This album offers an upbeat collection of tracks that pulse with the rhythms of cultures around the globe. One element that distinguishes 'Ethnicity' from previous albums is the extensive use of human voices not only solo arias and group chants but bona fide text.

Multicultural Resource of Songs and Ensembles-Pack your bags for an exciting musical journey of ethnic rhythms instruments and cultural heritage from around the world. Learn about the origins of Second Line Drumming Reggae Salsa Conga Samba and more what instrumentsare used and how to play them. Then experience the sound by forming your own ensemble and play the rhythm along with a song from that particular part of the world! Each ethnic rhythm is presented in a beginning format of 2-3parts for younger students and an advanced format of 4-6 parts for older students. Our eastern trek around the world begins in the United States and continues on to Central and South America before crossing the Atlantic Oceanwith stops in Ireland Africa the Middle East and Far East and ending on the island of Tahiti in the south Pacific. The all-in-one Book/CD format features reproducible songsheets with lyric translations informative studentarticles and exceptional lesson plans based on the National Standards complete with lyric pronunciations assessment and extension activities and a CD recording for each song with vocals and accompaniment-only tracks. Andthere's more! An instructional DVD is also available (separately or in a kit) with visual instruction on how to play the different instruments in each ethnic rhythm as demonstrated by a percussion expert. We've got a lot of milesto cover so let's get started! For Gr. 4-8.

Niels Marthinsen's Symphony No. 2 - Snapshot Symphony (2009). 1st movement Fiesta Mexicana: fortissimo accelerando (ca. 6 minutes) 2nd movement Arabian Nights: adagio intensivo e furioso (ca. 11 minutes) 3rd movement Great Fireworks in China: giocoso esplosivo e marcatissimo (ca. 8 minutes)   Programme note I’ve never been to Mexico and Arabia or to China. But I love the way those countries sound in Hollywood movies and inpop culture generally: When Clint Eastwood rides south of the border when Disney’s Alladin or Mulan takes me far east when arabic pop music roars past me out of the open windows of a car... and bull fighter music and the sound of acrobatic beat-em-up’s in John Woo’s Hong Kong karate movies – and so on: powerful images splashed all over my eye balls and ear drums. My recollections of this ethnic-pop-film-music has turned itself into a symphony. And I don’t even have to just remember what I have heard: A few internet clicks gives me access to incredible sound libraries containing live-and-kicking ethnic music from my three favorite countries just waiting to be put together in new combinations and energize my personal imagery.  The symphony is like a huge slide show – musical snapshots from my travels in the western pop culture versions of three exotic locations: Mexico Arabia and China – original and popular melodies welded together by my personal musical language and associations. I use all the effects of modern pling-plong-music plus a few of my own inventions to create a spectacular contemporary orchestral sound sporting a bee hive of melodies from either East or West played simultaneously in different keys and differents tempos at once while kept firmly in place by