Yemen’s influence on folk music of Israel — at the heart of the songs of Yemeni-Israeli musical legends like Ofra Haza — is strong….

If you’re a Saudi musician the daf drum will be your best friend….

Were the decades between World War II and the start of the Lebanese Civil War (1975) the Golden Age of Lebanese pop music…?

Let’s sing with Syria’s Sabah Fakhri….

Rida El Abdallah is one of Iraq’s most popular homegrown pop stars….

After all these years, Googoosh still knows how to wow a crowd….

Richard Hagopian shows us the way to Armenia….

Orhan Gencebay is one of the giants of the Turkish entertainment industry….

Negar Kharkan really knows how to play that Kamancheh….

Let’s join our friends Aba Diop and the Yermande Family, a collective of grand griots from Senegal, to connect the dots between generations of West African music-makers…

In class we “Connect the Dots” with the Lindy Hop….

Flamenco is Spanish high art, a powerful genre of music that developed from the multilingual, multicultural mix of Arabs, Jews, Christians and Romani present in Andalusia in the centuries after the 1492 Spanish “reconquest” of the Iberian Peninsula….

‘Imene tuki are a heavenly hybrid, songs that infuse Church hymns with cascading multi-part harmonies and elements of pre-colonization chants that capture the musical spirit of the Pacific’s Cook Islands….

Let’s meet Caliu, violin master of the Romani band, Taraf de Haïdouks….

Baila is a genre of music from Sri Lanka that draws upon infulences you may not expect to find in a South Asian nation — specifically, Caribbean calypso…..

What could be better than four accordion masters performing tejano music…? FIVE!

In a “Calypso War,” two Calypsonians improvise songs in competition against each other to be most clever and entertaining, usually while taking verbal jabs at one another….

This week in music class we start in South Asia and explore the beloved “drone,” which makes us think of the sitar. Which makes us think of this….

The beloved “Queen of Salsa," Celia Cruz, was one of 14 siblings born in a small village near Havana, Cuba. In her childhood she sang for tourists, in school and community productions, and for her younger siblings to help them go to sleep….