Friday at 6:30: Kinan Azmeh and Dinuk Wijeratne bring a New Sonic World

Internationally Acclaimed Duo Celebrate 10 Years in Claremont

Kinan Azmeh, clarinet and Dinuk Wijeratne, piano celebrate 10 years at WCCMA with new works by the acclaimed duo. The Duo creates a new sonic world through their unique fusion of Arabic and south-Asian vocabulary with classical and jazz idioms. Audiences are moved by their expressive performances and the stories that inspired them. Despite their high demand as world-class composers and performers with engagements across the world Azmeh and Wijeratne consider Claremont to be one of their homes, and make time to return at least once per year for performances, education programs, and collaboration. 

This performance is a part of WCCMA’s Summer Concert Series at Union Church, a music series committed to barriers free access to great music. Admission is by donation. For this concert we suggest a donation of $25 or $40 for families, or “pay what you can.” For more information visit wcc-ma.org.

Syrian clarinetist Kinan Azmeh is hailed as a “Virtuoso” and “Intensely Soulful” by the New York Times, “Spellbinding”  by the New Yorker, and “Incredibly Rich Sound” by the CBC.  Kinan has been touring the world as soloist, composer and improviser. His utterly distinctive sound across different musical genres has gained him international recognition as clarinetist and composer. Kinan was recently named composer-in-residence with Classical Movements for the 2017-2018 season, and he is a member of Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble with whom he was awarded a Grammy in 2017.

Sri Lankan-born Canadian Dinuk Wijeratne is a JUNO award-winning composer, conductor, and pianist who has been described by the Toronto Star as ‘an artist who reflects a positive vision of our cultural future’, and by the New York Times as ‘exuberantly creative’. His boundary-crossing work sees him equally at home in collaborations with symphony orchestras and string quartets, tabla players and DJs, and takes him to international venues as poles apart as the Berlin Philharmonie and the North Sea Jazz Festival.

Wednesday: Bassel and the Supernaturals return to Claremont

Chicago indie-funk band bring some soul to summer

On Wednesday August 8th at 6:30 Bassel and the Supernaturals will perform an outdoor concert at Union Episcopal Church, 133 Old Church Rd, Claremont, NH, rain location inside the church building. Bring a chair or blanket and all your friends and family for this great family friendly concert. We suggest a freewill donation of $15 each, or $30 for families at the event. This performance is a part of WCCMA’s Summer Concert Series at Union Church, a music series committed to barriers free access to great music.

Also coming up: Kinan Azmeh and Dinuk Wijeratne Friday August 10

Bassel & The Supernaturals is an eclectic ensemble based in Chicago, IL led by the soulful vocals of Syrian-American songwriter Bassel Almadani. Their music combines soul, jazz, and funk with captivating lyrics about love, loss, corporate life, and a war in Syria that has directly affected Bassel’s family along with over 10,000,000 others.

The soulful Syrian-American vocalist and his ensemble raised over $11,000 during the preorder campaign for their full-length album, Elements (2017), with over $3,000 in donations for humanitarian aid in Syria. They were also featured in the nationally-acclaimed SXSW showcase ContraBanned: #MusicUnites featuring artists from the diaspora of the countries targeted by the travel ban.

In addition to performing in clubs and festivals across the nation, Bassel partners with universities and charity organizations nationwide to host seminars, workshops, and benefit concerts drawing attention to the crisis in Syria.

This Weekend: An Inventive Look at Irish Music with NYC duo

Violinist Dana Lyn and Guitarist Kyle Sanna to perform in Claremont and Cornish

New York City’s Dana Lyn, violin and Kyle Sanna, guitar perform their “through the looking glass” approach to traditional Irish music this weekend “The Coral Suite” in the Upper Valley. Performances will be held at the West Claremont Center for Music and the Arts on Saturday August 4th at 6:30pm, and at Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site on Sunday August 5th at 2pm in honor of Larry Nowlan, Jr.

Also coming up: Wednesday 8/8: Bassel and the Supernatural, Friday 8/10: Kinan Azmeh and Dinuk Wijeratne

Hailed as “ground-breaking” by noted folklorist and NEA Award-recipient Mick Moloney and “bursting with creativity” by renowned fiddler Kevin Burke, Dana Lyn and Kyle Sanna connect the dots between their experience as composers and improvisers in New York City’s rich musical community and their deep admiration for traditional Irish music. The duo has collaborated with some of the greatest living interpreters of Irish music, including Martin Hayes and Dennis Cahill, Cillian Vallely, Kevin Burke, and Mick McAuley.

Lyn and Sanna have brought their inventive arrangements and nuanced interpretations of traditional music to clubs, festival stages and concert halls throughout the US and Canada. They have taught workshops at the Old Songs Festival, the Catskills Irish Arts Festival, the Fairbanks Summer Arts Festival, Wellesley College, West Virginia’s Augusta Heritage Center, Traditional Arts in Upstate New York, and since 2015 have been residents at the Avaloch Farm Music Institute in Boscawen, NH.

Their second album, “The Great Arc”, is inspired by and concerned with extinct and endangered animal species. The Irish Echo hailed it as “a deep musical work full of lavish, evocative textures” and the Dublin-based Grammy-winning singer Susan McKeown called it “sublime”.

Picking up where their last album “The Great Arc” left off, Lyn and Sanna continue their investigation of environmental fragility with “The Coral Suite”: an evocative sequence of Irish tunes that mirrors the life cycles and natural processes that occur within coral reef ecosystems. With the rich vocabulary of Irish melody, and with light boxes featuring Dana Lyn’s artwork, Lyn and Sanna create an audiovisual poem for the reef, paying tribute to its miraculous biodiversity while calling attention to the urgent need for its protection. WCCMA and Saint-Gaudens Memorial are pleased to offer this project as a “Two Day” music experience, with a unique and varied audience experience at each location by the same outstanding musicians.

The performance at Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site is dedicated to Lawrence J. “Larry” Nowlan, Jr (1965-2013). Larry’s love of the ocean and his passion for human creativity in all media is well-expressed in “The Coral Suite”. Come and remember the sculptural legacy and the humanity of a man known to many in the Upper Valley. Sunday’s performance at the park is free with park admission, and a part of the weekly summer music series provided by the Saint-Gaudens Memorial in partnership with the National Park Service. For more information visit sgnhs.org and nps.gov/saga

Saturday’s performance is a part of WCCMA’s Summer Concert Series at Union Church, a music series committed to barriers free access to great music. Admission is by donation. For more information about WCCMA visit wcc-ma.org.