Explore every episode of the podcast Cafe International

A live session with JUNO winning musician, Wesli, where we learn about the history of Haitian music and his collaboration in West Africa with Mory Kante.

On this week's edition of Cafe International, we feature a live session with Di Zhang performing on the yanqin. We also speak with Amirali Alibhai is the Head of Performing Arts at the Aga Khan Museum in Toronto.

Kobo Town joins us live in studio for a performance and interview about the history of calypso music.

Founded and fronted by émigré Trinidadian songwriter Drew Gonsalves, Kobo Town is named after the historic neighborhood in Port-of-Spain where calypso was born amid the boastful, humorous and militant chants of roaming stick-fighters. Situated near the fishermen's wharf, the area was a site of constant defiance and conflict, a place where sticks and stones, songs and verses clashed with the bayonets and batons of colonial rule. Gonsalves grew up in a middle class neighborhood in Diego Martin, a town just outside of Trinidad’s biggest city, Port of Spain.

With host Dan Rosenberg

On this week's episode of Cafe International: A samba workshop and interview with Grammy nominated guitarist Alfredo Del Penho - recorded live in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

With host Dan Rosenberg

A visit to the Forde Festival in Norway. We speak with this remarkable festival's director, Solvie Lien. It's held every summer in the Norwegian fjords, and features artists from across Norway, and around the world. We'll hear music on the show from Trio da Kali (Mali), Mahsa Vadat (Iran), Norwegian artists Kajsa Balto, Marja Morensson and Hekate.

With host Dan Rosenberg

In this week's episode of Cafe International, we visit the home of composer Subhira Rodrigo Cepeda in Santaigo, Chile. He's a pianist, human rights advocate, professor, radio host and director of the Mundovivo music festival. We will learn about all of this - and more

With host Dan Rosenberg

A special live session recorded at Met Radio in Toronto with the Ecuadoran ensemble, Chuskupura - who were in town as part of the 2025 International Indigenous Music Summit

Sara Curruchich joins us for a special live session recorded at Met Radio Studios in Toronto to talk about her album Mujer Indigena, the International Indigenous Music Summit, and - a special treat - she performs live on the show.

With host Dan Rosenberg

A special episode of Cafe International with legendary Malian guitarist, Samba Toure and his band performing live in studio: with Souleymane Kane on calabash and Djime Sissoko on ngoni (and talking drum).

With host Dan Rosenberg

On this week's episode of Cafe International, we revisit an interview with Leonard Nimoy from 1997 about how growing up Jewish shaped his famous Spock character on Star Trek

With host Dan Rosenberg

A visit to the Ethnoport Music Festival in Poznan, Poland. We'll speak with Artistic Director Bozena Szota about the history of Poznan, and hear music from some of the artists performing at Ethnoport this year, including Tęgie Chłopy, Abaim, BCUC and Trio Mandili.

With host Dan Rosenberg

An interview with Eve Sicular about music from the golden age of Yiddish cinema plus Chanukah music and more

With host Dan Rosenberg

This week on Cafe International, a live session with legendary Ethio Jazz saxophonist Girma Woldemichael.

One of Ethiopia's most esteemed saxophonists, and a mainstay of the golden age of Ethio-Jazz, Girma Woldemichael's life story is one of musical triumph over adversity. Born in Ethiopia into circumstances of extreme poverty, with his parents unable to afford to raise him, he was handed over to an orphanage/school in Addis Ababa. It was there that at age 13 he was given his first pair of shoes, and shortly thereafter handed his first musical instrument, a clarinet, told to learn it, and aim to make a living by playing music. Within a year, Girma was playing in the municipal marching band of Addis Ababa.

Shortly afterwards, having learned how to play the saxophone and flute, he found work playing with Wabe Shebelle Band in the clubs of the city that were then filled with lovers of the new genre of Ethio-Jazz, a unique blend of the unusual pentatonic scale of Ethiopian music with jazz, funk, soul and Latin rhythms. Ethio-Jazz was later popularized in the west by Mulatu Astatke, who, along with Girma and others, formed the famed Ethio Stars band. From that point on, Girma was the choice saxophone player called on to perform with all of Ethiopia's biggest orchestras and vocalists, including such stars as Aster Aweke, Mahmoud Ahmed, Alemayehu Eshete and Tilahun Gessesse.

