Two organizations that present world music have announced their schedules for the coming season, and between them they offer a large sampling of the world’s traditional music forms as well as contemporary styles with distinctive regional accents.
The World Music Institute has an expansive schedule with concerts all over Manhattan and at Roulette in Brooklyn. Its season opens with a concert that brings together the Soil, an a cappella trio; the singer Simphiwe Dana, whose songs embrace African and American forms and deal with political issues; and Tumi Molekane, a hip-hop singer, at the Apollo Theater (Oct. 11).
Among the institute’s other offerings are the Touré-Raichel Collective – a collaboration between the Malian guitar virtuoso Vieux Farka Touré and the Israeli singer-songwriter Idan Raichel (whose work brings together Jewish, Arab and African music) – at Symphony Space (Nov. 18) and Cherish the Ladies, an Irish-American folk and step-dancing ensemble, also at Symphony Space (March 7); Opre Romani!, a celebration of Roma music at Le Poisson Rouge (April 24) and a concert by the Indian singer Rezwana Chowdhury Bonnya, devoted to songs composed by the poet Rabindranath Tagore, at Symphony Space (June 6).
The institute is also presenting a series devoted to Indian traditional music with performances by the singer Kaushiki Chakrabarty (Nov. 14), the dance troupe Nrityagram (Jan. 10), both at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the sitarist Ustad Shahid Parvez Khan at Symphony Space (April 10).
The full schedule is available at the institute’s website, worldmusicinstitute.org.
Robert Browning, who founded the World Music Institute with his wife, Helene, in 1985, retired in 2011 and then, after having second thoughts about his retirement, started Robert Browning Associates, is also presenting an expansive season with an emphasis on traditional styles. His season begins with a Women’s Voices Festival, with female vocalists and instrumentalists from India, at St. Peter’s Church (Oct. 4 to 24).
Mr. Browning’s prospectus includes other Indian musicians as well, in performances at Roulette – among them, the sitarist Shakir Khan (Oct. 25) (son of Ustad Shahid Parvez Khan).
For flamenco aficionados, the Espiritu Gitano ensemble – a troupe of 10 singers, dancers and players – will perform at Roulette (Nov. 15) and “Generations of Gypsy Flamenco” brings together four virtuoso dancers – Concha Vargas, Pepe Torres, Gema Moneo and Manolete at Town Hall (March 20). A mini-festival of music from Quebec, including an appearance by the progressive folk band Le Vent du Nord, takes place at Roulette (April 10-11), and Lucilla Galeazzi will sing the folk music of Umbria, Calabria and Puglia at Zankel Hall (March 27).
An earlier version of this post misidentified the Malian guitar virtuoso who is a part of the Touré-Raichel Collective with the Israeli singer-songwriter Idan Raichel. He is Vieux Farka Touré, not Ali Farka Touré. (Ali Farka Touré, who died in 2006, was the father of Vieux Farka Touré.) The post also misstated the date of a concert by Rezwana Chowdhury Bonnya. It is June 6, not June 15.