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Founded in 1998 by Anya Grokhovski, Musical Bridges Around the World brings top musicians in many different genres from around the world to perform here for free. Another offering from them is UNITYFest, which runs from Thursday through Sunday.
“In my mind, the world of music is like a huge quilt, which is every part of it is rich in its own way,” Grokhovski said.
She notes that UNITYFest celebrates both our similarities, and our differences. She said this year, the festival has an even larger reason to celebrate.
“So this festival was born out of the celebration of the 250th anniversary of the United States,” she said. “And we are a nation of immigrants.”
Suhail Arastu has been working for Musical Bridges for years, and here he details their Saturday and Sunday concerts.
“We'll have three concerts at Stable Hall at two o'clock, four o'clock, and then 7:30 that evening,” Arastu said. “And we'll start with Korean Rock, and then we'll have Irish folk music and American jazz in the evening. So it'll be nice trifecta,” he said. “We've never really done rock music and but this ties tradition of masked Korean theater with modern rock, and so it's a pretty unique ensemble.”
And then the music just keeps on coming. “And then Socks in the Frying Pan are Irish folk. And then we've got Shelly Carolyn and Brad Leali as our jazz group that evening, Chuck Parish and Bradley Kaiser and James Sanders,” Arastu said.
“Then we close the festival on Sunday, and we'll have Kitka, which is in partnership with Caritas over at The Chapel the Incarnate Word Eastern European song tradition," said Aratsu. "And then we'll close the festival at the Majestic Theater that evening with Kaihan Kalhor and Ergal Arjun Kayhan from Iran and Turkey, respectively, two of the great musicians of those nations and those traditions.”
Admission to the events is free.
The overriding theme with Musical Bridges Around the World is a sense that we are all interrelated, and to behave otherwise takes too large a toll.
“We're all one, we're all humanity, and we're sharing this planet,” he said. “So why not enjoy that process? We find this common thread to be through the arts, and it exists in many forms.”
