. By distributing these exciting sounds, Smithsonian Global Sound increases interest in traditional world music and promotes the appreciation of cultural diversity around the world.

Smithsonian Global Sound increases interest in traditional world music and promotes the appreciation of cultural diversity around the world. Royalties support artists and archives, honoring and establishing intellectual property rights. Many tracks are rare, newly preserved recordings that are now extensively cataloged and easily accessible. By distributing these exciting sounds around the world, Smithsonian Global Sound aims to inspire future generations of musicians to continue to promote their cultural heritage.

The Smithsonian Global Sound Experience

Browse, sample, and download thousands of beautiful and culturally significant tracks of music and sound. Don't know where to start? Listen to Radio Global Sound, watch video on Global Sound Live, read fascinating and in depth Artist Profiles, or discover exciting new music through our Musical Journeys from world music celebrities.

Downloads are available in versatile MP3 format or CD quality FLAC files. Our open files allow access through any computer or any portable media player. Smithsonian Global Sound is unique in that it offers a rich store of free material to accompany the audio, including original Folkways liner notes and new contextual information created by archival collaborators.

"Smithsonian Global Sound - the most exciting online music happening in quite some time." -- Salon.com

Enhancing Education via music in the Classroom

Smithsonian Global Sound is an invaluable tool for ethnomusicology, social sciences, and language arts educators. This virtual music library of the future gives teachers, students, and scholars instant access to original recordings and extensive documentation from diverse cultures all over globe. Many libraries from Harvard University to the University of Wisconsin to the Denver Public Library have already enhanced their collections with a subscription from Smithsonian Global Sound.

"The Smithsonian Global Sound site is a fabulous resource of authentic music, and I am looking forward to sharing it with my students." – DeKalb, Illinois
Middle school teacher

Supporting Musicians and Archives of Traditional Music

Royalties earned from the sale of music on the site go to the artists, their communities, the archives that preserve their recordings, and further development of Smithsonian Global Sound. These groundbreaking practices give musicians and artists a chance to maintain their cultures and profit from their work while forging new bonds between local sound archives and the communities whose music they preserve.

If you are an archive or collection interested in joining with Smithsonian Global Sound, please contact smithsonianglobalsound@si.edu.

"When we saw the blossoming of the Internet, we thought, what if we could use this as a device for opening up the archives? People who are not usually heard can project their voices around the planet." - Richard Kurin, Director of the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage