For eight consecutive years, CTMD has had a wonderful partnership with Lincoln Center Out of Doors to present Heritage Sunday, a celebration of New York City's diverse cultural communities. On August 12 from 3:30PM to 6:30PM, Heritage Sunday returns to the Josie Robertson Plaza of Lincoln Center in a free presentation entitled The Power of Music: Songs of Love and Struggle.

The show will feature CTMD Touring Artists representing the musical traditions of three different continents. Famed singer Merita Halili performs an exquisite repertoire of songs from Central Albania accompanied by the dazzling accordionist Raif Hyseni and his Orchestra. Puerto Rican bomba and plena artists Viento de Agua perform an exciting mix of the folkloric music of Puerto Rico rooted in the African musical tradition.

And leading off will be the West African supergroup Super Manden, the subjects of this month's Master Artist Profile. Hailing originally from Mali and Guinea, Super Manden represents the most accomplished members of the jali musician and oral historian caste of Mandinka culture living in New York. If you know the work of these musicians, you will know the opportunity this event presents, and if you don't, by all means, come join us on the plaza of Lincoln Center to find out what they are all about.

For a Master Artist Profile of Super Manden by CTMD's Archive Director Tom Van Buren, Ph.D., click the following link:

Wednesday, August 8: CTMD Touring Artists McCollough Sons of Thunder perform shout gospel with their brass band ensemble as part of the Lincoln Center Out of Doors Soul of Gospel Festival. Damrosch Park Bandshell. For more information see the Lincon Center website.(7:30PM)

Thursday, August 9: CTMD Touring Artists Los Clarinetes Magicos present a free night of Dominican merengue music at the Harlem Meer Festival in Central Park. Admission free. For more information see Harlem Meer Festival website (6:00PM)

Sunday, August 12: Heritage Sunday at Lincoln Center Out-of-Doors — The Power of Music: Songs of Love and Struggle An outdoor concert featuring Puerto Rican bomba and plena by Viento de Agua, West African jaliya with Abdoulaye Diabate and Super Manden, and urban Albanian folk songs by Merita Halili and the Raif Hyseni Orchestra on the plazas of Lincoln Center, West 65th Street between Columbus and Amsterdam Avenues. Free. (3:30-6:30PM)

Sunday, August 26: CTMD Touring Artist Vodou Drums of Haiti perform as part of Lincoln Center out of Doors's La Casita program. Admission Free. For more information see the Lincoln Center website (1:00PM)

Tuesday, August 28: CTMD Touring Artist Vodou Drums of Haiti perform at a special Lincoln Center La Casita event held at the Pregones Theater in the Bronx. Admission Free. For more information see the Pregones Theater Website (5:00PM)

Saturday, September 15: CTMD Touring Artists McCollough Sons of Thunder perform shout gospel with their brass band ensemble as part of the One World Arts and Culture Festival, Paramount Center for the Arts, Peekskill, NY. For more information see the Paramount Center for the Arts website. (12noon-6:00PM)

Sunday, September 16: New York World Festival — Music around the Mediterranean A collaboration with World Music Institute and Central Park SummerStage featuring Moroccan Gnawa singer Hassan Hakmoun, Orchestra of Tangier, legendary Greek island singer Amalia Papastefanou, Greek clarinetist Lefteris Bournias, Pontic Greek lyra player Chris Tiktapanidis and Dimonis de Mallorca from the Balearic Islands of Spain. Central Park SummerStage (1:30-7:00PM)

Thursday, September 20: CTMD Touring Artists Retumba present Afro-Caribbean music and dance at University of Wisconsin in Eau Claire. For more information see University website

Wednesday, September 26th: Opening reception for the photographic exhibition Voices and Images from Bulgaria 1966. An exhibit of historic photographs taken by CTMD co-founder Martin Koenig that was recently shown in Sofia, Bulgaria. Presented by CTMD in collaboration with the Consul General of the Republic of Bulgaria. At the Bulgarian Consulate General, 121 E 62nd St. (between Lexington and Park Ave.). (5:00PM to 8:00PM)

