World Music Institute - WMI Plus at Home

Send us Fan Mail Grammy Award-winning percussionist Will Calhoun (Living Colour) and legendary Malian musician Cheick Tidiane Seck reflect on their 15-year collaboration, The Mali Project. What began as a chance meeting in Morocco at the Gnawa Festival evolved into a powerful cross-cultural musical journey—bridging continents, traditions, and sounds. In this conversation, Will and Cheick shared in...

Send us Fan Mail Artist-composer Firas Zreik and multi-instrumentalist, producer, and educator Ronnie Malley engaged in a dynamic discussion about music, identity, and cultural exchange. Firas, a Palestinian-born kanun player based in NYC, shared insights on the instrument's history, microtonal aspects, and composition. They discussed the maqam system, cross-cultural collaborations, and the e...

Send us Fan Mail Sunny Jain, a Brooklyn-based drummer, dhol player, bandleader, and composer, speaks with artist Samita Sinha in the first WMI Plus At Home session of WMI’s 40th Season. The two friends discussed Sunny’s upcoming WMI Season opening performance at Bryant Park along with Gamelan Dharma Swara, and Sunny’s project Wild Wild East, which explores themes of immigration and identity throug...

Send us Fan Mail Adam Robinson and Ralph Samuelson joined us for this WMI Plus At Home session, where they introduced the Japanese flute (shakuhachi). Adam and Ralph spoke about the history of the instrument and the different contexts it was used in as it developed. They discussed how traditional music is taught and how the shakuhachi has grown into a modern, globally connected instrument. During...

Send us Fan Mail Sardinian guitarist, composer, vocalist, and instrument innovator Paolo Angeli recently joined us for a WMI Plus At Home conversation with fellow guitarist and founder and director of the Alternative Guitar Summit Joel Harrison . Paolo treated us to some traditional music and took us through the decades-long process of crafting his unique instrument based on a prepared Sardinian g...

Send us Fan Mail Jen Shyu is a versatile composer, vocalist, and multi-instrumentalist. Born in Peoria, Illinois to Taiwanese and East Timorese immigrant parents, her instruments include piano, violin, Taiwanese moon lute, Chinese erhu, Japanese biwa, and Korean gayageum. For this WMI Plus At Home, she was joined by Rachel Cooper, Director of Performing Arts and Culture as Diplomacy Initiatives at...

Send us Fan Mail Ariel Ninas has been playing the hurdy-gurdy since 2001, incorporating a unique style based on traditional Galician music. His work blends elements of contemporary avant-garde aesthetics, including electronic, droning, and free improvisation. Here he demonstrates the medieval instrument, shares music, and chats with journalist and fellow hurdy-gurdy enthusiast Devon Léger. Support...

Send us Fan Mail Thandiswa Mazwai sits down with Farima Kone Kito to discuss her upbringing in Apartheid South Africa and shares insights on her latest album Sankofa , created in Soweto, Dakar, and NYC, in which she brings traditional music from across the African continent and archival Xsosa samples into the present in a collection that Songlines magazine praises as "eleven incredibly unique...

Send us Fan Mail Pura Fé , an Indigenous activist, singer-songwriter, and storyteller of Tuscarora/Taino descent, is known for her soulful voice. She founded the Native Women’s a cappella trio, Ulali, empowering Native women’s music. Pura Fé explores Native Blues, where she is known for her lap-steel slide guitar recordings. Her music has been featured in many films including the award-winning doc...

Send us Fan Mail Ahead of his performance at the New York Guitar Festival, now in its 25th year, producer, guitarist, and composer Yonatan Gat (Stone Tapes) sat down with the Host of WNYC's New Sounds, John Schaefer, joined by two artists who will also perform as a part of Night Two of the festival - Daryl Black Eagle Jamieson of the Eastern Medicine Singers and Gnawa master Maalem Hassan Ben...

Send us Fan Mail In this WMI Plus At Home, Haleh Liza Gafori and Shahzad Ismaily engage in a conversation about the timeless and universal appeal of the music and poetry of Rumi. Rumi was a Persian Sufi mystic and dervish from the 13th century whose spiritual writings have inspired people across borders and different faiths, making him one of the most beloved poets around the world. He has amassed...

Send us Fan Mail Grammy Award-winning Israeli-born composer, clarinetist, and educator Oran Etkin and Brazilian pianist, arranger, composer, and producer Benjamin Taubkin came together to discuss their passion for and commitment to engaging in a musical dialogue with artists from other cultures to build bridges between people around the globe.  They shared music and chatted about working together...

