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Oakland
Tribune
Rhythm of the planet
Amazing international collaboration at San Francisco World
Music festival
By Jeff Kaliss - CONTRIBUTOR
Friday,
September 17, 2004 -
KUTAY
Derin Kugay, the Turkish-born program director of the San
Francisco World Music Festival, found an affirmation of
his ideals while watching a rehearsal of the Kronos Quartet
and Iranian-Azerbaijani composer Rahman Asadollahi at the
quartet's headquarters near Golden Gate Park.
The
seemingly disparate musicians were working on a piece commissioned
by the festival and destined for a world premiere Sept.
26 at San Francisco's Herbst Theatre.
"They
found a common tone they could go to," Kugay points
out with pride. The timely metaphorical reference to cross-cultural
understanding and cooperation is not lost on him.
After
all, the quartet is schooled in Western classical music,
while the music of Asadollahi's people is historically related
to Persian forms. As laid out on the Western piano, an octave
is divided into 12 half-steps, while the Persian-based octave
has 84 micro-intervals, exotic to Western ears.
Also,
most Western classical music follows a strict time signature,
while Persian forms have no time signature and emulate the
energy of Mother Nature and the spirit. Bridging these two
traditions is as challenging as it is exciting.
"It's
a basis of the festival that we want to alleviate the tension
and adversity in the world by bringing elements of cultures
we can share together and can enrich ourselves with,"
Kugay declares.
Toward
this goal, the festival, which opens today and runs through
Oct. 3 in various venues, is showcasing classical music
of North India and music of China, European Jews, the Balkans,
Africa and the Roma (gypsies).
Although
this is the festival's fifth year, Kugay has been producing
world music concerts in the Bay Area for twice as long and
has hosted "Music of the World" on KPFA-FM (a
co-sponsor of the festival) for 16 years, focusing on the
Middle East, Central, South and southwest Asia, North Africa
and the Balkans.
Kugay,
raised in a Black Sea port in northeastern Turkey and a
member of the Laz Muslim minority, listened to recordings
of American jazz as a child. Later, at the hub of American
jazz in 1960s New York City, he found himself awakened to
what would later be termed world music.
"I
listened to Coltrane live -- I was like 5 feet away from
him -- and it sparked something that started me looking
backward to the music I came from, regional music,"
Kugay recalls.
"The
creativity of the improvisation was so powerful that it
kind of split open my perception of what music is."
He realized that "in the route the jazz master takes
to connect to the world, the sounds become an interpretation
of spiritual forces."
Coltrane
evoked for Kugay the sound of the tulum, a Laz ritual bagpipe,
as well as the sounds of Armenia, Iran and the Caucasus,
close to his homeland.
He
moved West to study filmmaking at San Jose State University,
composed soundtracks for his films and later founded his
own record label, 7/8 Music Productions, named for a quirky
Black Sea rhythm. He's also program director of Door Dog
Productions, and with executive director and Asian music
master Michael Santoro, he coordinates the festival, year-round
concerts and community outreach.
One
outreach event is second annual Youth World Music Showcase
at the Asian Art Museum Sept. 19, a free show featuring
elementary and high school musicians including the Alice
Fong Yu Chinese Youth Orchestra and Percussion Troupe, the
Nejad Persian Youth Ensemble and Drum Circle from San Jose,
and 13-year-old prodigy Indian vocalist Gaayatri Kaundinya
from Corte Madera.
The
festival's opening concert at 8 p.m. today reunites North
Indian classical masters and Bay Area residents G.S. Sachdev
(on bansuri flute) and Zakir Hussain (on tabla) for the
first time in 10 years, at the resplendent Grace Cathedral.
The
Kronos centerpiece concert Sept. 26 includes challenging
collaborations with Chinese-born Zhang Hai Yue, who performs
on a tree leaf, and with a troupe of Chinese opera singers,
percussionists and other musicians specially assembled from
across the United States. The program also includes the
commissioned work by Asadollahi and another piece created
for Kronos by Azerbaijani composer Franghiz Ali-Zadeh.
An
anticipated Sept. 30 concert of Greek and Cretan music by
Ross Daly was canceled because of injuries he sustained
during his marathon performances at the Olympics in Athens.
An
eclectic evening at the ODC Theater Oct. 2 presents three
Bay Area-based groups: Davka, which plays new Jewish music,
Rumen Shopov and Orkestar Sali, with music from Bulgaria
and the Balkans, and poet Avotcja and the group Modupue,
who fuse jazz, African, Latin and Asian music.
Kugay
has a particular delight in booking Romani (gypsy) vocalist
Esma Redzepova from Macdeonia, who brings her Ensemble Teodosievski
to the ODC Oct. 3.
"I
used to listen to her music when I was a child, though she
herself was a child star then," says Kugay. "She's
been declared the greatest Romani singer. You can't sit
still. She's very soulful."
Kugay
points to the Romani as exemplary "ambassadors to all
countries. They represented multi-culturalism before the
word existed."
He's
likewise proud to showcase Asadollahi, "a Muslim from
a country (Iran) which has been called part of the 'axis
of evil.'" The gentle composer and virtuoso on the
garmon (accordion) makes a free appearance at the Asian
Art Museum Sept. 23, where he'll "talk about his ideas
about peace and his culture, and will dissipate some of
the fear that's being pushed upon us by certain forces."
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