VAL’CASSINO
6.00

Val' Cassino Music is a project bringing traditional southern Italian songs to the city, reaching beyond the well-trod repertoire into the deeper depths of tradition.  Like so much folk music of the world, these songs represent the artistic legacy of generations of disenfranchised, often illiterate people, and are a living testament to the consciousnesses of human beings whose worlds are otherwise lost to us.
Poverty, fate, mysticism, beauty, folk wisdom, and unbridled emotion constitute the world of these songs.  Through music, people found expression not only in their sufferings but in the moments of ecstatic happiness they found, princpally in one another.

AL QAHWA
8.00

Al Qahwa is Maryem Tollar on vocals, riqq (Arabic tambourine) and qanun (Arabic table harp); Ernie Tollar on wind instruments; Demetri Petsalakis on oud and Naghmeh Fahrahmand on percussion. For their fourth recording, “Weyn Allah” they added Waleed Abdulhamid on bass and vocals and Lauren Barnett (b.up vocals and sax). Roula Said (b.up vocals, percussion and dance) will join the group for this concert t DROM. Al Qahwa performs original compositions, as well as popular traditional Arabic repertoire – from Sufi Devotional Love songs from the Arab World to popular folk songs, to classic Egyptian songs made famous by the stars of Egypt (the Hollywood of the Middle East). This will be their last show before their beloved member Ernie Tollar must leave to undergo medical treatment so let's make this a night to remember!