In 1974, a new political regime, the Derg, rose to power in Ethiopia, and Addis Ababa's buzzing musical scene and liberal social life were squashed. Because it was considered a Western import, much of Ethiopia's popular music was censored, and musical creation and practice and the performance of any music unrelated to the revolution was forbidden, resulting in many musicians either leaving their profession or leaving the country.

During this dangerous period, often referred to as the Red Terror (Qey Shibir), the repressive military junta carried out a political repression campaign to eliminate political opponents, with tens of thousands imprisoned and executed without trial. In conflict with the government, Girma never knew if or when he might be next. For 15 years he tried, without success, to get a visa to leave, until 1991 when he was finally allowed to go to the United States with the Ethio Stars band. There, he and four of his bandmates defected and Girma was able to come to Toronto and restart his life.

Featuring: Girma Woldemichael: Saxophone

Daniel Barnes: Cajon

Kobi Haas: Bass

Stephen Cole: Guitar

with host Dan Rosenberg

This week on Cafe International, we feature an interview with producer Lucas Silva from Bogotá, Colombia about Nigerian highlife music and how it has influenced Champeta music in Colombia

On today’s show, we’ll learn about the ancient Persian instrument, the santur – a 72 stringed dulcimer that dates back to 500 BCE with one of its leading masters – Amir Amiri

His latest CD is called Ajdad – Ancestors, Echoes of Persia. One of the themes the album explores is the connection between Persian and Arabic culture.

Those connections between Persian and Arabic culture were severed in Iran in the 1980s because of the Iraq-Iran war.

This week on Cafe International: our guests are Fran & Flora. They’re a magnificent award-winning string duo (cello & violin) from England, dedicated to klezmer and East European folk music. We’ll hear about their new CD, “Precious Collection” and their trip to Romania to research music for the album.

With host Dan Rosenberg

On this week's program, an interview with Marousia Bouvery, from the group Abaim. They are from the island of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean. On the show, we will learn about how Abaim is using music to fight to preserve the endangered Bhojpuri language, and their work to raise awareness about climate change.

Recorded at the Ethnoport Music Festival in Poznan, Poland

With host Dan Rosenberg

On this week’s Café International, we look back at the incredible career of Zimbabwe’s Oliver Mtukudzi, who passed away on January 23, 2019 at the age of 66 after being treated for a heart condition. Oliver Mtukudzi was born in 1952 in Harare, in the era of British colonial rule, when it was known as Salisbury, Rhodesia. His music played an important role in Zimbabwe’s fight for independence. In a career that spanned more than four decades, Mtukudzi recorded over 60 albums, and became a giant in the music world. On the program, we look back at how Mtukudzi used music to confront conspiracy theories and educate the public to protect themselves during a pandemic from a prior generation, HIV.

On this week's episode of Cafe International, recorded in Bern, Switzerland, our guest is award winning singer and yodeler, Christine Lauterburg. In 1994, she became the first woman to win the Bäredräckpris from the City of Bern.

With host Dan Rosenberg

On today’s show, we visit Neuchatel Switzerland, a beautiful lakeside town – that in the middle of every August, is transformed by a remarkable buskers festival. But there aren’t jugglers or acrobats on unicycles, Instead, its pedestrian zone in the centre of the city becomes a huge global music festival – and on our show, we’ll hear music from Georgia, Sardinia, Syria, and Brazil. Our guests include founder of the Neuchatel Buskers Festival Georges Grillon plus members of the Lusophone group Ayom, the Sardinian polyphonic quartet Andhira and more!

On our program this week, our guest is Noam Vazana – or as she’s better known, Nani. She’s one of the very few artists in the world composing new songs in the nearly dead Ladino language – this is the language originally spoken by Sephardic Jews in Spain and Portugal before the time of the Spanish Inquisition in 1492 – and today, it’s spoken rarely, except for some communities in the Sephardic diaspora. Nani’s grandmother was one of those speakers, but Nani’s father prohibited them from speaking the language during Nani’s childhood.

