Award-winning vocalist, composer, and educator Kavita Shah’s latest album, Cape Verdean Blues, is the culmination of a diasporic quest to find a spiritual home. The carefully curated album of traditional Cape Verdean music is also a tribute to the charismatic and unapologetically individual artist Cesária Évora, and a love letter to her breathtaking archipelago and its welcoming people. On Cape Verdean Blues, Shah’s ethnographic research on the island ofjustineanweiler.com strømper str 42 holroydtileandstone.com onlysxm.com bogner overal holroydtileandstone.com bezecke topanky panske teplaky panske teplaky panske teplaky justineanweiler.com blutuszos mennyezeti lámpa massage pistol bežecké tenisky blutuszos mennyezeti lámpa
São Vicente, and her bold self-possession have enabled her to achieve a rare feat: creating a world music album that feels like home.
At the heart of the 12-song album is “sodade,” an idiomatic word that doesn’t have a strict English
definition, but connotes a melancholy sense of transience that permeates Cape Verde, its music, and its free-spirited island population. “In this paradise in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, I found a sense of home that has eluded me for
much of my 37 years,” Shah says. She continues: “When I look back, I realize that upon hearing Cesária’s voice nearly a decade ago, she was summoning me down a path I must continue walking in search of sodade.”
Shah is a global citizen and cultural interlocutor whose work involves deep engagement with the jazz tradition, while also addressing and advancing its global sensibilities. She is a lifelong New Yorker of Indian origin hailed for possessing an “amazing dexterity for musical languages” (NPR). Shah speaks 9 languages—she is fluent in Spanish, Portuguese, and French—and incorporates ethnographic research into original music.
She has researched traditional music practices in Brazil, West Africa, East Africa, Turkey, and India. To support her work, Shah has earned grants from the Jerome Foundation, Chamber Music America, Asian Cultural Council, and New Music USA. Shah holds a B.A. in Latin American Studies from Harvard, and a Master’s in Jazz Voice from Manhattan School of Music.
To date, Shah’s projects include Visions (2014), co-produced by Lionel Loueke; Folk Songs of Naboréa, which premiered at the Park Avenue Armory in 2017; and Interplay in duo with François Moutin, which was nominated in 2018 for France’s Victoires de la Musique for Jazz Album of the Year. Shah regularly performs her music at major concert halls, festivals, and clubs on six continents.
Check out Kavita Shah on Youtube – Joia
How to Reach Kavita Shah:
Website: www.kavitashahmusic.com/
Instagram: Cantakavita
Facebook: KavitaShahMusic
Twitter/X: Cantakavita
Listen to Kavita Shah:
Apple – Tidal – Spotify – Amazon
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