Friday, September 28: Launch of the fourth year of Pachamama Peruvian Arts featuring demonstrations of Peru's performing arts by master teachers at PS 212, 34-25 82nd Street, Jackson Heights, Queens (7:00-10:00PM)

Saturday, September 29: Vechornytsi (Ukrainian village social dance), a program of CTMD's new Ukrainian Wave Community Cultural Initiative. Join dance leader Tamara Chernyakhovska in learning Ukrainian folk dances. Music by Andriy Milavsky and Cheres at Ukrainian East Village Restaurant, 140 Second Ave. between 8th and 9th Streets in Manhattan. (Instruction 7:30-8:15PM; Dance party 8:30-11:00PM).

Sunday, September 30: Yiddish Dance Classes begin in collaboration with the 92nd Street Y. Eight three-hour intensive sessions will be taught by Walter Zev Feldman and other master dance leaders on the following Sundays: September 30, October 21, November 18, January 20, February 17, March 30, April 27, and June 1. For more information and registration see the 92nd St. Y website.

Friday, October 7: Pachamama Peruvian Arts fall semester of classes in a variety of music and dance forms begin weekly at PS 212 (3:30-6:30PM)

Thursday, October 11: First monthly Tantshoyz (Dance House) in collaboration with the JCC in Manhattan & Workmen's Circle. Yiddish dance led by Zev Feldman with live klezmer music. Dancers of all skill levels welcome. At the JCC in Manhattan, 334 Amsterdam Avenue at 76th Street (7:00-10:00PM)

Saturday, October 20: Vechornytsi (Ukrainian village social dance), a program of CTMD's new Ukrainian Wave Community Cultural Initiative. A special Vechornytsi presenting Canadian-Ukrainian Prairie music from Alberta. Led by tsymbaly (hammered dulcimer) player/ethnomusicologist Brian Cherwick and folk dance scholar/dance master Andriy Nahachewsky. Ukrainian East Village Restaurant, 140 Second Ave. between 8th and 9th Streets in Manhattan. (Instruction 7:30-8:15PM; Dance party 8:30-11:00PM).

We're already getting excited for the upcoming New York World Festival on Sunday, September 16th from 1:30PM-7:00PM at Central Park's SummerStage. A collaboration between CTMD, World Music Institute and SummerStage, the festival brings top international performing artists together with New York-based artists for a meeting of cultures from around the Mediterranean.

This spectacular event will showcase the rich traditions of Morocco, Greece and Spain with an extraordinary line-up of artists: Hassan Hakmoun, the premier exponent of Moroccan Gnawa music in America performing ecstatic music and dance from Gnawa trance ceremonies; Orchestra of Tangier, a leading Moroccan ensemble specializing in Andalusian music; legendary Greek island singer Amalia Papastefanou with master clarinetist Lefteris Bournias; Pontic lyra player Christos Tiktapanidis; and the masked Dimonis de Mallorca from the Balearic Islands of Spain, who will open the show with a festive and colorful parade of masked "demons," drummers and bagpipers.

We'll provide more information in the next Global Beat of the Boroughs eNewsletter, plus a special profile of featured artist Amalia Papastefanou. Central Park SummerStage is at the Rumsey Playfield, mid-park at 69th Street. Suggested donation is $10.

Photo by Jack Vartoogian/FrontRowPhotos

We are saddened by news of the passage of Dr. Mirjana ("Minja") Lausevic, a Univesity of Minnesota ethnomusicologist and singer who profiled CTMD (and its history as the Balkan Arts Center and the Ethnic Folk Arts Center) in her recent book Balkan Fascination (Oxford University Press, 2006).

Lausevic was born and raised in the multi-ethnic city of Sarajevo in the former Yugoslavia. She earned her bachelor's degree in Musicology-Ethnomusicology from Sarajevo University in 1988. Much of her research since that time examined how music has helped both unite and divide ethnic groups in her native Balkans.