We’ll hear music from Nani’s new album "Ke Haber" ("What's New"), featuring new music – often about contemporary subjects in Ladino – the language she was banned from speaking as a child. Later in the show, we’ll hear how Nani discovered an ancient poem that describes the transformation of a transgender teenage girl who came out to her parents, and wanted to be recognized as a boy. Nani found the poem when she was looking for material in an old library within a synagogue in Leiden, in the Netherlands.

With host Dan Rosenberg

On today's program, we speak with Marko Halaneyvich and Iryna Gorban of the Ukrainian group DakhaBrakha. After Russia’s full scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, DakhaBrakha has performed over 200 concerts around the world in the past 500 days, including six concerts in Ukraine as its cities were being bombed.

We recorded this interview at the Sunfest in London, Ontario – much more than a typical summer arts festival, its mission includes presenting music that is threatened.

With host Dan Rosenberg

Our guest this week is Alfredo Caxaj, founder of the Sunfest in London, Ontario. We’ll learn how Afredo Caxaj came to Canada in 1985 as a refugee from Guatemala, and founded the Sunfest, Canada’s largest free world music festival. We’ll also hear music from some of the performers at the 2023 Sunfest, including Bejuco from Colombia, The Garifuna Collective from Belize, Sara Curruchich from Guatemala, DakhaBrakha from Ukraine, Jupiter and Okwess from the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Frander from Sweden.

With host Dan Rosenberg

A special live session with The Garifuna Collective recorded at Met Radio in Toronto. The Garifuna Collective has performed in over 30 countries in 5 continents and have been part of the most celebrated Garifuna albums of all time, including the critically acclaimed Wátina, recipient of the Womex and BBC World Music Award and voted by Amazon as the Number One World Music Album of All Time. 

The group has maintained its strength despite incredible adversity but the history of the Garifuna people is one of struggle. The Collective take their place in a long line of ancestors, maintaining and growing the Garifuna cultural identity, in a conversation between generations and traditions.

An interview and samba guitar workshop with Roge: He was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and now lives in Los Angeles. We'll hear music from his new album Curyman, learn how to play samba on guitar - and how he created "Samba Funk."

with host Dan Rosenberg

On this week's episode of Cafe International, we will learn about preserving Garifuna history, culture and music from Emilio Thomas and Al Ovando – members of the Belizean group, The Garifuna Collective, and how until as recently as the 1990s, Garifuna children were discouraged from speaking their language in school.

The Garifuna are descendants of escaped African slaves – in 1635, a slave ship crashed near the Caribbean Island of St Vincent. The survivors mixed with the local indigenous community – but in 1796, the British ethnically cleansed the island, deporting the population to Central America.

With host Dan Rosenberg

An interview with qanun virtuoso Maya Youssef. She grew up in Syria and has become one of the world’s leading performers of this 78-stringed instrument. On the program, a special radio workshop on how to play the qanun. We will also learn what it has been like for Youssef living in London, England, separated from her family amidst a horrific war and the devastating recent earthquakes.

Host Dan Rosenberg interviews singer Lena Chamamyan about creating music in exile. She was born in Damascus, with Syrian and Armenian heritage. When Chamamyan arrived in Paris in 2011 after civil war broke out in Syria, she was already a star, having performed in many of the world’s top concert halls, her videos had millions of views on YouTube, but none of that mattered, as she, like so many Syrians, was defined by her passport.

We look at the question of what is the harm of giving a megaphone to fascists? In the wake of Donald Trump’s dinner with a neo-nazi, with twitter welcoming back white supremacists to their platform, we revisit an interview with klezmer singer and composer Daniel Kahn that we recorded just after the Unite the Right march in Charlottesville Virginia. One of his most powerful songs, originally written 90 years ago is, “Embrace the Fascists”  which deals with this very subject: the debate over free speech when that speech is calling for genocide.

