Sacred Music of the Faithful

It was Duke Ellington who said, “You can jive with secular music, but you can’t jive with the almighty,” and it’s this knowing deference to the divine that characterizes the joyful array of sounds in the second World Festival of Sacred Music, sprawling over 16 days from Sept. 14 through Sept. 29 in venues across Los Angeles.

The first L.A.-based festival took place in 1999 in response to a call from the Dalai Lama of Tibet, who recognized that just as religious zeal has the power to divide communities through bloody fundamentalist conflict, it also has the power to unite them through mutually respected traditions of worship. Festivals are now envisioned every third year.

This year’s incarnation has expanded to the extent of asking: What is the sacred? Is it prayer to a deity beyond? Is it touching the god within? Is it tradition and ritual? Or simply pure beauty?

With more than 200 different acts at 55 events at scores of locations across the region, the festival is a fascinating experiment in touching a spiritual chord common to many Angelenos. What follows are the performances that most intrigued a panel of The Times’ music and dance writers.

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Rahat Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan: It was Rahat’s uncle, the late Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, who opened U.S. pop ears in the ‘90s to the passionate Pakistani vocal style known as qawwali, thanks largely to a series of concerts in which he offered the most compelling mix of charisma and passion of any world music figure since reggae king Bob Marley. Qawwali is the devotional music of Sufi Muslims, but its spirit, like American gospel music, is so rich with purity and conviction that it easily crosses language and other boundaries. Rahat continues the tradition with a deep passion and dedication that is gloriously liberating. (Saturday)

Robert Hilburn

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Voyage of the Black Madonna, Sacred Music of Italy with Alessandra Belloni and the Our Lady of Lourdes Choir: Singer, dancer and tambourine virtuoso Alessandra Belloni weaves together an aural tapestry referencing the cycles of life, women and nature. Backed by East L.A.’s Our Lady of Lourdes Choir, Belloni will drum as well as perform a selection of chants from Mexico, Brazil, Portugal, Spain and France, to one of the most sacred icons of the Catholic Church: the Black Madonna, said to offer both physical and spiritual healing powers. Belloni, one of the most famous and revered voices in Southern Italian music and dance today, has designed a signature series of tambourines, some of which she will utilize during an evening that begins and concludes with a candlelight procession honoring Our Lady of Guadalupe. (Sept. 20)

Lynell George

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Nels Cline/Gregg Bendian, “Interstellar Space Revisited”: Recorded just months before his death in 1967, John Coltrane’s “Interstellar Space” became the tenor saxophonist’s grand, parting glance. The Impulse! recording, a sinuous, bracing paring with drummer Ali Rashied, again challenged the definitions and borders of jazz. Screeching solos, octave leaps, Coltrane pressed the expectations of how a saxophone might sound; Rashied reinterpreted the role of percussion--a pulsing torrent of sound. A spiritual quest? A final wail? Coltrane’s piece was as grand as it was inscrutable. In 1999 guitarist Nels Cline and drummer Gregg Bendian released their interpretation of the Coltrane classic: “Interstellar Space Revisited.” While respectful of the essence of the original, Cline and Bendian build their own sonic edifice full of jutting angles and startling drops. The suite will be performed outdoors at the historic Shindler house. (Sept. 20)

Lynell George

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Mare Tranquillitatis: Performance and visual artist Hirokazu Kosaka will open a window on a multitude of traditions during his harvest celebration staged outside in downtown L.A. The event welcomes the Japanese gods of the sun and moon with bonfires and gives a nod to U.S. history (Mare Tranquillitatis, Latin for Sea of Tranquillity, refers to the crater on the moon where astronauts first set foot). The staging will incorporate references to Noh theater, and the performers will include a Zen archer, an er hu player (that’s a Chinese stringed instrument), a gagaku ensemble (playing traditional Japanese court music), and troupes of Hawaiian and Buddhist chanters. (Sept. 21)

