In 2010 a sponsored three-day celebration of Indian culture allowed Chicago’s World Music Festival to expand from seven days to ten, and even without that extra bump, its 13th annual edition is eight days long. Given how diminished many of the city’s other music fests have been by budget cuts, it’s an impressive accomplishment, even considering that the first day’s programming consists of just one show—a free set by Chicago’s Occidental Brothers Dance Band International at Summerdance.
Cafe Antarsia Locals Cafe Antarsia dress up their story-songs with facile flourishes of eastern European and cabaret music and heaping helpings of theatrical overkill. —PM
7:30 PM | Spirit of Music Garden
House of Waters The hammered dulcimer is a very versatile instrument, and Max ZT of House of Waters spends both his band’s CDs, Elsewhere and Peace the Coats, demonstrating that. Sometimes sounding like a mandolin, sometimes like a harp, sometimes like a kalimba, sometimes like a pizzicato violin, the dulcimer provides the trio’s backbone with its delicate, almost liquid notes. Bassist Moko Fukushima (who has roots in jazz) and percussionist Luke Notary (who’s studied with a djembe master in Senegal and toured with Cirque du Soleil) pitch in to create a sound that’s mostly calm and graceful, dominated by resonating strings. The music could use a little more dynamic range, and the players have assimilated their Indian and African training and influences so smoothly they almost disappear—but it’s hard to argue with the loveliness of their performances. —MK
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Dikanda This mostly acoustic Polish fusion band brings an air of mystery to its first American tour—as its website explains, “Most of Dikanda’s songs is written in Dikandish language. The written form doesn’t exist. For this reason, below we are publishing lyrics of some traditional songs only.” This is accompanied by translations of Serbian, Macedonian, and Hungarian tunes—and Dikanda sure travels with a full bag of those. Formed in 1997 by singer and accordionist Anna Witczak, the group plays a mix of Balkan and other eastern European music, spiced liberally with Turkish, Persian, and Arabic elements. It’s both restlessly exuberant and unabashedly romantic, as if Loreena McKennitt’s band got into the same slivovitz as Gogol Bordello and they all started falling in love with one another . . . and singing serenades in a made-up language. You might think you’re too jaded for such foolishness, but there’s a good chance that feeling will rub off on you. —MK
8:30 PM | Navy Pier