With host Dan Rosenberg

On this week's show, an interview with the legendary Senegalese singer, Baaba Maal. We will hear how he began his career in West African folk music. After completing his education in Senegal in 1981, Baaba Maal travelled across West Africa with his friend, blind guitarist Mansour Seck, going village to village to learn the region’s folk music. In 2 years, they visited to more that 300 places in Mali, Senegal, Guinea, Mauritania and Ivory Coast

In the decades since, the Grammy nominated singer has used his voice to fight against female genital mutilation, worked with the United Nations Development Program to combat the spread of AIDS/HIV, served as an Oxfam global ambassador to combat the food crisis in the Sahel region of West Africa and is now a UN Ambassador to combat desertification. 

On this week’s Cafe International: “Snorkeling in Belize!”

We revisit a very fun show, when I first met Ivan Duran of Stonetree Records - and we went swimming with the sharks and talked about Garifuna music (they were small sharks)

We speak with Daniel Hamar of the group Muzsikás about what it was like performing Hungarian folk songs in Eastern Europe under communist rule when some politicians feared folk music could be subversive and lead to nationalist revolutions. And later, we’ll hear how Muzsikás travelled to Transylvania in the 1990s to research Jewish music – songs nearly lost to history after Transylvania’s Jewish community was massacred during the Holocaust. Muzsikás collaborated with elderly Romani musicians from the region who still remembered pre-war Jewish songs.

With host Dan Rosenberg

In this special episode of Cafe International, recorded in Vourvourou, in the Halkidiki region of Greece, we are joined by virtuoso guitarist, Dimitris Mystakidis

A master of rebetiko guitar - Dimitris Mystakidis grew up in Thessaloniki and is a professor of folk and traditional music at the University of Epirus, the author of two books, and numerous critically acclaimed CDs.

With host Dan Rosenberg

Our guest on today’s program is Jimmy Carter from the legendary gospel group, The Blind Boys of Alabama. Carter was born in 1932 in the segregated south. The group, which was founded at an Alabama school for the blind in the 1940s, has gone on to win five Grammy awards and has performed at the White House for three different presidents. But for decades, they couldn’t eat at white restaurants or stay in white-only hotels when touring. On the program, Carter discusses the Blind Boys' incredible career, the progress America has made because of the civil rights movement, as well as the important work that still needs to be done.
With host Dan Rosenberg

This week on Cafe International, we take a visit to Rome, Italy to speak with Stefano Saletti about his album, Mediterranima - a musical journey across the shores of the Mediterranean to recount the region's common soul, influences and cultural connections. With instruments such as the bouzouki, oud, saz and beating guitar, Stefano Saletti brings to life original pieces inspired by myths, ballads and popular melodies, sung in Sabir, the ancient lingua franca of the ports - featuring some of the region's top singers including Lucilla Galeazzi and Eleonora Bordonaro.

With host, Dan Rosenberg

On today’s program, we look back at the remarkable but tragically short career of Lhasa de Sela. Her groundbreaking album, La Llorona – which went on to go platinum in Canada - turns 25 this year. Her music is haunting and captivating - and as fresh as when it was recorded in 1997. We’ll feature an interview with Lhasa from just after La Llorona was released, and hear how she grew up, living on the back of a school bus, traveling across Mexico and the United States before moving to Montreal. 

Also on the program, two special guests look back on Lhasa's influential career: Philly Markowitz, former host of the CBC's radio program "Roots and Wings" and award winning singer and actress, Amanda Martinez.

With host Dan Rosenberg

An interview with professor of anthropology and music, Maria Sonevytsky from Bard College. She is the author of the award winning book, Wild Music: Sound and Sovereignty in Ukraine.

We will hear how Ukraine, a country whose culture and very existence have been under attack for centuries, has represented its diversity and musical traditions, often quite politically at the Eurovision Song Contest.

Later in the program, we will learn about music from the Indigenous Crimean Tatar minority – one that was ethnically cleansed from that peninsula in 1944 under the rule of Josef Stalin.

What can we learn from songs that describe crimes against humanity from prior times that Ukraine was invaded? On today’s show, we speak with University of Toronto professor, Anna Shternshis about her project, Yiddish Glory, resurrecting long lost songs written during World War II. She tells us how Holocaust victims and survivors used music to document Nazi atrocities with the goal that the perpetrators of those crimes will someday be punished.

