ARS-Paris musicians Shola Adisa-Farrar, Josiah Woodson, Jerry Thompson and and Tilo Bertholo charmed, enchanted, and captivated a sophisticated Ouagalais audience Friday night, July 2, at the French Institute’s open air K-Café.  Offering their listeners a dozen musical gems that softly blended jazz, soul, rhythm and blues, the Shola Quartet provided their audience a superb, too short, and not-to-be-forgotten-soon performance. The song that won the audience’s heart was a group sing-along of Bob Marley’s “Don’t Worry,” with Shola and a handful of Burkinabe artists joining voices to let us all know that ‘everything will be alright.”  Thanks to global social media platforms, satellite TV, FM radio and pirated CDs/cassettes, Bukinabes are familiar with American music, dance styles, and pop stars.  But that’s knowledge via virtual, electronic and plastic means – not quite the real thing.  Shola and her three fellow ARS-Paris performers provided that, another reminder – if needed—that the best people-to-people diplomacy programs are done in person.

By U.S. Embassy in Burkina Faso | 2 July, 2015 | Topics: Events