September 25, 2005
BY LAURA EMERICK Staff Reporter, Chicago Sun Times
Around the world in seven days, at warp speed. The just-concluded World Music Festival Chicago 2005 managed to cram in an amazingly stellar 50-plus acts from 29 countries for its seventh annual edition. And in the process, the festival scored its best showing yet.
Festival organizers presented a truly comprehensive lineup, from all the major continents: Africa, Asia, Europe and North and South America. As an added benefit, the Latin contingent was particularly strong this year, with Mexico's Celso Pina and Lila Downs, Cuba's Juan Carlos Formell and Nachito Herrera, Uruguay's Los Gauchos de Roldan and a special emphasis on the music of Brazil.
The festival also offered the opportunity to hear major stars in intimate or unlikely settings: Japanese-Hawaiian ukulele master Jake Shimabukuro (who's a household name in Asia), Malian duo Amadou & Mariam (Blender magazine cited A&M's latest, "Dimanche a Bamako," as "the world music album of the year") and Brazilian legend Wilson das Neves, who at his HotHouse show Tuesday received this ringing endorsement from one of his Orquestra Imperial collaborators: "Do you realize how important this man is in our country?"
Plus, festivalgoers got to hear rising talents such as Brazil's Seu Jorge, Domenico+2 and Badi Assad; Portugal's Ana Moura, Cape Verde's Lura and Norway's Frigg.
As usual, there was an exceedingly high caliber of performances, anchored this year by two Millennium Park events: Mexican Night, co-sponsored by the Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum and the Chicago Mexican Consulate, and Brazilian Night, presented with the Museum of Contemporary Art.
The Millennium Park shows also underscored the city's increasing willingness to open up its glittering Pritzker Pavilion for concerts other than classical and jazz. A year after the debut of Millennium Park, the city's free festivals are still relegated to the ghetto of the acoustically and aesthetically inferior Petrillo Music Shell two blocks away. With the success of the Mexican and Brazilian Nights, which drew well-behaved crowds of 10,000 and 7,500, respectively, perhaps our city fathers will further reconsider their restrictive booking practices for the Pritzker Pavilion.
"This has been the best attended festival overall," said Michael Orlove, program director for the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs. "The addition of the Millennium Park shows certainly boosted attendance. But it's also really becoming a festival that people expect and look forward to. We're not nearly at the status of the blues and jazz festivals, but slowly, year by year, people are starting to put us on their calendars. We're really happy with the diversity and depth of the artists and the overall public response."
Read the full world music article on the Chicago Sun Times website
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