Fall Tour 2001 Preview; Meet The Composers Grant

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Fall Tour 2001 Preview; Meet The Composers Grant

The Omar Sosa Octet will perform at Festival International de la Ville in Creteil, France (near Paris) on Friday, September 21. The ensemble will include Elliot Kavee, drums; Gustavo Ovalles, percussion; Martha Galarraga, vocals; Sheldon Brown, saxophones; Sub-Z, vocals; Jose Julio Tomas, bass; and special guest Lansine Kouyate, balafon. The concert takes place at Maison des Arts et de la Culture in Creteil. Also on the program, from Cuba, are Las Hermanas Faez.

The following day, September 22 at 16h30, Omar Sosa and ensemble will do a showcase at the St. Lazare FNAC store in Paris. Featured will be material from Omar’s recent large-ensemble recording, “Prietos”. Reviewing in the current issue of CMJ New Music Monthly, Steve Ciabattoni comments that “Prietos emerges as Sosa’s most ambitious work, gathering ideas and musicians from his native Cuba, North and South America, and North and West Africa to turn a cultural tower of Babel into a tongue of fire. Amid the deep Afro-Latin polyrhythms of ‘Mother Africa’, angelic brass arrangements, shimmering somewhere between Gillespie and Masekela, are rocked in the bosom of a Yoruba prayer.”

Omar has two shows in California during the first week of October with percussionist John Santos:

Friday, October 5
The Omar Sosa-John Santos Trio
Friday Nights at the Getty
Getty Center for the Arts
Harold Williams Auditorium, 7:30 PM
1200 Getty Center Drive
Los Angeles
Concert information: 213-365-0605

Sunday, October 7
The Omar Sosa-John Santos Trio
BayJazz presents Jazz at the Presidio
The Main Post Chapel
130 Fisher Loop, The Presidio
San Francisco
Concert information: 415-461-3180

On Friday, October 12, the Omar Sosa Septet will appear at the 11th Annual Akbank Jazz Festival in Istanbul, Turkey. The concert takes place at Babylon, a multi-purpose performance space/club, which hosts an ongoing series of international jazz, Latin, Brasilian, reggae, world music and electronica.

The band’s Fall tour in Europe, October 25 to November 17, includes a JVC Jazz Festival date at the New Morning in Paris on Sunday, October 28, and a series of concerts in Spain. Full schedule for the Fall tour to follow in our next newsletter, or please visit www.melodia.com.

Omar Sosa recently received a grant from Meet The Composer’s “Commissioning Music/USA” program to collaborate in a project with Dimensions Dance Theater of Oakland, California. Dimensions Dance Theater returned last month from a tour and exchange visit to Zimbabwe. The theme of Omar’s work with the company will center around expressions of music and dance in the African Diaspora today.

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