It should not in the least modify admiration for the virtuoso Anna Tanvir, who gloriously sings and plays traditional music from Ireland, Scotland, Madagascar, India and France creating a musical biography.

The SHOUT campaign is a great initiative...However, this should be done through chords, bass lines and rhythms that are proudly South African. We don't see Australians importing music for "Australia Day", so why do we import their music for usage in what is a SA challenge?

Aitken's jazz classes are part of American Voices' "YES Academy" or Youth Excellence on Stage. The U.S. funded non-profit offers free professional training in unique American performing arts such as hip hop and Broadway musicals. YES Academy also runs in Afghanistan, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Malaysia, Pakistan and Syria, but Aiken says they work the most with Iraq.

Cultural diplomacy underlies the exceptional works included in this year's international music festival. Performed in monumental spaces such as the national museum, the concerts, which have a strong East-West flavour, will reach out to everyone...

A small-scale but bursting-with-energy chamber ensemble, the quartet is the latest cultural exchange group visiting South Africa from America. J BROOKS SPECTOR spoke to the group after they performed for the students of Johannesburg’s National School for the Arts.

As well as a huge exercise in soft power — Eurovision is by far the biggest nonsporting live television event in the world — the competition also gives countries a chance to touch on issues of global importance in their songs, while carefully sticking to the rules, which ban specific political messages.

The American Music Abroad program is designed to communicate America’s rich contributions to the global music scene as it fosters cross-cultural communication and people-to-people connections to global audiences...It focus on younger and underserved audiences in countries with little or no access to live American performances.

The event began with a short address by US ambassador who welcomed and informed the crowd about a cultural exchange programme between musicians of both countries. Thus far, Noori, Zeb and Haniya have travelled to the US to perform, while US artists are also expected to perform in Pakistan.