First-ever Global Beat Festival at Brookfield Place

The Global Beat Festival is a four-day free extravaganza at Brookfield Place Winter Garden that brings together a stellar lineup of musicians from France, Armenia, Turkey, Pakistan and other far-flung locales.

On four nights from June 13th to June 17th, the free festival presented by Arts Brookfield will bring together a stellar lineup of artists from disparate locales ranging from Paris and Kiev to Lahore and Tehran. Highlights include former Nouvelle Vague chanteuse Mélanie Pain in her New York City debut; Armenia’s Jivan Gasparyan, who will be appearing as part of the last tour of his seventy-year career; and DakhaBraka Kiev quartet that infuses Ukrainian folk music with global rhythms, with a dash of avant-garde theatricality.

Other celebrated acts on the roster include Haitian-Canadian singer-songwriter Mélissa Laveaux, Turkey’s The Secret Trio, Pakistan’s Poor Rich Boy, Iran’s Kayhan Kalhor, and Turkish electronic-music star Mercan Dede, whose concerts feature a female Whirling Dervish dancer.

“Brookfield Place has always been an international hub for commerce and culture, and the Global Beat Festival showcases our deep roots from all over the world,” said Debra Simon, Vice President and Artistic Director of Arts Brookfield. “We’re thrilled to offer our audiences a musical journey that will take them around the globe in four eclectic days of enthralling free concerts.”

The Global Beat Festival is presented by Arts Brookfield. The final evening is co-presented by Istanbulive VI, an all-day showcase of Turkish music. Launched in 2009, Istanbulive has brought some of the largest and most diverse gatherings of musicians from Turkey to American stages.

Monday, June 16

Poor Rich Boy (Pakistan) – Discretely subversive, Poor Rich Boy, Pakistan’s underground indie-art rock phenomenon, conjures the strangeness of everyday life in a society where expressing one’s inner world can be both a cathartic and subtly rebellious act. Enigmatic and layered, the band’s striking vocals, atmospheric sounds, and occasional kazoo create a crystalline sound that suggests, but rarely reveals.