Send us Fan Mail Mehrnam Rastegari is an award-winning score composer, singer, and master kamancheh player. Originally born in Iran, she now lives in NYC. For this WMI Plus At Home session, she is joined in conversation with her friend and fellow composer and kamancheh player Niloufar Shiri. Mehrnam shares music and the two artists discuss their instruments and personal musical journeys, as well a...

Send us Fan Mail Yasser Tejeda, an award-winning Dominican composer, guitarist, vocalist, and producer, shares music and talks with author and journalist Ed Morales about his third album La Madrugada (Daybreak), the African roots of Dominican traditions,  the influences of life in NYC  on his music,  and the message behind his single "Tu Eres Bonita".   More about Yasser Tejeda Support t...

Send us Fan Mail Multi-lingual composer, vocalist, and cellist Dom La Nena joins journalist Catalina Maria Johnson ( Beat Latino ) for a special WMI Plus At Home conversation from Dom's home in Paris. She performs songs from her critically-acclaimed solo album Tempo (Six Degrees Records) and shares stories about her unique career path that took her from her home in Brazil to Argentina and Fra...

Send us Fan Mail This special WMI Plus At Home Session commemorates Yom HaShoah - Holocaust Remembrance Day.  Join members of the Payadora Tango Ensemble and Lenka Lichtenberg with journalist/music producer Dan Rosenberg  as they present stories and music from Silent Tears: the Last Yiddish Tango (Six Degrees Records), a project based on poems, testimonies, and writings of women who were subjected...

Send us Fan Mail Music producer and  journalist Gianluca Tramontana joins Grammy Award-winning composer, pianist, educator, and founder of the Afro-Latin Jazz Alliance Arturo O'Farrill , for an exploration of changüí - a rarely documented roots music from the Guantánamo region of Cuba, where Tramontana spent several months capturing the music of the changüiseros. Those recordings have been re...

Send us Fan Mail Adam and journalist Piotr Orlov chat about Adam's many collaborations with artists including Don Cherry, Hassan Hakmoun, Dave Liebman, and Yusuuf Lateef that were part of the WMI legacy series of the late 1980s / early 1990s called 'Improvisations'.  At the time of the recording, Adam was in the process of rebooting that influential series for our 2022-2023 Season l...

Send us Fan Mail Award-winning Tibetan singer/songwriter Yungchen Lhamo joins her friend Tony Award winner and record producer Jamshied Sharifi to share her beautiful voice along with a conversation about her unusual journey from Tibetan to Australia and the US, fulfilling her commitment to serving others through sound healing, and her collaborations with artists including Peter Gabriel, Annie Len...

Send us Fan Mail Composer, multi-instrumentalist, and vocalist Lokua Kanza sat down with Banning Eyre (Afropop Worldwide, NPR) to share music and talk about his work as a UNICEF ambassador,  developing his unique musical style mixing his conservatory training with Congolese rumba, and the process of recording his first album in 11 years entitled Moko , meaning “one” in Lingala,  which involved 100...

Send us Fan Mail Grammy Award winner Eileen Ivers , hailed “the Jimi Hendrix of the violin” by The New York Times , shares tunes and chats with Irish Voice columnist Paul Keating about her musical training and upbringing in The Bronx (“the 33rd county of Ireland”), her memories of visiting and playing in Ireland, her experience touring with Riverdance, and the challenges of innovating while honori...

Send us Fan Mail World renowned Grammy Award-winning tabla artist, composer, and music producer Zakir Hussain shares stories from his life and career beginning with his father, tabla legend  Allah Rakha, the genesis of prolific collaborations with artists including Mickey Hart, George Harrison, and John McLaughlin, and the importance of always staying a student. With David Ellenbogen, artist and r...

Send us Fan Mail With her captivating charisma and radiant spirit, Daymé Arocena effortlessly blends traditional Santerían chant, jazz stylings, contemporary R&B influences, and Afro-Cuban rhythmic complexity for audiences worldwide.  For this At Home session, Daymé caught up with award-winning music writer Ned Sublette where she spoke about the challenges of learning folk music in Cuba, the i...

Send us Fan Mail This At Home session features a conversation between internationally acclaimed musician,  composer, and educator Simon Shaheen with fellow Palestinian musician and educator Wanees Zarour. Shaheen, a virtuoso on both the oud and violin, talks about his extensive musical journey in promoting Arab music in its many forms, and  the joys of bringing down musical walls. More about the A...

Send us Fan Mail An At Home conversation with multi-instrumentalist, composer and co-founder of Irish American super group Sólas, Seamus Egan, who played traditional Irish instruments and chatted with folklorist Steve Winick about the importance of Mick Moloney and the Irish music scenes of Philadelphia and New York throughout his career, as well as the serendipitous genesis of co-writing the soun...