Community Calendar

Alla Boara seeks to bring recognition and new life to Italy’s diverse history of regional folk music. Their modern arrangements of traditional folk songs are variously surprising, playful, mournful, tender and bewitching.

Their dynamic work aims to inspire audiences of all ethnic heritages to treasure their musical roots and consider historical songs’ contemporary cultural relevance. The group has received critical acclaim for its originality and accessibility.

Djékady is a collaboration between West African musician Balla Kouyaté and Grammy-winning cellist Mike Block. Their ensemble puts Malian music into conversation with American folk music and contemporary styles, allowing new shoots to sprout from his family’s musical tree.

Balla Kouyaté has been featured on numerous albums, including the Silkroad Ensembles’s Sing Me Home and Yo-Yo Ma’s Songs of Joy and Peace. His music has been recorded for the Library of Congress and heard in venues like Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Symphony Space, and The Kennedy Center as well as festivals throughout the United States and Europe. As an educator, Kouyaté has offered masterclasses in universities and schools across the country, and he was chosen as a NEA National Heritage Fellow in 2019.

Mike Block is a Grammy Award-winning cellist, singer and composer with a passion for cross-cultural collaboration. Hailed as “one of the bravest, most intriguing musicians on the American fusion scene,” (Gramophone) he has been a member of the Silkroad Ensemble for nearly twenty years. Yo-Yo Ma calls Block “the ideal musician for the 21st century,” saying, “I’m always struck by his unique perspective on the world and his relaxed and confident approach; he takes on new music and new things fearlessly.”

LuFuki Ismaeel Dhul-Qarnayn is a composer, guitarist, organizer, historian and cultural curator in Detroit. He views music as a spiritual practice that brings about healing and unity, and his art practice centers around Black ancestral legacy. His ensemble Divine Providence is an Afro-Spirit jazz collective of musicians who fuse genres with the intention of connecting hearts in order to promote unity, freedom and social action.

LuFuki is currently working on several projects, including XRoads, a traveling exhibit being housed for the week by the Kalamazoo College Music Department. The exhibit explores the under-documented historical and contemporary intersections between “jazz,” Black Muslims, and social justice movements.

LuFuki will also be conducting a lecture at 4:15 PM on Wednesday, October 22.

This engagement is supported by a John Stites Jazz Event Award from the John Stites Jazz Artist Organization, a nonprofit 501(c)(3) honoring the memory of John Stites and his passion for jazz music.

Nobuntu is an all-female a cappella quartet from Zimbabwe that has drawn international acclaim for its inventive performances ranging from traditional Zimbabwean songs to Afro Jazz to Gospel. The ensemble’s concerts are performed with pure voices, augmented by minimalistic percussion, traditional instruments such as the Mbira (thumb piano) and organic, authentic dance movements.

In the last few seasons, the quintet has performed at festivals and concert halls in Italy, Austria, Germany, Belgium, the Czech Republic and throughout the African continent. Their first tour to Canada in 2016 included performances in Toronto, Winnipeg, Vancouver and Victoria.