Tonight is part of our series Nisa’a/Women: Muslim Cultural Identity-Six Women on Stage and in Conversation. Nisa’a celebrates the powerful artistry of women with roots in Muslim communities in the U.S. and around the world. During extended engagements in the city, these artists will perform and participate in conversations with students at Baltimore City public schools and audiences at the Creative Alliance. The dialogue will focus on challenging prevalent stereotypes and building a deeper understanding of the vast artistic identity that is part of the extraordinarily diverse Muslim cultural world.

Imagined hybrids from lost empires, the unexpected sounds of Sandaraa ("song" in Pashto) show how Eastern Europe, the Indus Civilization, and Central Asia connect. The melismatic might of modal music and the ringing grit of mountain songs, the rollicking trance beats, and restrained emotional intensity, have an eerie resonance, despite surface differences. A magical world of global sounds comes alive when superstar, Pakistani vocalist Zeb Bangash joins forces with a retinue of leading Brooklyn musicians led by Klezmer clarinet virtuoso Michael Winograd to unlock the musical secrets and history of their regions steeped in ecstatic mysticism, war, migrations, and ancient cities lost to the sands of time.

Zebunnisa (Zeb) Bangash is one of Pakistan's most loved vocalists and songwriters, Along with partner Haniya Aslam, she is the lead singer of the duo Zeb and Haniya. Zeb and Haniya made a splash on Pakistan's music scene with their debut album Chup and managed to find audiences in countries where they haven't even officially released their music; the best examples are neighbors Afghanistan and India but include the Central Asian countries of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan and East Asian countries including Indonesia and Malaysia. Zeb is part of the first generation of Pakistani musicians to have established themselves internationally by way of social media. In particular, Zeb and Haniya's musical collaborations on Pakistan's Coke Studio program have gone viral, winning them fans well beyond Pakistan's borders. Zeb has been a delegate at Poptech, a global conference on innovation in 2011, and is a Fellow at the US Pakistan Leadership Forum since 2012. Zeb and Haniya represented Pakistan in the fall of 2012 as part of the US State Department's Center Stage project, promoting Pakistan's culture all over the United States.

Michael Winograd is a clarinetist living in Brooklyn, New York. He specializes in Klezmer music and has concertized and taught all over the world. Michael has played with Itzhak Perlman, Socalled, Budowitz, Frank London, the Klezmer Conservatory Band, The Painted Bird, Ayelet Gottlieb, and many more. He is one-third of the Yiddish Art Trio, co-leads the Tarras Band, and his newest project - Sandaraa, a collaboration with vocalist Zeb Bangash from Lahore, Pakistan, received the prestigious Map Fund Fellowship in 2013. Michael's latest recording, Storm Game - was released on Golden Horn Records in 2012. Michael is one of the founders of Yiddish New York, a festival and workshop dedicated to Yiddish music and culture that started in December 2015.

This project is made possible through The Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Arts Building Bridge’s Program.

The mission of the Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Art’s Building Bridges Program is to advance relationships, increase understanding, and reduce bias between Muslim and non-Muslim communities.

FRI SEP 28 | 8PM | $13, $10 MEMBERS (+$3 At the door)