Overview
Each MUUS program is one hour long. The venues are Slosberg Recital Hall, on the Brandeis campus, and at the auditorium of Waltham High School. Performances are geared to the appropriate age level and are of the highest quality. The aim of these programs is to explore meaningful historical and social perspectives of different cultures through the unique autobiographical narrative voice of music. Programs are carefully chosen according to the following guidelines: Diversity, authenticity, quality, school curriculum, budget, and availability of performers. Cooperating teachers teach lessons related to the historical and social aspects of the cultures represented in the music programs. These lessons in the classroom precede the concerts. (See sample lesson plans.) Prepared recorded selections previewing the concerts are provided by MUUS and distributed to the classroom teachers.
NEW FOR 2008-09: MUUS PDP WORKSHOP
2017-2018 Performances
Visiting artists will present a program for students of Waltham Public Schools. The program is linked to the classroom by a lesson plan, written by a lesson plan writer who teaches in the schools.
Fall: Castle of Our Skins: Black in Europe
Spring: Javanese Gamelan Tour 2018!
2016-2017 Performances
Visiting artists will present a program for students of Waltham Public Schools. The program is linked to the classroom by a lesson plan, written by a lesson plan writer who teaches in the schools.
Fall: From India: Rhythms of Life
Spring: From East Asia: The PAN Project
2015-2016 Performances
Visiting artists will present a program for students of Waltham Public Schools. The program is linked to the classroom by a lesson plan, written by a lesson plan writer who teaches in the schools.
Fall (all Waltham 9th grades): Voices from Syria: “Home Within”
Spring (all Waltham 7th grades): Korean Gugak – Soundscapes of the Soul
2014-2015 Performances
Stay tuned for more info:
Fall: Theater production of Conference of the Birds
Spring: Music from Azerbaijan: Fargana Qasivmova and ensemble
Lydian String Quartet
2013-2014 Performances
Friday, November 22 at Brandeis University: two programs for the 7th grades of Waltham Public Schools
Silk and Bamboo: Music From China
“Music From China is music from heaven” Kansas City Star
“What the audience has heard…is an erhu – a two-string Chinese fiddle…gorgeously played by Wang Guowei.” New York Times
Music From China invokes the subtlety and power of both traditional and contemporary Chinese music. Artistic Director and erhu soloist Wang Guowei leads the ensemble in one of the most popular of Chinese music genres – sizhu. Sizhu, or silk and bamboo (for the silk strings and bamboo flutes) is comparable to Western chamber music and is commonly heard in teahouses where a casual, informal atmosphere is the norm.
The Lydian String Quartet
Date TBD, for the primary grades
The Lydian String Quartet is Brandeis University’s internationally acclaimed quartet-in-residence since 1980. The Lydian String Quartet has concertized throughout the United States and Europe. The Lydian String Quartet will present a MusicUnitesUS program that reinforces the 4th grade history and social science curriculum that will include topics such as A Nation of Many People, Immigration, and Communities. The focus will be diverse traditions major immigrant groups have brought to the United States through music. What songs did they bring? What values and world views are represented through the music? What did these new immigrants leave behind? In this unique presentation of music through the lens of the string quartet (with its own Eurocentric tradition), students will hear many of the voices that make up this country’s soundscape of multiculturalism.
Trio Da Kali. Tradition-inspired contemporary Malian griot music
Date, TBD
Fodé Lassana Diabaté 22-key balafon
Hawa Kassé Mady Diabaté singer
Mamadou Kouyaté bass ngoni
Trio Da Kali unites three outstanding musicians from the Mande culture of Mali, who come from a long line of distinguished griots (specialist hereditary musical artisans). Long-term collaborators, the artists come together as a trio with the aim of bringing to the forefront neglected repertoires and performance styles of the griots and celebrating African continent’s finest, most subtle, and sublime music. In so doing, they bring a fresh, contemporary, creative twist to their musical art, breathing new life back into this ancient music.
An original combination of voice, bass ngoni, and balafon, the trio takes their name from one of the oldest songs in the griot repertoire, an acapella praise song that recalls the role of the griots as advisors to Mali’s pre-colonial rulers. “Da kali” means “to swear an oath” and represents the griots’ pledge to their art. Trio Da Kali present a performance that revolves around the soaring, rounded vibrato voice of Hawa Kasse Mady (compared by some to Mahalia Jackson), who performs the songs she grew up surrounded by in Kela, one of the most musical centres of the griot world. The programme includes dazzling solo balafon pieces by the group’s leader Lassana Diabaté on the 22-key balafon. Few can match his lyricism and virtuosity, and the resonant sound of the rosewood keys of his balafon. Mamadou Kouyaté, the eldest son of ngoni maestro Bassekou Kouyaté, underpins the music with punchy bass lines on a large ngoni, West Africa’s oldest string instrument.
Sponsored by the Aga Khan Music Initiative.
2012-2013 Performances
Friday, October 19 at Brandeis University: two programs for the 7th grades of Waltham
Pablo Ziegler and his Classical Tango Quartet
Special guest appearance: Dancers Fernanda Ghi and Guillermo Merlo
“There’s no question that Ziegler takes the tango to levels of sophistication and refinement probably undreamed of by Piazzolla” – Chicago Tribune
A consummate ensemble featuring piano, bandoneon, cello and double bass, the Pablo Ziegler Classical Tango Quartet breathes with nuance and refinement, at once subtle and utterly expressive. Latin Grammy-winner Pablo Ziegler, the pre-eminent living member of Astor Piazzolla’s groundbreaking ensemble, leads the group in exquisite arrangements of his own compositions as well as the music of tango legends like J.C. Cobian and Piazzolla.
