Many of the city’s biggest lakefront music festivals have been downsized in the past few years—the jazz and blues fests lost days in Grant Park, and the Celtic, gospel, and Latin fests were relocated to the much smaller Millennium Park—so it’s remarkable that the World Music Festival is ten days long for the first time since its second incarnation back in 2000, and that its lineup has leaped from 60 artists in 2009 to 100 in 2010.

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The festival began Tuesday, September 21, with India Calling, a three-day block of programming that’s been showcasing a variety of Indian arts, mostly at the Chicago Cultural Center; it was made possible by an infusion of money from Incredible India, a project of India’s Ministry of Tourism that financed a similar event at the Hollywood Bowl last year. The more familiar portion of the festival—a week of shows spread across a couple dozen venues all over the city—kicks off Friday. Michael Orlove of the Department of Cultural Affairs says he’s been able to maintain the size and scope of the event thanks to more sponsorship and new partnerships with private music presenters around town—the Indian Classical Music Society, Sound Culture, Rationation—that reduce the financial burden on the city while giving the presenters a promotional boost.

The larger festival also includes some nonmusic features this year. A program of three documentaries about fest performers screens on Saturday, September 25, in the Cultural Center’s Claudia Cassidy Theater (and one film repeats Tuesday at Instituto Cervantes). Monday through Thursday, September 27 through 30, the G.A.R. Hall hosts World of Instruments, an exhibit of about 50 musical instruments from around the globe, all of them from the private collection of Andy Cohn, owner of the remarkable Andy’s Music (2300 W. Belmont). Store staff and performers from some of the lunchtime Cultural Center sets will offer hands-on demonstrations, and visitors can download an audio guide with sound clips. On hand will be relatively familiar instruments like the kalimba and qanun as well as obscure ones like an English dital harp, a large Bornean lute called a sape, and a double-barreled Balkan shepherd’s pipe called a dvojnice. Certainly the most conspicuous will be a multioctave set of tuned gongs more than 50 feet long. The display is open whenever the Cultural Center is open, but instrument demos will only happen 11 AM-3 PM and 5:30-9:30 PM (except on Thursday, when they’re extended till 11:30 PM).

Thursday, September 23

Friday, September 24

Saturday, September 25

Sunday, September 26

Monday, September 27

Tuesday, September 28

Wednesday, September 29

Thursday, September 30