We kicked off our 2013 Concert of Colors experience with some great performances at the Detroit Institute of Arts on Friday and followed the festival action as it moved to the home of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra (Orchestra Hall, or more simply, The Max) on Saturday.
We make it a point to see as many shows as we can each day and here are some highlights of Saturday's Concert of Colors bill.
Our first stop on Saturday was at the outdoor stage as the Detroit School of Arts Vision Male Ensemble finished their set and Kate Monaghan took to the stage with a set of blues-influenced music. The great thing about this stage was the eclectic bill of music fare served up during the weekend, but the weather wasn't as cooperative as both Saturday and Sunday wore on, raining out some of the later acts each day.
Next we checked out the festival's Main Stage where Malian artist Fatoumata Diawara performed a set of wassoulou, a West African musical style that blends traditional and modern influences into a genre believed by many music scholars to be one of the origins of American blues. Wassoulou usually features a strong female performance and an expressive style like Diawara's, who gave life to the music its history.
The other inside performance space, the Diversity Stage, hosted a performance by Celtic artist Cathie Ryan Saturday afternoon. Ryan, who grew up in the Detroit area, reminisced about her first exposure to Celtic music at the city's Gaelic League as her family and friends joined the crowd to hear her set. Celtic fans may best remember Ryan as a member of Cherish the Ladies, an all-female Irish-American musical group. Ryan emerged as a solo artist in the mid-1990s and now tours with a band that includes musicians like Patsy O'Brien and Matt Mancuso who accompanied her at the Concert of Colors.
We went back to the Main Stage to check out Canzoniere Grecanico Salentino, a group who reportedly wowed audiences earlier this year during a Global Fridays performance at the Arab American National Museum in Dearborn, Michigan. The seven-member band and a dancer honor and re-invent the traditions of Southern Italy's Pizzica folk music and dance with their performances, and I especially loved seeing the wide variety of traditional instruments they played during this show.
Funk fans showed up in force for the night's headliner on the Main Stage, The Family Stone. The band's current line-up includes three original members of the original Sly and the Family Stone band and performed a blistering set that featured many of the original band's best-loved and most well known songs from their 1960s and 1970s heyday as the crowd roared and sang along with every word.
We capped the evening by returning to the Diversity Stage by checking out the funk-flavored calypso of Kobo Town, a band headed by Trinidad-born and Toronto-based musician Drew Gonsalves. Kobo Town takes its name from an historic neighborhood in Port-of-Spain known as the birthplace of calypso music.
It was a great day of music for us, and best of all, we still had another day to anticipate and enjoy! Check back for my next Concert of Colors recap, which will cover the festival's final day of performances.
Want to check out some of the music we heard for yourself? Here are some Amazon links for music from Kate Monaghan, Fatoumata Diawara, Cathie Ryan, Canzoniere Grecanico Salentino, The Family Stone and Kobo Town.
© Dominique King 2013 All rights reserved
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