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Ian Ritchie (Artistic Director of the Festival) and also Director of the famous City of London Festival wants to perpetuate what will be an amazing event in Setúbal at Portugal Dream Coast, called Setúbal Music Festival. 

The 1st Annual Setúbal Music Festival will be on May 27th, 28th and 29th of May 2011 and during this three days the Festival will cover 750 years of Portuguese Music, from medieval era up to the editions of this year. The Setúbal Music Festival is the result of synergies betwee

by Diana Lambdin Meyer

Jazz in Kansas City is not like jazz in New Orleans or in any other great American music city. It’s a little more bluesy, a little heavier on the keyboards and bass, not so bold with the brass. They call it “cool jazz” here, jazz that’s a little gentler on the spirit.

In case you didn’t know, Kansas City is where jazz grew up. After its birth in the Big Easy, the music migrated to KC and became a smart-aleck teenager, with attitude and a vision for the future. That’s what

Costa Rica is a well known country, for its diversity in flora and fauna, ecotourism and sustainability, everything in the same equation. However, there are a number of characteristics that   might not be signature features in a global level, but are important elements of the real Costa Rica, which open a big amount of options to visitors and locals, that along with the typical definition of the country as ¨natural paradise¨, allow Costa Rica to offer this extra value going beyond its principal

by David Paul Appell

The suburbs of the world have generally not been considered hotbeds of serious culture (sorry, multiplexes screening Gnomeo and Juliet and Justin Bieber: Never Say Never don’t count). But in Israel, the municipality of Holon, some 3 1/2 miles (6 km) outside Tel Aviv, has been racing to transform itself in the past half dozen years into just that. Designed by world-class local architect Ron Arad, the 65-million-shekel (US$17-million) Design Museum Holon, a vision in red and o

Tlaquepaque is an old oasis within Guadalajara's modern big city sprawl. A small village that has been able to hold on to olden times and lifestyle. It is Mexico's premiere Arts and Crafts capital and your visit will certainly bring you to discover breathtaking works in ceramics, iron, blown glass, leather, wood and many other materials. Many of these creations are authored by local artisans and artists that live in this enclave and show and sell their works to you directly, many times from thei

When we’re at home reading the headlines, watching the news, we can so easily reduce people of other cultures and countries to their problems.

I was reminded of this when listening to a recent broadcast of Tapestry on CBC Radio (their podcasts are free). I was also reminded of an objection I received to a post I wrote in which I suggested that Cuba has a unique sense of luxury. This is a bit of a response.

We are always more than the sum of our problems.
Tariq Ramadan was the guest being intervie

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Ireland's fourth largest city (pop. 80,000), located roughly midway along the country's Atlantic coast - and a nearly straight shot of a bit over two hours west of Dublin - boasts a history stretching back nearly a thousand years. But today it's best known for its lively, often boho social, cultural, and music scene (turbo-charged by its youthful university population, a good 20 percent of all Galwegians, as locals are known), as well as its many festivals and events - some 1

Maria Victoria Lopez, sjo

 In 1919, in the immediate wake of the devastation wrought by World War I, an architect named Walter Gropius, one of the pioneering maestros of modern architecture, founded an art school that combined fine arts with crafts and eventually architecture, with a minimalist approach to design that combined all of it with contemporary technology under the maxim "form follows function". Starting in eastern Germany - first in Dessau, then in Weimar, and finally a third school

photos: ProColombia


by Miguel Martínez Rabanal

Along with cumbia, the folk music form known as vallenato is a calling card of Colombian culture, and its Vallenata Legend Festival is a particularly momentous one, marking its 52nd edition this year April 26-30 in the city of Valledupar, in Colombia's northeast, about an hour and a half flight from Bogotá and just under four hours' drive from Cartagena.

Truth to tell, Colombian culture wouldn't be the same without this music, which goes back more

 Oguz Dikbakan

In the West these days, we rarely if ever spare a thought for North Africa's largest and second-most populous country, but as this blog has reported several times, Algeria is an underrated gem, from the history and culture of capital city Algiers to ecotourism to ancient Roman ruins to amazing ecotourism. The world was much more aware of it during the middle decades of the 20th century, though, thanks to the works of Paul Bowles and French Nobel-prize-winning writer Albert Camus

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Plov-what, now? Chances are you've never heard of this city of just over 345,000 (greater metro area 675,000) in south-central Bulgaria, two hours from capital Sofia. But in the  29 years since this country's from a particularly hardline, isolationist Communist country, Europe's oldest continuously inhabited city has reinvented itself for the 21st century, the allures of its picturesque old town and ancient Roman amphitheater these days balanced by vibrant nightlife, cultural ferme

dubassy/shutterstock 


Globalization has been a sometimes controversial mixed bag in different areas and different parts of the world, but I think we can all agree that on the plus side, one of its grooviest benefits has been to bring to spread many of the exciting cultural achievements of societies much different from our own.

Nowhere is this more exciting than in the field of “world music”, a term that came into vogue beginning in the 1980s to describe music both non-Western and non-mainstrea

The Maasai (also spelled Masai) are is a unique and popular tribe due to their distinctive, long preserved culture. Despite education, civilization and western cultural influences, the Maasai people have clung to their traditional way of life, making them a symbol of Kenyan culture as well as important in that of Tanzania.

Making a fire.

Maasai's distinctive culture, dress style and strategic territory along the game parks of Kenya and Tanzania have made them one of

by Miguel Martínez Rabanal


Chile is a very special country, full of very special sights and experiences. But the Polynesian island of Rapa Nui is not only special, but dramatically unique in all the world. What makes it worth the time (a five-hour flight from Santiago), effort, and expense to make your way out to this wee chunk of rock in the middle of the southeastern Pacific Ocean –  one of the world’s most remoted inhabited islands? 

Named Isla de Pascua because it was found by Europeans (th

by Asli Pelit

The oldest neighborhood in Argentina‘s capital, San Telmo is a barrio founded in the 16th century, where history – romantic cobblestone streets, colonial buildings, cafés, churches, and its tango culture — happily coexists with today’s fashionista edge and Montmartre-like buzz. It became a bastion of the upper class in the 1800s, declined after the cholera epidemic of 1871, and has been reviving since the country’s economic crisis in 2002, luring (mostly European) investors and b

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by Nelly Huang


Croatia, a land of more than a thousand islands splattered off the beautiful Adriatic Sea coastline in the Balkans of Eastern Europe, is chock-full of intriguing history, Mediterranean cuisine and Slavic cultural heritage. And on a recent visit to its Dalmatian coast, I decided to delve deeper into its less explored side of the country, and so I ditched the crowds on the beach, left the tourist trail behind me, and headed deep into the world of music.

Journey int