The 2008 Sudan Festival of Music and builds on the success of the 2007 Festival in New York.  This year’s lineup will include all of last year’s artists and more, and will appear in more cities.  Click here for roster, locations and dates.  Here is Afropop Worldwide’s review of the 2007 Festival. 

July 21, 2007
Text and photos by Banning Eyre

Sudan is Africa’s largest country, and one of its most troubled.  But if the first annual Sudanese Music and Dance Festival at Central Park Summerstage in New York on July 21, 2007, is any indication, it is possible for this country’s diverse peoples not only to get along but to, literally, make beautiful music.  This gathering of artists from many regions of Sudan came together from locations around the world for this unique sonic summit.  It was an extraordinary effort on the part of Summerstage, a new internet television offering, StayTunedTV.TV (where you can see the performers in action), the Sudanese Information Center, and perhaps most of all, a behind-the-scenes wizard of the American world music scene, Dawn Elder.  Elder’s concept was to bring a broad selection of musicians and singers together under the direction of Sudanese maestro Yousif El Moseley, and let them create.  Some of the expected participants were delayed by the American INS in Cairo.  Others were prevented from arriving one way or another.  Rehearsal time was short.  But for all that, over 30 artists took the stage for a four-hour concert on a perfect summer day, and the result was spectacular.

Yousif El Moseley moved from singing traditional songs with percussion to composing for and performing with wedding bands in 1970s Khartoum.  As a star student at the Institute of Drama and Music, El Moseley earned the chance to travel to Cairo, where he attained a Masters degree in composition, and produced albums by the top Sudanese singers of the late 1980s.  During those fruitful years, he worked with many of the artists who took the stage in Central Park.  Shortly after his return to Khartoum, this tale of promise ended with the coup of 1989, and the imposition of sharia law.  From this time onwards, life became terribly difficult for musicians.  There was an 11PM curfew, and popular figures faced pressure to sing for the regime, and those, like El Moseley, who refused suffered the consequences.  El Moseley soon returned to Cairo and continued working from there, but as in the case of many great Sudanese musicians, his path eventually led to the United States.  He now lives and works in Monterey, California, and other principles in the New York performance presently live in Virginia, South Carolina, and other American locations, as well as the UK and Gulf States, such as Qatar. 

On stage, El Moseley conducted the Nile Music Orchestra, consisting of six violinists—led by another Sudanese veteran, Merghani El Zain—three guitarists, three saxophonists, three beautiful female dancer/singers, four percussionists, drums, bass (played by three different musicians), and keyboards.  After El Moseley led the orchestra through an instrumental warmup, and sang a song in praise of women, a parade of vocalists took their turns at microphone.  There were fellow veterans like Ali al Sigaid and Omar Benaga, who danced with a black staff, and earned roars of approval from the largely Sudanese audience with his powerful voice.  A young singer named Osama el Sheikh was lesser known, but equally effective.

A high point of the show was a four-song mini-set by two-thirds of Sudan’s most famous girl group, Al Balabil (the Nightingales).  As three sisters, Al Balabil were more or less the Supremes of East Africa in the 70s and 80s.  Even as two, all these years later, they proved tremendously charming and sang deep songs in hypnotic unison, leaving the crowd eager for more. 

Many of these musicians established themselves in the north of Sudan, mostly in Khartoum, but some of the players, and two of the featured singers have distinctly different stories.  Emmanuel Kembe hails from the south, and tells a harrowing tale of escape from war and oppression there.  He was literally saved by his ability to sing and play guitar at points.  Of course, that was also the thing that got him in trouble, especially his song “Shem Shem,” condemning civil war and the persecution of the south by the north.  The Nile Music Orchestra took on Kembe’s signature song, a reggae number, but hesitated to tackle another of his songs, “Celebrate,” resorting to accompanying a CD of the accompaniment instead.  This sold Kembe short, but in the larger scheme of things, it was a flaw easily addressed in future manifestations of this concept.

Closing the show, Omer Ihsas of Darfur delivered a stirring set.  A charismatic performer with a cool, authoritative voice, Ihsas looked resplendent in his chiffon robe, and sang passionately.  His performance dignified the people and cultures of Darfur in a way nothing in all the media coverage of life (and death) there has so far.  This event was aimed at presenting Sudan in a context bigger than the genocide in Darfur, but this being the crisis of the moment, Ihsas provided the appropriate ending note. 

Naturally, Sudanese politics could not be excluded from such a performance.  The artists seemed at times uncomfortable with the large protest banners audience members raised during the second half.  At the same time, they seemed to understand.  Given the bleak history of Sudan, it is not an easy thing for this community to come together in a far away land and celebrate itself.  But that made the music, with its elegance, grace, and quirky funkiness, all the more moving.