WBOB Original Reads

Newport Jazz Festival Extra: "A Bridge Together," Connecting Jazz, African Beats and Indian Carnatic Music

8/3/2017

Bridgefest 2017, under the auspices of Newport Festivals Foundation, Inc. will present A Bridge Together, a special concert and Newport Jazz Festival® "extra" that connects Jazz, African Beats and Indian Carnatic music, on Thursday, August 3, at 6:30 pm on the Quad Stage at Fort Adams State Park.

A Bridge Together stars a performance by Rita and Sara Kapoor. (PRNewsfoto/Newport Festivals Foundation)This pre-Newport Jazz Festival event will showcase the multicultural connections between music and movement. The two-part concert features dance segments by 17-year old twins, Riya and Sara Kapoor, accompanied by a Carnatic music orchestra featuring musicians from India. Guru Swati Bhise is the Conductor and Choreographer for the music and orchestra arrangement for this dance segment. The jazz quartet will be led by award-winning guitarist Rez Abbasi and West African compositions, directed by the noted West African choreographer and dancer, Maguette Camara.

Fusing Indian, African and American dance and music traditions, A Bridge Together raises the question for the audience: "Are we so different after all?"

Part I is an exploration of music from West Africa, India and the US. Part II introduces the expressive, athletic Kapoor sisters, whose study of Bharatanatyam led to their first appearance on stage at age 15 at their debut event at Jazz at Lincoln Center. Newport Festivals Foundation CEO/founder George Wein was in the audience when Riya and Sara made their debut and was determined to bring some of the magic he saw on stage to Newport.

"These young women are tremendous," said Wein. "The dances are very intricate and beautiful, but what I loved is how they brought jazz into these very traditional art forms. They've modernized the dances in a wonderful way while adding a delightfully different perspective to jazz music."

The Newport Folk Festival (www.newportfolk.org) takes place at Fort Adams State Park July 28-30, 2017 followed by Newport Jazz Festival presented by Natixis Global Asset Management (www.newportjazz.org) August 4-6, 2017 at Fort Adams and the International Tennis Hall of Fame at the Newport Casino.

Newport Festivals Foundation was founded by George Wein in 2010 to build and continue the legacies of the famed Newport Jazz Festival® and Newport Folk Festival®. For more information, please visit www.newportfestivalsfoundation.org.