“Ambassadors of their own cultural music” is how composer/trumpeter
Samantha Boshnack
describes the diverse musicians she’s spotlighting on the next concert of her 14-piece new-music/improv ensemble,
B’shnorkestra. She’s written works for Thione Diop (West African talking drum), Christos Govetas (Greek clarinet), Srivani Jade (North Indian vocals), Julio Jauregui (Latin American piano), and Thomas Marriott (American jazz trumpet)—musicians with roots in five continents and traditions outside Western classical music. In her new pieces, Boshnack made a point of including “orchestral landscapes for each individually virtuosic soloist to showcase their particular style of improvisation, aural tradition, rhythm/groove, and ornamentation,” she says; “I collaborated with the soloists to find a musical middle ground.” She titled her project “Global Concertos.” I love that she appropriated the name of classical music’s most hidebound, ponderously stuffy genre for her progressive, cross-cultural project. Langston Hughes Performing Arts Institute, 104 17th Ave. S., bshnorkestra.com. Suggested donation $5–$15. 8 p.m. Sat., May 9. (Open dress rehearsal with Q&A, 8 p.m. Fri., May 8.)