Cafe International's series on Ukrainian music continues with a look at one of one of the giants of Yiddish folk music, Arkady Gendler – who was considered a living Alexandrine library of Yiddish song from Ukraine and Moldova.

Arkady Gendler was born in the town of Soroke in 1921 near the border of Moldova and Ukraine. During World War II, he served in the Red Army and helped liberate Ukraine from the Nazis, only to discover that most of his friends and family had been murdered during the Holocaust. After the war, He worked as a chemist in the town of Zaporizhzhia – the city with Europe’s largest Nuclear power plant.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Gendler spent his final decades teaching younger generations about the Yiddish culture in Ukraine and Molodova that was nearly destroyed during the Holocaust – and that is what we will hear about on today’s show  - with guests Avia Moore (Artistic Director of KlezKanada, and assistant producer of Arkady Gendler's album "Yidishe Lider"), Eric Stein (Artistic Director of the Ashkenaz Festival and mandolinist who performed and recorded with Gendler), Sebastian Schulman (Executive Director of the KlezKanada Festival) and Christian Dawid (clarinetist and producer of Arkady Gendler's final CD, "Yidishe Lider").

On this program the bandura master Julian Kytasty talks about the history of the bandura, shows how the instrument is played and discusses what we can learn from songs written in prior centuries when Ukraine was attacked. With host Dan Rosenberg

On today’s show, our guest is Yuriy Gurzhy, a DJ, music producer and writer who grew up in Kharkiv, Ukraine and now lives in Berlin, Germany. We’ll hear about what it was like recording his album, Foxtroty, in Kharkiv in the weeks before Russia started bombing the city – and much of Ukraine.  Foxtroty is based on poetry from the Executed Renaissance - a golden age of Ukrainian poetry in the 1920s before Stalin's brutal crackdown in the following decade where many leading poets were sent to the gulag and killed.

Cafe International's Series on Ukrainian music continues: This episode features Dan Rosenberg's interview with Yuri Bukovynets from the Hudaki Village Band, speaking about the lives of musicians during wartime, and how they’re helping those who are internally displaced and have lost everything due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Mariana Sadovska: “If I’m asked to describe what my family and relatives are going through in Ukraine, I actually don’t have words. It’s hell. When I get a chance to have a video conversation and I see their eyes and their faces. They’re tired.”  In this moving interview, we will hear about her role as a cultural ambassador for Ukraine amidst Russia's horrific unprovoked war, how she is performing benefit concerts and sharing with the world the incredibly diversity of her country's folk music.

A special live session with members of the Grammy-award winning group, The Klezmatics, as they stopped by Met Radio's studio in Toronto for a performance and interview during their 40th anniversary tour.

Featuring Frank London, Lisa Gutkin and Lorin Sklamberg

With host Dan Rosenberg

A special live session with the Baltic Sisters, a quartet of vocalists from Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia, featuring:

Recorded in Tampere, Finland as part of the EBU Sessions at WOMEX.

With host Daniel Rosenberg

A live session with the Taiwanese group, 3 People Music, recorded live at WOMEX (The World Music Expo) in Tampere, Finland, as part of the EBU (European Broadcasting Union) sessions.

3 People Music is a creative trio of three traditional Chinese instrument musicians – guzheng artist Kuo Jing-mu, zhongruan player Pan I-tung, and dizi/xiao performer Jen Chung, is a unique chamber music ensemble that combines expertise in classical Chinese music with contemporary perspectives.

With host Dan Rosenberg

On this episode of Cafe International, we look at the role music played in Estonia's quest for independence from the Soviet Union, and its famous "Singing Revolution".

We'll speak with Piret Norhanny of Estonian Music Week in Toronto, Ingrid Kohtla Head of PR & Communications and programme curator at Tallinn Music Week in Estonia and singer/composer Kadri Voorand from the award winning group, Estonian Voices.

With host Dan Rosenberg

A Visit to the Hillside Festival, in Guelph, Ontario

We'll speak with the festival's artistic director, Samir Baijal as well as Ecuadoran-American singer Eljuri, hear music from many of the artists performing there including Femi Kuti, Vieux Farka Toure and Maryna Krut

With host Dan Rosenberg