This coming weekend, experience three innovative evenings of transformation as our 12th annual San Francisco World Music Festival brings together the music of many cultures in a festival commissioned world premiere called The Epic Project: Madmen, Heroines & Bards from Around the World, featuring world renowned master musicians and the Festival’s International Music Youth Orchestra from the San Francisco Bay Area and several countries abroad, with Artistic Direction by Michael Santoro, Music Direction by Jim Santi Owen, Scenic & Lighting Design by Matthew Antaky and new music by international music composers Swapan Chaudhuri (North Indian), Imamyar Hasanov (Azerbaijani), Anuradha Sridhar (South Indian), and Wang Xin Xin (Chinese).
From the Silk Road steppes of Kyrgyzstan and the Yanar Dag fire mountains of Azerbaijan to the Sun Moon Lake forests of Taiwan and the Tamil Nadu rivers of India, The Epic Project: Madmen, Heroines & Bards from Around the World brings together master performers of Epic songs together for the first time on one stage. Drawing from the world’s oldest Epics, including video projections live-streamed from several countries around the world, this three-day commission will feature Ashyg poet minstrel Gulara Zeynalova singing folk dastans of Azerbaijan, a Chinese Nanguan master performing Dream of the Red Chamber, and a Krygyz Manas epic chanter telling the story of its hero, Manas, in one of the world’s longest epics!