Lausevic earned her master's degree (in 1993) and doctorate (in 1998) in ethnomusicology at Wesleyan University. She published numerous articles based on her fieldwork in the towns and countryside of Bosnia, Serbia, Croatia and the United States.

Lausevic enjoyed performing music as well as studying it. She once led a traditional Bosnian vocal group named Yu-Etno. In New England, she sang and played keyboard with her group Zabe i Babe, which recorded the compact disc Drumovi (Bison Publishing) and was featured on public television's Exploring Worlds of Music series.

Lausevic is survived by her husband, musician Tim Eriksen and two young children, Anja and Luka.

Acclaimed Lebanese oud player and composer Charbel Rouhana will celebrate the release of his new CD, "Art of the Middle Eastern Oud" (ARC music) and play a short set at Alwan for the Arts, 16 Beaver Street, 4th floor in Lower Manhattan on August 13 at 8PM (followed by a dance party at 10PM). For more information, go to the Alwan website.

For those of you who were sorry you didn't bring your kids to see Music From China perform a gorgeous set of Chinese classical and folk music as part CTMD's spring Sizhu concert series, you have a second chance on Wednesday, August 15th from 11AM-12 noon in the beautiful garden setting of Wave Hill (Independence Avenue at 249th Street in the Bronx). The ensemble will present a family program featuring Wang Guowei on erhu (two-string fiddle), Susan Chang on yangqin (hammered dulcimer) and Sun Li on pipa (lute). For more information go to the Wave Hill website.

Nadia Tarnawsky, a wonderful Ukrainian- American singer/bandurist and former student par excellence of our very own Julian Kytasty (co- Artistic Director of CTMD's Ukrainian Wave Community Cultural Initaitve), presents Ancestral Voices, an original dance- theatre piece based on the poetry of Oleksander Oles, Lesia Ukrainka, Taras Shevchenko and Mykhailo Drai-Khmara (translated by Nadia Tarnawsky and Helene Turkewicz-Sanko). It plays as part of the New York International Fringe Festival at the Linhart Theatre @ 440 Studios (440 Lafayette, 3rd floor / Astor Place and East 4th Street). Performances are scheduled for Wednesday, August 15 at 5 pm, Thursday, August 16 at 3 pm, Thursday, August 16 at 9 pm, Friday, August 17 at 9:45 pm and Saturday, August 18 at 3:30 pm. For tickets and more information go to the Fringe Festival website

In addition to Heritage Sunday and other dates noted above, some of our other friends are featured as part of this summer's busy Lincoln Center Out of Doors program. On Sunday August 19, at 7:00PM CTMD Touring Artist Andy Statman performs with Nashville great Ricky Skaggs in the Damrosch Park Bandshell. We're not sure whether to expect klezmer, bluegrass, jazz or something in between. Rumor has it Skaggs might show up the following night for Andy's regular 8:30PM gig at tiny Congregation Derech Amuno (Charles St at West 4th in Greenwich Village). Our long-time friend and NEA National Heritage Award winner Mick Moloney will play an Irish set with friends on Monday, August 20th at 7:30PM on the Josie Robertson Plaza. Mick is followed by the frenetic fiddling of Parisian klezmo-Gypsy-jazz band Les Yeux Noirs. From Beijing Opera to New York Latin Boogaloo to American roots music there's a whole lot to see - check out the Lincoln Center website.

Jeffrey Wollock, who served as a field researcher for CTMD's Soviet Jewish Community Cultural Initiative Nashi Traditsii, has a new article on the Boiberiker Kapelye published in the latest edition of the Journal of the Association of Recorded Sound Collections. The Boiberiker Kapelye was an important New York klezmer ensemble in the 1920's and 1930's. Founded by Galician klezmorim Berish Katz and Hersh Gross, the Boiberiker ensemble also featured the legendary clarinetist Dave Tarras, who worked with CTMD (then the Balkan Arts Center) on an influential series of concerts and a studio recording in the late 1970s that helped jump start the international revival of klezmer. Wollock's article provides considerable new detail about the Boiberiker Kapelye and its members.