Susan Brenneman

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The Art of Drumming: There’s something both haunting and mysterious about the freedom and fervor of sacred drumming that can be as transporting as anything you’ll hear on a stage. The lure Sept. 21 is Najite and a drum corps that connects West African and Afro-Cuban rhythms. To make it all more enticing, the Afro-Cuban dance ensemble Umbalaiye will also perform. The Sept. 22 fare, too, is enticing with master drummers and bands including Poncho Sanchez, Francis Awe and the Nigerian Talking Drum Ensemble scheduled to help lift your burdens. (Sept. 21-22)

Robert Hilburn

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The Sacred Music of Duke Ellington: Known for his lush, suit-and-black tie concert hall or nightclub arrangements, jazz composer and bandleader Duke Ellington occasionally infused his recordings with hints of his religious undergirding. (As a child growing up in Washington, D.C., he often attended two church services on Sundays: one at his mother’s Baptist church and another at his father’s AME Zion.) During the last decade of his life, after writing a liturgical work for San Francisco’s then-new Grace Cathedral, he turned further inward and began to explore the sound of his faith. The Luckman Jazz Orchestra, under the direction of flutist James Newton, will interpret Ellington’s work. (Sept. 21)

Lynell George

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L.A. Philharmonic, Mozart Requiem: Mozart’s has become the unofficial requiem of choice for remembering the victims of the Sept. 11 attacks. Verdi’s may be more theatrical, Faure’s more ethereally beautiful, but Mozart found the perfect combination of drama and understatement. Mozart doesn’t ask for tears, or even reflection. Instead, he invites us to enter into what, if the circumstances are right, can feel like a state of grace. The circumstances surely will be right, atmospherically speaking, for the performance by the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Master Chorale on Sept. 27, in the new Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels. The acoustics probably won’t be ideal; large churches can sound like caverns. But any composer who communicates as well as Mozart does across the ages shouldn’t have too much trouble getting his message across. (Sept. 27)

Mark Swed

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Cudamani: If Bali is, as it is often called, the morning of the world, then its wake-up call is the gamelan. This “orchestra” is a metal-orgy of bells, xylophones and brass gongs, all elaborately decorated and played in patterns of overlapping melodies and rhythms intended to make its audience and performers feel marvelous. Every gamelan is unique, often the individual product of a village or family (or here in the West of a university music department). Cudamani, which appears for the first time in the U.S. Sept. 28 at the intimate Wilshire Ebell Theater, is a professional company of musicians and dancers who live and work together but participate in part of a larger community. They will be something new to nearly all of us. (Sept. 28)

Mark Swed

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Whirling Dervishes of Damascus: Music is believed to possess remarkable spiritual powers in the Sufi tradition. Those powers, described as sama (listening), are associated with meditation, ecstasy and the achievement of a state of grace. One of their most impressive visual manifestations is displayed in the extraordinarily colorful, trance-producing dances of the Whirling Dervishes of Damascus. Rotating in nonstop unison, skirts flying, left hand lowered, right hand raised to symbolize the connection between heaven and Earth, their performances are mesmerizing expressions of the spiritual essence of music and dance. (Sept. 29)

Don Heckman

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Lifou Island Dance Theater: The explorers and missionaries who nearly destroyed so many native cultures across the Pacific were less thorough when they reached the far reaches of Melanesia. Which means you can still find unadulterated native rites in places like Lifou Island, New Caledonia. The country is best known for its amazing marine biodiversity, but the 16-member Lifou Island Dance Theater is reputed to be another spectacular natural resource. With costumes made from plants and makeup that evokes the animal kingdom, this intense performing company, making its U.S. debut, may well give festival-goers a glimpse of the wild untamed Pacific that existed before “discovery.” (Sept. 29)

Lewis Segal

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Tickets for individual events are sold separately, ranging from many free events to $110 for the blockbuster opening gala. Festival hotline (310) 825-0507; www.festivalofsacredmusic.org.