WOHM Charleston 96.3FM

On this week’s Café International, we look back at the incredible career of Zimbabwe’s Oliver Mtukudzi, who passed away on January 23, 2019 at the age of 66 after being treated for a heart condition. Oliver Mtukudzi was born in 1952 in Harare, in the era of British colonial rule, when it was known as Salisbury, Rhodesia. His music played an important role in Zimbabwe’s fight for independence. In a career that spanned more than four decades, Mtukudzi recorded over 60 albums, and became a giant in the music world. As the world is currently in the grips of horrific Covid-19 pandemic, we look back at how Mtukudzi used music to confront conspiracy theories and educate the public to protect themselves during a pandemic from a prior generation, HIV.

In this special episode of Cafe International, recorded in Vourvourou, in the Halkidiki region of Greece, we are joined by virtuoso guitarist, Dimitris Mystakidis. A master of rebetiko guitar - Mystakidis grew up in Thessaloniki and is a professor of folk and traditional music at the University of Epirus, the author of two books, and numerous critically acclaimed CDs.

Here is this week's episode of Cafe International with host Dan Rosenberg, dedicated to Czech music - recorded in Prague with guest Milan Tesar of Radio Proglas, where he gives us a history of Czech folk music. We'll hear recordings by Marie Puttnerova, Helena Vedralova, Katerina Gottlichova and even some Czech Christmas music.

Here is this week's episode of Cafe International, dedicated to Czech music - recorded in Prague with guest Milan Tesar of Radio Proglas, where he gives us a history of Czech folk music. We'll hear recordings by Marie Puttnerova, Helena Vedralova, Katerina Gottlichova and even some Czech Christmas music.

Cafe International looks at one of one of the giants of Yiddish folk music, Arkady Gendler – who was considered a living Alexandrine library of Yiddish song from Ukraine and Moldova. Arkady Gendler was born in the town of Soroke in 1921 near the border of Moldova and Ukraine. During World War II, he served in the Red Army and helped liberate Ukraine from the Nazis, only to discover that most of his friends and family had been murdered during the Holocaust. After the war, He worked as a chemist in the town of Zaporizhzhia – the city with Europe’s largest Nuclear power plant. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Gendler spent his final decades teaching younger generations about the Yiddish culture in Ukraine and Moldova that was nearly destroyed during the Holocaust – and that is what we will hear about on today’s show - with guests Avia Moore (Artistic Director of KlezKanada, and assistant producer of Arkady Gendler's album "Yiddishe Lider"), Eric Stein (Artistic Director of the Ashkenaz Festival and mandolinist who performed and recorded with Gendler), Sebastian Schulman (Executive Director of the KlezKanada Festival) and Christian Dawid (clarinetist and producer of Arkady Gendler's final CD, "Yiddishe Lider").

Cafe International - We feature an interview with Julian Kytasty about the history of the bandura, Ukraine's national instrument. Kytasty shows how the instrument is played, and discusses what we can learn from songs written in prior centuries when Ukraine was attacked.

On today’s episode of Cafe International with host Dan Rosenberg, our guest is Yuriy Gurzhy, a DJ, music producer and writer who grew up in Kharkiv, Ukraine and now lives in Berlin, Germany. We’ll hear about what it was like recording his album, Foxtroty, in Kharkiv in the weeks before Russia started bombing the city – and much of Ukraine. Foxtroty is based on poetry from the Executed Renaissance - a golden age of Ukrainian poetry in the 1920s before Stalin's brutal crackdown in the following decade where many leading poets were sent to the gulag and killed.

On this week's Cafe International, our guest is Alan Tigay, from the website, World Listening Post. We'll speak about his new project: The 500 Greatest Global Songs of All Time, a remarkable list that he curated. We'll count down the top ten, which includes music from Aretha Franklin, Fela, Miriam Makeba, Juan Luis Guerra, and more!

Today’s guest on Cafe International is Mariana Sadovska. She grew up in Lviv, Ukraine, and now lives in Cologne, Germany. In this moving interview, we will hear about her role as a cultural ambassador for Ukraine amidst Russia's horrific unprovoked war. Sadovska has been traveling across Europe, performing benefit concerts to raise money for refugees while sharing the incredible diversity of her country's folk music.

“If I’m asked to describe what my family and relatives are going through in Ukraine, I actually don’t have words. It’s hell.” - Mariana Sadovska.

This week on Cafe International with Dan Rosenberg, we speak with Daniel Hamar of the group Muzsikas about what it was like performing Hungarian folk songs in Eastern Europe under communist rule when some politicians feared folk music could be subversive and lead to nationalist revolutions. And later, we’ll hear how Muzsikas traveled to Transylvania in the 1990s to research Jewish music – songs nearly lost to history after Transylvania’s Jewish community was massacred during the Holocaust. Muzsikas collaborated with elderly Romani musicians from the region who still remembered pre-war Jewish songs.

On this week’s episode of Cafe International with host Dan Rosenber, we remember the remarkable career of bassist Gary Nuñez, founder of Plena Libre, the 4-time Grammy nominated ensemble that has been at the forefront of Puerto Rico’s plena revival. Nuñez died on October 14th, 2023 after a battle with pancreatic cancer. We will revisit an interview with Gary Nuñez from 2017 in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Maria, a category 5 storm that devastated Puerto Rico. We will hear about Plena Libre’s series of free concerts that Nuñez organized to help keep the spirits up for those who lost everything due to the hurricane’s destruction.

Cafe International - On the program, we are joined by qanun virtuoso Maya Youssef. She grew up in Syria and has become one of the world’s leading performers of this 78-stringed instrument that dates back nearly 4000 years. Youssef has also shattered stereotypes, becoming one of the first women to professionally play the qanun, an instrument that has historically been played predominantly by men. Plus, we’ll get a radio workshop on how to play the qanun, and learn what it’s been like for Youssef as she’s been living in London, separated from her family amidst a horrific war and the devastating earthquakes.

On this week's episode of Cafe International, we will learn about preserving Garifuna history, culture and music from Emilio Thomas and Al Ovando – members of the Belizean group, THE GARIFUNA COLLECTIVE – and how until as recently as the 1990s, Garifuna children were discouraged from speaking their language in school. The Garifuna are descendants of escaped African slaves – in 1635, a slave ship crashed near the Caribbean Island of St Vincent. The survivors mixed with the local indigenous community – but in 1796, the British ethnically cleansed the island, deporting the population to Central America.