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Featured Artists





The Academy of Maqâm
For centuries, the elegant classical music tradition known as maqâm has captivated listeners...





Rahim Alhaj
Oud soloist and composer Rahim Alhaj has carried his (roughly) five-thousand-year-old music tradition...







Arpex
Listen to Mexican arpa grande ensemble Arpex, and you will hear a remarkable demonstration of Michoacán's Tierra...





Dewey Balfa
An impassioned ambassador for Cajun music and culture, fiddler and singer Dewey Balfa (1927-1992) was a driving force...







Luiz Bonfá
A musician of virtuosity, subtlety, and passion, guitarist Luiz Bonfá (1922-2001) ranks among the key architects...





Nati Cano
Mariachi music's popularity was beginning to grow in Mexico by the early 1930s...







Elizabeth Cotten
Elizabeth "Libba" Cotten (1895-1987), best known for her timeless song "Freight Train," built her musical legacy...





Sis Cunningham
Sis Cunningham (1909-2004) and her husband Gordon Friesen were born in rural Oklahoma, Gordon in Weatherford and...







José Gutiérrez and Los Hermanos Ochoa
Born and raised on the Costa de la Palma (Palm Coast) ranch near the town of Alvarado, an hour's...





John Jackson
Bluesman and songster John Jackson was born in the rural Blue Ridge Mountain foothill town of Woodville, Virginia, in 1924....







Ella Jenkins
"You’ll sing a song and I’ll sing a song, and we'll sing a song together." That is what Ella Jenkins has done for more than...





La India Canela
Lidia María Hernández López, "La India Canela," was born in El Limón, Villa González, a tobacco-growing area in Santiago Province...







Walter "Furry" Lewis
Walter "Furry" Lewis (1893-1981) personified the relaxed and intimate character of the early blues...





Lord Invader
Lord Invader (1914-1961) was one of the best known calypsonians of his time....







Los Camperos de Valles
Since the group's inception, Los Camperos de Valles have come to represent the best in one of Mexico's most...





Los Pleneros
de la 21

Los Pleneros de la 21 gelled as a group in 1983, when conservatory-trained percussionist...







The Paschall Brothers
Tidewater gospel quartet is a long and proud a cappella tradition, and the Paschall Brothers are among its last...





Tito Matos
Born June 15, 1968, in Villa Palmera, a neighborhood in the Santurce district of San Juan, Puerto Rico, Hector "Tito" Matos...







Ustad Mohammad Omar
Ustad Mohammad Omar (1905-1980), an Afghan rabab virtuoso, helped shape what many...





Suni Paz
In her performances and in her life, Suni Paz has deftly combined her message of cultural awareness and personal awakening...







Bernice Johnson Reagon
Bernice Johnson Reagon, singer, song leader, civil rights activist, and scholar, is a profound contributor...





Mike Seeger
For over fifty years, Mike Seeger has been a musician, documenter, and tireless advocate of the early folk and traditional musics...







Pete Seeger
Pete Seeger (b. 1919) is the dean of 20th Century folk singers. As of this writing he has been performing...





Joseph Spence
Sometimes one performer's unique style is so compelling that it influences an entire generation of artists...







Lucy Stewart
Through her classic recordings, Lucy Stewart of Fetterangus, Aberdeenshire (1901-82), became...





Ana Veydó
The plains region is home to one of Colombia's most prominent and engaging musical traditions...



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Full Text Only Catalog

Smithsonian Global Sound

www.smithsonianglobalsound.org

"The ethnographic answer to iTunes" -- New York Times

Smithsonian Global Sound is an unparalleled experience of world music. Download music and sound from acclaimed international archives such as Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, the International Library of African Music, the Archives & Research Centre for Ethnomusicology in India, and Central Asian recordings from the Aga Khan Trust for Culture.

Many tracks at www.smithsonianglobalsound.org are rare, newly preserved recordings that are now extensively cataloged and easily accessible around the world. Royalties support artists and archives, honoring and establishing intellectual property rights. By distributing these exciting sounds, Smithsonian Global Sound increases interest in traditional world music and promotes the appreciation of cultural diversity around the world.

Smithsonian Global Sound increases interest in traditional world music and promotes the appreciation of cultural diversity around the world. Royalties support artists and archives, honoring and establishing intellectual property rights. Many tracks are rare, newly preserved recordings that are now extensively cataloged and easily accessible. By distributing these exciting sounds around the world, Smithsonian Global Sound aims to inspire future generations of musicians to continue to promote their cultural heritage.

The Smithsonian Global Sound Experience

Browse, sample, and download thousands of beautiful and culturally significant tracks of music and sound. Don't know where to start? Listen to Radio Global Sound, watch video on Global Sound Live, read fascinating and in depth Artist Profiles, or discover exciting new music through our Musical Journeys from world music celebrities.

Downloads are available in versatile MP3 format or CD quality FLAC files. Our open files allow access through any computer or any portable media player. Smithsonian Global Sound is unique in that it offers a rich store of free material to accompany the audio, including original Folkways liner notes and new contextual information created by archival collaborators.

"Smithsonian Global Sound - the most exciting online music happening in quite some time." -- Salon.com

Enhancing Education via music in the Classroom

Smithsonian Global Sound is an invaluable tool for ethnomusicology, social sciences, and language arts educators. This virtual music library of the future gives teachers, students, and scholars instant access to original recordings and extensive documentation from diverse cultures all over globe. Many libraries from Harvard University to the University of Wisconsin to the Denver Public Library have already enhanced their collections with a subscription from Smithsonian Global Sound.

"The Smithsonian Global Sound site is a fabulous resource of authentic music, and I am looking forward to sharing it with my students." � DeKalb, Illinois
Middle school teacher

Supporting Musicians and Archives of Traditional Music

Royalties earned from the sale of music on the site go to the artists, their communities, the archives that preserve their recordings, and further development of Smithsonian Global Sound. These groundbreaking practices give musicians and artists a chance to maintain their cultures and profit from their work while forging new bonds between local sound archives and the communities whose music they preserve.

If you are an archive or collection interested in joining with Smithsonian Global Sound, please contact smithsonianglobalsound@si.edu.

"When we saw the blossoming of the Internet, we thought, what if we could use this as a device for opening up the archives? People who are not usually heard can project their voices around the planet." - Richard Kurin, Director of the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage