Crossroads Music Brings Top World Music Acts to Philadelphia

World music presenter Crossroads Music has announced its late-2008 schedule. While West African music is especially strongly represented this fall, there are also Eastern European, English, Latin American, and North American artists scheduled. Concerts take place at 7:30 pm in the chapel of West Philadelphia’s Calvary United Methodist Church, a beautiful room with excellent acoustics.

Thursday, September 18, 2008
Jez Lowe & The Bad Pennies
Topical folk music from England’s post-industrial northeast

Friday, September 26, 2008
Jayme Stone & Mansa Sissoko
Africa to Appalachia

Saturday, October 4, 2008
Bernard Woma
Master of the Gyil (Ghanaian xylophone)
with Alokli West African Dance and Gina Ferrera’s Gyil Fusion

Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Etran Finatawa
Nomad Blues from Niger’s Tuareg and Wodaabe peoples

Saturday, November 8, 2008
Venissa Santi
Cuban jazz standards and Afro-Cuban folkloric song
Sonic Liberation Front
Afro-Cuban Yoruba roots meet free jazz and electronica

Saturday, November 22, 2008
Metrofolk Band
Traditional Music from Hungary and Romania.

Saturday, December 6, 2008
Arpil Verch Band
Ottawa Valley fiddle and stepdance

Saturday, January 17, 2009
Peter Ostroushko
Heartland Americana (with a Ukranian twist)
with Svitanya Eastern European Women’s Vocal Ensemble

Wednesday, January 21, 2009
International Guitar Night, featuring
Pierre Bensusan (France)
Benjamin Verdery (New York)
Cecilia Zabala (Argentina)
Brian Gore (San Francisco)

Most tickets are priced between $10 and $20 and are available both at the concerts and in advance from Brown Paper tickets (via our website or at 1-800-838-3006) and at House of Our Own Books (3920 Spruce Street). More information on the season is available at http://www.crossroadsconcerts.org.

Crossroads’ programming is in part supported by grants from the Philadelphia Cultural Fund, Stockton Rush Bartol Foundation, the Samuel S. Fels Fund, the Five County Arts Fund (a Pennsylvania Partners in the Arts program funded by the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts and administered by the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance).