The World Music Institute is one of America’s leading global music producers. It produces at venues across New York City, and celebrates its 40th Anniversary in 2026.
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Global Music By the World Music Institute
World of Percussion Re-Imagined 🇺🇸 🇧🇷 🇨🇺 🇮🇳 🇯🇵 🇵🇷
Pedrito Martínez, Cyro Baptista, Kaoru Watanabe, Suphala, Sunny Jain, Glen Velez, Batalá, Adam Rudolph
Location TBD
Jun 12, Fri, 7-9pm
FREE
Son Rompe Pera 🇲🇽
Mexican marimba cumbia punk
Brooklyn Bowl, Williamsburg
May 8, Fri, 8pm
$25+
MARCH 2026
Spanish Flamenco Festival
Three generations of flamenco guitarists: Gerardo Núñez, Antonio Rey, and Álvaro Martinete, perform A Tribute to Sabicas (Agustín Castellón Campos), whose 1959 recital at The Town Hall, transformed the flamenco guitar from dance accompaniment to the star of the show. Dancer Olga Pericet channels the legendary Carmen Amaya who was Sabica’s long-time artistic partner. World Music Institute is producing the tribute on the same historic stage at The Town Hall in Midtown, Manhattan; on Saturday, March 14, 2026 at 8pm. From $35. 🇪🇸
That solo guitar concert changed the way flamenco is perceived and performed around the world. Nobody did that before. New York City’s theatrical focus and anything-is-possible attitude were the catalysts for moving flamenco from home and bars onto the world’s greatest stages.
Unleashing the guitar also eventually led to wonderful fusions like flamenco rock, flamenco jazz, flamenco house, and urban flamenco that have made flamenco more popular than ever.
South African Zulu Chorus
Ladysmith Black Mambazo “Hope Tour” 🇿🇦
South African male Zulu chorus
Symphony Space, Upper West Side
Fri, Mar 27, 8pm (doors 7:30pm)
$45+
This group has a beautiful backstory that is rooted in Zulu traditions and life in South Africa’s labor camps and mines, illuminated by the struggle against apartheid.
OCTOBER 2025
World Music Benefit
World Music Institute’s 40th Anniversary Celebration honors Robert & Helene Browning, Tom & Kamala Buckner, David & Daisy Paradis, the late Tino Puri & Rajika Puri, plus honorary board members Javier Limón and Farah Siraj. Performances include Yacouba Sissoko and Arun Ramamurthy, Mehrnam Rastegari with Camila Celin and Roshni Samlal, and DJ Nickodemus. It’s at 150W17TH in Chelsea, Manhattan; on Thursday, October 16, 2025 at 6:30pm. $178. 🇮🇳 🇮🇷 🇲🇱 🗽
Indigenous Jazz Film Score
Mali Obamsawin, the Indigenous jazz bassist and composer (Odanak First Nation), plays her score of the “Sugarcane” documentary about the long-term abuse and disappearance of Indigenous children at St. Joseph’s Mission, a notorious Catholic school (1886-1957) near the Sugarcane Reservation of Williams Lake in British Columbia, Canada. The screening is at Roulette, the experimental theater in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn; on Thursday, October 30, 2025 at 8pm. 🇺🇸 🇨🇦
PAST FEATURED ARTISTS
* Sponsored
World Music Institute Tickets
Members get ticket discount. Become a member at worldmusicinstitute.org
World Music Institute presents at venues across NYC. Tickets may be available from both WMI and presenters. If one sells out, check the other.
Kíko ~ Looking back over the years, some World Music Institute artists provided the soundtrack for my life in ways I never expected at the time. Go to these concerts. This may happen to you too.