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Festival Preview (excerpts)
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Ashland Daily Tidings, Festival Preview (excerpts) >>
By Robert Plain
The One World Concert Series has a difficult set of goals and demographics to please in bringing world music to Southern Oregon University and Ashland.
While the concerts are funded in large part by Southern Oregon University student fees, the series' mission to celebrate "the richness of diversity by presenting a variety of music and performances from around the globe," according to its Website tends to attract the more of the greater Ashland community, says Maria
Kelly, the executive director of One World.
Hale said "student shows" would be more along the lines of pop and reggae artists. "Things like that' she said. "They had the Indigo Girls that was their closest attempt."
She said the trick to her job, scheduling and promoting concerts for One World, is to strike the right mix of shows that satisfy the student's musical tastes and shows that satisfy One World's mission.
On Thursday night, One World's final concert of the season is Tinariwen, rock/folk band from Algeria that performs sung poetry about the revolutionary struggles in their native land of Africa. Kelly says this show is unlikely to draw many SOU students, but it fits the One World agenda and will likely appeal to many Ashlanders, who will pay twice as much for a ticket as would a student.
"It's discouraging," Kelly said. "The more obscure world music sells less quickly, which makes it more economically challenging to bring them here."
For next season, Kelly said it is likely that the world music will be scaled down some, in order to please the students. "We'll be moving away from world music a little bit," she said. "Instead it will focus more on the melting pot of music from our own country."
Staff writer Robert Plain can be
reached at 482-3456 x 226 or
bplain@dailytldings, com 04/19/06
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