Project Background

[What follows is taken from the project blogsite that can be found at: http://exilemusicaiw.blogspot.com/ ]

The premise of the program is simple. After living in the D.C. area, it has become apparent to me that there is an amazing array of musical subcultures from around the world thriving here in Washington D.C.. Furthermore there have also been emergent musical subcultures that originted here in the D.C. area. (Go-Go perhaps being one of the more well known).

Even in my small Flamenco community we have musicians not only from Spain and across Latin America, but also from Iran, Afghanistan, and of course, from here in the U.S.

Through my musical work I have also met musicians of all kinds, from all around the globe, and I’ve had the good fortune to be able to meet them and even on occasion attend their performances.

Below are just some of the musical sub-cultures I have come a cross through my work in the Washington D.C. area:

Flamenco, and Flamenco Rumba

Chinese New Year Processional Music

Salsa (of all types)

Holy ‘Week processions and processional music from around the Catholic world

Music and procession of the Virgen de Guadalupe (Mexico)

Reggae (Jamaica and U.S.)

Ethiopian popular and traditional music

Gamelan orchestral music and dance (Indonesia)

Classical Hindustani (India)

Quawali (devotional music from Pakistan)

High Life (Democratic Republic of the Congo)

Traditional and Popular Irish music

Objectives of the Project

What we want to do is create a series of full length (45 minute to one hour) videotaped programs that would provide educational content for future World Music (HU120) classes to be used here at the AIW. However we will also consider licensing the content to other educational institutions. The production schedule is tentatively one program per quarter for the next 12 quarters.

There will also be an ongoing Blog accompanying the project (this Blog). The Blog will provide further background sources and pre-edited footage of performances and interviews that may not have made it into the final product but that are nonetheless of interest to students and other researchers.

http://exilemusicaiw.blogspot.com