How Africa Met Ireland
In American Song

“For Whites Only” and “No Irish Need Apply” echo one another.

Within the hostile context of the American dreams deferred, came the soaring sounds of African and Irish villages played on the American streets and backroads. Field hollers, folk songs, ballads, jigs, airs, call and response, syncopated rhythms, stepdancing, juba, banjos, fiddles, djembes, koras, bodhrans, halam, mouth music, blues — these were mixed and tumbled together over several centuries, until new American voices emerged. These new voices were not African or Irish, but somehow American with a clear resonance of their roots.

The performance features a cast of a dozen African, Irish, and American musicians. The audience is transported with the raw sounds of West African drumming and Senegalese song; the haunting and joyful lyricism of unaccompanied Irish singing and tin-whistle reels. With exquisite musicianship, we journey through 200 years of American music.