Friday, March 1, 9-10 am, Waltham High School:
REMIX: New Sounds from the Arab Lands
This adventurous program brings together eminent performer-composer-improvisers from Syria and Tunisia who create an exciting new music inspired by the rich cultural heritage of the Arab lands. Performing on instruments that are not necessarily native to the Middle East, these accomplished artists exemplify the talent, achievement, and breadth of a rising generation of cosmopolitan Arab musicians who combine jazz, classical music, and the microtonal subtleties and myriad melodic modes of Arabic music.
2011-2012 Performances
Navarasa Dance Theater: Encounter
Thursday, October 27, at the Waltham High School
(lesson plans)
“… Navarasa’s choreography is grounded in traditional Indian dance, but reaches outward. They incorporate modern dance, Indian martial arts, aerial dance, Bollywood’s pop influences — all with an eye for originality and a skillful use of space, sending dancers into eye-catching floor patterns…” – Boston Globe, Sep, 2010
Navarasa brings story, poetry, and music to the stage through dance. This performance, linked to the social studies curriculum with a MUUS lesson plan, invites students to explore individual and cultural expression through dance theater. Navarasa artists with roots in classical Indian tradition and a commitment to extending into the future demonstrate how dance speaks to contemporary issues and human concerns through the art of movement.
Musical Cousins: From India to Afghanistan
Friday, March 9, at the Waltham High School (lesson plans)
Listen to their music
Homayun Sakhi is the outstanding Afghan rubab player of his generation. Sakhi’s performance style has been shaped not only by traditional Afghan and Indian music, but by his lively interest in contemporary music from around the world. Born in Kabul into one of Afghanistan’s leading musical families, he studied rubab with his father, Ustad Ghulam Sakhi. Homayun Sakhi maintains a worldwide concert schedule and is active in teaching rubab to young Afghans, both in Afghanistan and in the West
Ken Zuckerman, internationally acclaimed as one of the finest sarod virtuosos performing today, has also been called “…one of the world’s most eclectic masters of improvisation.” He completed thirty-seven years of training under the rigorous discipline of India’s legendary sarod master Ustad Ali Akbar Khan, up to the maestro’s passing in June 2009. He also performed with Maestro Khan in numerous concerts in Europe, India, and the United States and with some of India’s finest tabla virtuosos (Swapan Chaudhuri, Zakir Hussain and Anindo Chatterjee).
Salar Nader, born in Germany in 1981, is one of his generation’s leading performers on the tabla. A disciple of the great tabla master Zakir Hussain, Salar Nader frequently accompanies Homayun Sakhi as well as other performers of Afghan and North Indian classical music. A resident of San Francisco, Nader recently appeared as an on-stage musician in an American theatrical adaptation of Khaled Hosseini’s best-selling novel, The Kite Runner.
2010-2011 Performances
Lamine Touré and Group Saloum
Thursday, October 14, at the Waltham High School
(lesson plans)
Listen to their music
Group Saloum is America’s hottest Afro-mbalax band. Founded by world-renowned griot percussionist Lamine Toure, Group Saloum fuses Senegalese mbalax- highlighted by the infectious rhythms of Toure’s sabar drums – with elements of jazz, funk, reggae, and Afrobeat.
Lamine Toure is widely recognized as one of Senegal’s leading percussionists. Born into a griot family of sabar drummers, Lamine Toure has been drumming since the age of four, a skill that he inherited from his ancestors. Since the early 1990s, Toure has been a key figure in the Senegalese music scene, performing with the successful mbalax band Nder et le Setsima Group throughout Africa, Europe, and North America. Toure’s global experience inspired him to create a new style of Afro-mbalax music, incorporating the diverse musical influences he encountered during his travels. Upon settling in Boston in 2001, Toure began to search for musicians who would help realize his inspiration. The result was the creation of Group Saloum.
Simon Shaheen: Palestinian composer and musician
Thursday morning, March 10, at the Waltham High School (lesson plans)
Listen to their music
Palestinian composer and oud and violin player, Simon Shaheen dazzles his listeners as he deftly leaps from traditional Arabic sounds to jazz and Western classical styles. His soaring technique, melodic ingenuity, and unparalleled grace have earned him international acclaim as a virtuoso on the ‘oud and violin. Shaheen is one of the most significant Arab musicians, performers, and composers of his generation. His work incorporates and reflects a legacy of Arabic music, while it forges ahead to new frontiers, embracing many different styles in the process.
Public concert
2009-2010 Performances
Obbini Tumbao: Afro-Cuban Rhythms
Thursday morning, October 22 (lesson plans)
“If Mambo Kings Poncho Sanchez and Tito Puente got together to jam with Herb Alpert and Ry Cooder of the Buena Vista Social Club, it might sound something like Obbini Tumbao.” – Liza Weisstuch, Boston Globe
With musical roots in Spain and West Africa, Cuban music has long claimed its place on the world stage. Congas, timbales, and claves join brass, piano, and bass to meet in Cuban son. Add vocals and let Obbini Tumbaotake you on an aural cruise to the Caribbean.
Students experience the history and culture of Cuba through music. Demonstration of instruments, dance rhythms, and song as well as performances of traditional forms of son.